A Child's Story

Morning. The rooster across the muddy road is crowing. It is already hot and steamy. Outside water from the evening storm still trickles down the unpaved streets, carrying with it the waste remains of the few neighboring houses lucky enough to have toilets. The orphanage where seven year old Samantha lives has an outhouse shared by 30 orphan children.

Today is Tuesday, the day when "fresh" clothing is given out. It really isn't fresh. No one wears the same dress twice. That's how it is in this crowded 800 square foot orphanage which 30 waifs call home. Yesterday all the clothing was put into a huge pile and scrubbed out by hand in big tubs, then put out to dry on lines stretched all over their tiny yard. A few bushes also became enwrapped with clothing of various shapes and colors giving the impression of a strange Christmas tree. Today the clothing will be passed out to the children according to approximate size and gender. Samantha has no clothing of her own. The faded worn out hand me downs are shared by all the children in common.

Inside her stomach there are hunger pains. She ignores them. She used to get two or three meals each day. Now it is only one. Contributions to the orphanage have been low this month. No matter. One meal will do. The orphanage directors tell her she is still better fed than most other children in her country.

Two months ago a family came and took two of her orphan siblings with them to a place called "America." America. Where is this mystical magical place she has often heard of? A place where children have their own beds in which to sleep? Where they have nice clothes and all the food they want and room to play in and schools. That's where Feteline and Stanley, her best friends went. At first she missed them. They played together whenever they could, though in the tiny play yard there was never much space for 30 children to play. Samantha tries, but she can not get a clear image of their faces. Memory of them is fading.

Many times before she recalls people coming from America. They always left with happy faces, sometimes taking with them some of the older chldren in the orphanage, but usually the ones much younger than Smantha. She wonders what it would be like to be in a family of her own. But no one has ever said a family from America wants to adopt her.

A small tear, unnoticed by the others slowly rolls off her cheek.

The rooster crows again. It is time to get her "fresh" dress, the one she will wear without changing for another week.