Ayudame

He's not screaming... he's yawning, really:)
Playroom for children.

Babies awaiting the arrival of their families.



Athena and one of her caretakers.

Athena's 1st crib.

This is the infant room, Athena was here for about 2 weeks.

Today we went back for a tour of Ayudame, the orphanage that Athena lived at for the first three months of her life. Ayudame translated means "help me". All of the workers were so excited to see her. It was clear to us that the care givers really do care about the children there. Everyone wanted to hold her again and they all commented on how much she's grown since she's been with us. We have pictures of her with her caretakers, nurse and the assistant director of the orphanage. We got to see the infant room, baby rooms, toddler rooms and the dorm style rooms for the older children. Ayudame is actually almost empty at the moment. There are only 2 infants, 5 babies and one school age child at the facility at this time. They have room to accomodate 40 babies and many older children. They are expecting a group of 20 school age children next week to be transfered from a state orphanage. They have a small gift shop in the orphanage that sells hand made items as a fund raiser for Ayudame. All of the items are made by the birth mothers while they are staying in the mothers' home. We bought a hand knit scarf to give to Athena when she gets older. One of the highlights of the visit came after the tour. We were talking with the orphanage assistant director and asked her if there was anything she could tell us about Athena's first three months that we could put in her baby book. She couldn't think of anything, but she did go and get Athena's file to look through one last time for us and she found Athena's baby footprints from the hospital & gave them to us! We are so happy to have them & gain a small piece of the three months that we were not with her.

Love to all!

Nic, John & Athena