When the children cry

If you think poverty is on the way out of this country, have a look at these photos and think again...









Feeling nauseous already?

These photos were taken at the orphanage in Machang that we went to for our Mini library for orphanage project. On the morning we arrived, there were nobody there since the caretaker was out running errands and the kids were at school except for one very sad-looking 8-year old boy who were left alone at the centre since he injured himself the day before. Yup, he was there alone..sitting aimlessly for hours on one outdoor bench without any adult supervision. Since nobody greeted us when we arrived, we quickly made ourselves at home and went to have a look around. We had the shock of our lives when we went into the dorm and saw the images above...quoting Iskandar 'Pengsan dua kali!'. It was beyond our comprehension how an orphanage under royal patronage ended up like this!

Anyway, we were originally suppose to set up the mini library as well as to help repainting the centre. But after seeing the state of the dorm, we decided that cleanliness and basic necessities for the kids were more important than the (false) exterior image. So, after a short discussion, a few phonecalls and a few hours of hard work, here are the results:





The state of the dorm is still far from perfect but with limited resources and time, those were the only changes we could do, for the time being at least. We were told that the kids here are the problematic ones, hence the horrendous state the centre is in right now. We were also advised not to leave the books with the kids since they would only turn them into paper rockets. Funnily, when the kids came back from school and we finally got the chance to spend some time with them, we didn't see any of those rebellious tendencies or acts at all. They were polite, responsive and showed genuine interest in the few books we brought in initially. Were the kids putting up pretence just for us? Or was it the caretakers? Only god knows...

At the end, we decided to go ahead with the mini library project anyway so it was set up straight after barbecue dinner with the kids on Sunday night. Here are some photos:







The photos were a bit dark because we were in darkness. Only 1 out of 4 lights in the main dorm was functioning. Hopefully the rest will get fixed soon.

I will put up more photos from this trip here in the next few days ya...