Back to work

Now it’s already three weeks that I am working again after our Christmas holidays - so certainly high time to tell you about what was going on here since we’re back.

When we had left Cotlands in December everyone was pretty much in pre-Christmas stress - many toys had to be prepared, lots of donations came in, Christmas presents had to be brought to community project children and some new babies found a new home in our Child Care Unit. So we wondered if calm would have returned in New Year and we were very excited if the babies would have changed a lot in these three weeks.

The first thing that we realized when we went to work on Monday morning was that calm indeed had returned – and it was even a lot calmer than expected because almost everyone was still on holiday. For us that meant that there wasn’t really any work to do except working in the Child Care Unit so we directly made our way to the babies. We had been a little bit scared that they might have forgotten us over Christmas but when we opened the door some excited toddlers already came running towards us hugging our legs. And like we had already feared they really had grown a lot. Two of them had learned to walk – we were a little bit sad that we had missed that – so now we have four children that are walking and running around always keeping us busy. Our oldest two-year-old child is even learning to go to the potty now – what can be quite exhausting because it doesn’t really always work yet – and they are all starting to babble away more and more. Two of the rather younger ones also learned to sit and the very small ones grew even though they are still tiny. Two babies had left Cotlands during our holidays and are now living in South African families, but in exchange we got four new babies, so that here are living eight babies that are younger than two months for the moment. As they are all still crying a lot we often feel like not having enough hands to care for all of them and it can be so exhausting because you can always be sure that as soon as you steadied one of them the next will begin to cry. One of them is even a preemie. She was born after seven months and even though she is six weeks old now she is much too tiny and I am always scared to break all of her bones when I am dressing her with the smallest baby clothes we have which are still way too small for her.

My favorite job in the CCU for the moment is playing with the toddlers. Especially those who already walk are getting more curious with every day so that we try to take them out for a walk or for playing at our playgrounds as often as possible.

Since New Year we also had to bring the babies to the hospital several times. They are all regularly going to their routine checkups, to assessments and depending on their needs also to occupational or physical therapy. All these things take place in different hospitals, so that we could already make very different experiences with South African hospitals. One of them that specialises on children living in children’s homes was very nice – we never had to wait too long, the waiting room was quite comfortable and we even got tea and coffee. The others unfortunately weren’t that nice. They were very crowded and we had to wait at uncomfortable wooden benches or sometimes even without any possibility to sit (and that’s a little bit exhausting if you are carrying a baby on your arms) for several hours. One time we even had to leave after eight hours of waiting without even being treated because they were closing and the baby only had an eye infection. After these first experiences with public hospitals in South Africa I definitely hope that I won’t get injured here in any way!

Some days we also had little baby emergencies. Luckily it never was anything really bad, but if the babies have temperature they are directly brought to hospital to be sure that it’s nothing serious. So it happened that we were called to the Child Care Unit some time in the evening and spontaneously had to work night shift until early in the morning like 4am so that the CCU would not be short-staffed during the absence of the social worker and the sick baby. And working night shift is much harder than we expected in the beginning, because you are not allowed to sleep or do anything that distracts you, you can just wait that a baby begins to cry and you can feed it or change a nappy and fight against your eyes trying to shut. When the call that they are ready and we could pick them up from hospital was coming we were always very relieved! On other days we got wake-up calls very early in the morning during the weekend having to drive a child to hospital, so sometimes it could be really exhausting because we didn’t have more than 3 hours of sleep several days in a row.

All in all it was very nice to see the babies again after such long holidays and it’s really sweet to see especially the older ones getting more and more attached to us. And we are also getting used to the work with the babies: By now sometimes we even manage to leave the Baby Unit without being dirty with porridge or pumpkin from head to toe! Also changing nappies or dressing the babies goes a lot faster than in the beginning. Nevertheless in the end of our working day we’re also always a little bit relieved  to leave the CCU because being surrounded by crying children and talking nonsense all the day can really make you crazy!

Next week we will probably get our new roster and then we will also have to do some work in the Toy Library and in the office again. For now I’ll have to catch up with some sleep but you’ll surely hear from me soon!