Chosen

Posted by Ali

I have a baby. I suspected on Monday. I was pretty sure last night. But tonight I knew that Nina has chosen me.

It's strange really, how it happens. During my first few days in Tanzania when I hung out in the CoL apartment I listened in as Shae or Ashley would ask the new volunteers if they had a favourite yet. Being an ADRA volunteer rather than a Cradle of Love one and not spending each day with the babies, I had nothing to contribute to the conversation while the other newcomers listed off names.

In those first few weeks I was reminded again and again of my time at Hogar Los Pinos Adventista, the orphanage in Guatemala City I worked for three and a half months in 2006. My first day at Los Pinos, I walked into the building, past the offices and through a door into the heart of the hogar - where the kids lived. I caught quick glances of babies and toddlers as the director escorted me down the hallway and to my room. I pushed my suitcases against the wall, looked around the small space, took a few minutes to refresh myself in the washroom, then left my room and returned to the main area where cribs lined the walls. There were several babies playing in the cribs, playpens and walkers but my eyes were drawn, as if by a magnet, to one crying baby. He sounded so pitiful I just couldn't let him lie in the crib and wail. Unknowingly I reach in and plucked out 'my' baby. Later I learned Dani's name, his story, what made him laugh - all the things that made him him. But even from that first hug, when I didn't have a clue about any of that, he was 'mine.' I loved all the babies and children at the hogar, but Dani was different. Right from the start I felt a special bond with the four month old baby boy.

My Dani-boy

My experience here at Cradle of Love has been much different. From the beginning, it seemed, certain babies and volunteers formed bonds. Happy and Pendo with Shae; Hidaya and Jackson with Ashely; James with Anika; Joshua with Danielle; Jackson, Miriam and Rahman with Kezia; Jacob with Jacqui (and probably many others that I don't see). But I'm not a CoL volunteer. I don't get to spend all day, or even half the day, with the babies and toddlers. And when I do get to hang out at the baby home, it's only in the evenings after work or during the weekends. Because I'm with the babies so inconsistently and because there are currently eight full-time volunteers and several day volunteers who are with the babies all the time, I never expected any one child to get very attached to me. But in the past couple weeks, as I've spent more time at CoL, I've noticed a few babies who pay more attention to me than others. And specifically in the last few days, one toddler in particular.

My brain first picked up on it when I was looking through pictures that Ashley posted on Facebook. On one photo caption she wrote, "My baby Nina! Nina is a triplet and is identical to her sister Anya. There is a tiny scar on Anya's left arm but I can tell the difference when they walk into a room... Anya will look at me and walk on to something more exciting but Nina will see me and waddle my way with her arms up and a precious little smile on her face :)" After reading that, I thought about the times when one of the triplets would walk over to cuddle with me. I'd ask other volunteers who it was I was holding and later learned to check for the scar. The answer was almost always the same; I had Nina.

For the past couple nights when I've come over to Cradle she has been hanging around me - leaning on my legs, following me, crying when I let other kids sit on my lap too. And then tonight while I played with some of the toddlers, Nina rounded the playroom corner. The instant she saw me her focus changed as she sped up and walked straight toward me to plop herself into my lap. All of a sudden my brain kicked into gear wondering how I'd known right away that she was Nina, not Anya. Startled, I pulled back her sleeper sleeve and examined her arm - no scar. It really was Nina I held. My eyes searched the room to find Anya. I stared at her in surprise, wondering what distinguished her from her sister I cradled on my lap. I have yet to figure out why I can tell them apart, except for the fact that one comes to me and the other doesn't. All I can say is that I didn't choose my baby, she definitely chose me.

Nina...I think
(stolen from Kezia's Facebook CoL folder)

Click here to read the triplets' history with Cradle.