Bo De Pagoda

A chaotic, busy, cluttered retreat are the words that came to my mind when I went to Bo De Pagoda. There are people of all ages rangeing from babies through to the elderly that reside at the Pagoda. Some of these residents are full time helpers, however, most of the children are orphans and some of the children are with a parent who is in need of help due to being dependent on drugs.

When I first got to the Pagoda it was play time and the children were playing outside in the court yard, some were in the rooms where babies were being put to sleep and some were playing in and around the gardens, if you are picturing a scene of madness and havoc you would be spot on!

What first struck me on my arrival at the Pagoda was how cold it was (7 degrees) and how some of the children were not appropriately dressed, I was really alarmed to see one child bare foot with no socks on, the child was unphased and when I tried to bring to his attention that he should be wearing socks he seemed totally uninterested and decided to steer clear of me, it is now my mission to make sure he is not bare foot again or at least when I am around!

The children were very welcoming and unphased by a new face,I guess with the number of people that must come and go strangers don't seem so out of the ordinary to them, if at all. Getting stuck in as soon as I got there is exactly what I did, as soon as I stepped onto the courtyard I was handed a little baby to play with as he was crying, all he wanted was a little hug and secretly so did I so it was a win win for us both and within moments we were both happy enough.

During my tour of the Pagoda some of the things that I saw were quite upsetting; babies in beds unattended and crying, some in need of changing, some with very sore looking rashes on their faces, some calling out for attention and yet some looking content and happy gurgling away in their beds. There were toys, clothes, food, the rsident dogs and things just everywhere, this is not a criticism simply a description given the number of people and children there it cannot be easy to keep order of such a place.

There is however, a routine which the volunteers have put together and are trying to implement for the children in an attempt to bring some order to the Pagoda. The routine consists of teaching and helping the children to brush their teeth first thing in the morning followed by studying various basic subjects including maths and english and then washing of hands in preparation for lunch and so forth. It's a great little timetable because it is the closest that most of these children will ever get to an education and being taught basic personal hygiene skills.

During playtime most of the children wanted to play games which entailed learning by play i.e. name the animal/object/fruit etc wanting to know all the different names/words in English. One sweet little girl just wanted me to read to her, so I pulled up two little chairs at the little table but before I knew it she had disposed of one of the chairs and jumped up on my lap, it makes me smile as I think about. She kept bringing to me book after book, she can't have been much older then three but was so engrossed with the books, I can honestly say I don't think she understood a word of what I was reading to her because I was reading in English but it was more the attention she was enjoying or maybe the fact that she was having a giggle at testing my skills under pressure waiting for me to buckle when one of the books she brought over to me was a colouring book which she wanted me to read/talk through to her(!) not one to be defeated or to offend by asking her to put that book away I managed to improvise making up a story of all the coloured pictures; you learn something new everyday and it seems I am going to have to as there is no time to dawdle around these kids!