Day 2 at the Orphanage

Here's a photo of Toby and his fine artwork!

So today was our second day at the orphanage. In the morning I joined Braley and Melissa in a classroom with children with much greater needs than the ones we visited yesterday. Braley and I sat at a table with a few boys who were coloring. At first the boy sitting beside me would not let me join in on the coloring fun.. so I just sat and watched. I named this little boy Toby since he resembled my nephew in almost every way (he had the sweetest smile and dimples!) I also watched as an older boy took over the box of crayons. He would pass one to each child in exchange for the last crayon that they were coloring with. He would not allow the other children to have more than one crayon! We figured out that he was a little helper to the nannies in that classroom. I don't quite remember how or when... but somehow Toby decided to allow me to color with him on his coloring page! Toby had his very own coloring technique and he was quite good at it!

                                                                                 Coloring with the boys.

                                                           This is the little boy that was in charge of the crayons!

Before we left for our lunch break, the orphanage manager took us on a tour of another building that was also part of the orphanage. We referred to this building as the "baby building" since most of the children were quite young.  In one of the classrooms there was a two year old boy in which we named "Moses." Moses had Down Syndrome. As Leslie knelt down on the floor, baby Moses army crawled over to Leslie and placed his tiny hands in Leslie's and said "Mamma." We were later told by the orphanage staff that they had never heard this baby speak before. What an amazing experience!