crisis nursery

I went into Lilongwe on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to check out the Ministry of Hope’s Crisis Nursery. Hester (from South Africa, here for 3 weeks to teach classes at the Theological Institute) and I arrived Tuesday and got a quick tour of the facility and some explanation. There were three rooms one for the really tiny infants (6), small ones (7) and the bigger babies (7-walking and eating real foods). 20 babies there. 15 caregivers with 4 on a shift at a time as well as a nurse and a clinical officer. We stayed all morning holding and feeding the little ones. Wednesday I went back and did the same and then helped to sort some medications for the mobile clinic (but sadly didn’t get any more information on the clinic than that they use ibuprofen). Thursday when we got there the power was out…not a problem as the building is pretty well lit from windows but that meant that meals were late in coming out of the kitchen…it was by far the loudest day as the babies were quite cranky that their food was late. But we did get them all fed and down for naps before we left with our ears ringing.