Dora's village

My friend Dora works at Village Espoir, an orphanage and school for about 60 healthy children and 20 handicapped children. This week I visited her and the handicapped kids. I have to be honest - I have never really enjoyed handicapped children, probably because the majority of my interactions with them have been rather purposeless. While working for AMH, I would periodically take medical teams to Wings of Hope, St. Joseph's sister home for handicapped children. The doctors would examine some of the kids, but I, for some reason, never felt the urge or authority to jump in and get useful.



At the Village though, I'd only been inside 5 minutes before Dora was asking me for advice: "Kez, this little Jacob is always breathing badly. He needs to cough but he can't himself. What can we do to help him?" I started doing chest PT on him and then showed the nannies how to do it. Why stop with just chest PT, I thought, so I moved to his joints and started doing range of motion on his knees, elbows, ankles. I don't know much about physical therapy, but I know enough basics to help prevent contractures. I spent the morning going from one adorable child to another, doing range of motion. Jacob, Kiki, Moise, Christian...





A stiff joint does not enjoy being put through range of motion, and the children would cringe and occasionally whimper as we worked. But every time we made eye contact, their faces would break into beautiful smiles. I think I've fallen in love...