Back to St Jude's Orphanage

Back to St Jude's Orphanage

It is Sunday and today is our group's St Jude visitation day. A car will take us all to St Jude's so we can play with some orphans who would love some adult attention and interaction. St Jude's is a rarity in that there are not many oprhans, or were not many before the war, in Acoli land. This is because the clan is responsible for the children, not just the parents. If the father dies, the mother can choose among the remaining brothers who she will marry, she has to stay within the clan and the new brother will have to assume responsbility of her and the children. So I say all that to explain that the children here are either not identified, they have no idea who the parents are so they cannot find the clan, or they know who the parents are but the clan cannot afford to take care of them finanacially, so they leave them at St Jude's and visit the children weekly or monthly. St Jude's is run by an amazing woman. The women who help her in the orphnage are local mothers who have a rotating schedule to come in and cook meals, bathe and hold the babies, and generally be around to help care for the children. There are maybe only 5 mothers, so much of the responsbility falls on the older girls there.

Today our group was going to get to go and play with the kids. Last year I had such a great time playing with the babies!

As we pull up into St Jude's I get out of the car and make a beeline for where the babies are. Within minutes I hear a commotion. I look and there is a young girl running out from behind the class blocks she is screaming and crying. She is holding her head and is obviously distraught. I see the other IC teachers running towards the back of the class block and I decide that I do not want to see whatever is causing so many children to start mourning. So I stay and hold the babies and keep them away from whatever horrific scene awaits us. About 5 minutes later I see one of the mothers holding a child about 2 years old, he doesn't look conscious and Big John, Min and Colleen are running with her to our car to run the baby to Lacor hospital.

I later found out that this baby had fallen into a hole full of sewer. The guard of the compound tried to put down a ladder to look for the baby. Big John, Min and Collen had tried to administer CPR to the baby. They got to Lacor and were unable to resscitate him. His name was Samuel and he was 2 and a half years old.

We were all devastated.