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10/3/99
What a busy week this has been so far! The weather has finally turned beautiful - sunny mild days. I think it is likely, though, that more bad weather will come through before true spring sets in. Yesterday my friend Averil came over about 3 in the afternoon and didn't leave until after midnight! We are the same age and have a good time. She's really natural and down to earth, from Cornwall. It's nice to finally be meeting some people my own age. Today I went with her and another girl over to the Maternity Hospital. They have a program there for abandoned babies. They keep up to about 12 babies a month until they are six months old, when they go to orphanages. The program is privately funded, mostly in America. Volunteers go during the week to hold the babies and talk to them, change their diapers, or whatever. I'm now signed up for two hours every Wednesday. It was very interesting. By the standards of how we would treat our babies in the West, the treatment they get is terrible. They are allowed six diapers a day and are changed at changing time, not when they're wet. The nurses don't really particularly give them much TLC - watching one nurse change a baby she was pretty rough with it. To clean them up they just hold their bottoms under the tap. Needless to say, a lot of the babies get serious diaper rash. A lot of the volunteers bring in their own supplies such as lotion and all, so that is a big help. I'll probably bring some next week. There is nothing there for them except donated clothes, blankets, bottles, and diapers. I didn't see any creams or other supplies for taking care of babies, and a lot of them had crusties all over their face where they hadn't been wiped in some time. The first little boy I held had some sort of cheesy substance all over his face. I think something was wrong with him.
Having said all that, these babies aren't so bad off for Albania. Having foreign volunteers there at least a couple of hours every day at least ensures that they get a minimum of care. They are kept warm and changed regularly, if not as often as is needed. Averil is horrified by what she sees, but I suppose I'm a little more philosophical than I used to be. Albanians are rougher with all their children, on average, although I know that these babies might as well be animals as far as most of the nurses are concerned.
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