the kids may be animals, but we aren´t a zoo!

Our family here at the Hogar has grown once again! Thankfully the day after our newest girl came to the Hogar she was joined by her 2 younger sisters,(ages 6 and 8) bringing them out of harms way as well and into the shelter of the Hogar to be reunited with their older sister. As I was briefly talking to the founder of our organization telling him how I was very thankful that the 3 girls could all be brought here he talked about how it was a hard transition and hard for them to understand everything that was going on at such a young age. He also informed me of the sad news that the girls were not hugged or kissed goodbye as their parents said goodbye to them. Let me tell you though that there will definitely be no shortage of hugs or kisses given out here to these girls. Shy at first, and after excited to recieve the new clothes and bathing suits we picked out for them I can see that they´ll be just fine. However, word on the street is that the 3 sisters have quite the little attitude...so we´ll see how that pans out in the classroom!
Unfortunately at the same time as the girls were arriving to the hogar we also had our second or third tour group of the week come into the Hogar for a tour, making everything a little more overwhelming and uncomfortable. The volunteers and I have become frustrated with this new trend of tourists visiting the Hogar. I can understand that people are interested, curious, and usually come with good intentions but being a volunteer we view these tour groups completely differently. When tourists come in with their loud gringo accents and flashy cameras taking pictures of all the children, we feel like a zoo. Yes, this is what a real authentic Honduran orphanage looks like folks...oh and yes, I do speak english... don´t forget to take a picture of a real authentic volunteer as well! Of course I do put my self in the tourists shoes and understand their good intentions, but also it´s important for them to do the same. Try to imagine what the children are thinking...how you would feel if a group of people came into your home and started taking pictures of you and your things? That´s the thing I think that people forget, they forget that this is their home and by coming in and taking all kinds of pictures of them it´s just creating a greater barrier between gringo and Hondurano. Sure the children enjoy the cheap little macdonalds gifts that the tourists bring, but in reality they are just garbage that shortly ends up destroyed and all over the Hogar floors. It also spoils our children more than they already are. You wouldn´t imagine them to be spoiled in an orphange, but it is very true that they are and have everything that they need and more. We have a whole storage room filled with donated items of everything you can imagine, and the children know this. They know that there will always be an endless supply of crayons or whatever it is they may need so they haven´t learned to appreciate the value of the things they recieve. Therefore, they haven´t learned/don´t know how to take care of the things they are using becuase they know everything they need will always continue to be replaced. One of our goals now as volunteers, or at least for myself as a volunteer is to try and teach the children the value of things, appreciate the things they have and the importance of respecting the things they own. They really need to understand that many people took hard work, time and money to have these things available for them. Maybe I´m being a little to hard on the tourists, but this is just the perspective we maintain when group after group continues to come into the Hogar for their 30 minute visit to take the pictures they want and leave. I think I would feel a lot differently if they came and spent the afternoon, or a solid amount of time where they could get to know the children a little bit and then once returning home could say that these are pictures of the children we made friends with in Honduras, from an orphanage down the road and not here are some Honduran orphans, this is what the orphanage looked like. Either way however the positive side to the tourists coming is that eventually they might become donaters or life time sponsers and therefore this would be extremely beneficial to the organization because it is not the material things we need but running costs, wages, food and schooling that really need to be paid for.