These dolls were decorated by the McClay family in Canada. We delivered them to children living in Bolivia.
Posts Tagged "girls"
(April 2009. Shiraz, Iran)
They spoke only Farsi but wanted to sing my husband Ed and I a song…in English. The kindergarten class, wearing their pretty pink uniforms and white hijab were enjoying a field day in Shiraz, Iran when their teachers overheard us talking. They asked us where we were from. “America” we said. “America?! Welcome to Iran!” Then they asked if the girls could sing for us. Who doesn’t love Barney and his tolerance promoting song…I love you…you love me… so we said yes.
When the singing was over I asked the teacher if it was ok to present the class with a gift, a token of love from the U.S.A., a couple of little ambassadors for peace, two of our dolls. (Ok, I didn’t say all that but I would have if I’d thought of it sooner!) The grins and wide eyes said it all. They immediately stroked the doll’s hair, ohhhhed and ahhhhed and fell in love with the dolls.
And I fell in love with them.
We only had 5 days and we weren’t making any headway getting into one of the large institutional orphanages. We were in a small town called Prejmer and Tracy saw a sign for a clinic and thought it was worth a try. Luckily someone spoke English and believe it or not they just happened to know of a small home for orphans a few blocks away. A young boy guided us there on his bike and inside the gate we were surprised to find Casa Mea owned by Jan, an American. At the time there were only about 5 children, 4 of which were girls. Jan had started coming to Romania several years before with a church group and volunteering in some of the state-run orphanages. It wasn’t long before she decided to sell everything she had at home and move to Romania full-time. Through some tough times and a lot of hard work she now has a beautiful home for these children and she’s hoping to take in up to 12. The children are given a family environment in hopes that they can grow and thrive. After sharing experiences for a while with Jan we gave our beautiful rag dolls to the girls and we had some other toys for the one lone boy. They were all so excited. We have since heard from Jan that when they venture from the home the girls can’t go out without their dolls.
We didn’t bring many rag dolls to Romania to give away, but since Casa Mea was small we still had quite a few left. With the larger orphanages not an option open to us we decided to try another tack. Romania has lots of gypsies. Most are rather poor and are viewed as second class citizens. While sightseeing earlier in the week we had driven by what looked like a poor gypsy village on the outskirts of Brasov. We had no idea of how this would work, but we drove up to the edge of town and saw a women pumping water from a well. She had a little girl with her so Tracy got out and motioned her over to the trunk. She pulled out one of the dolls and the little girl’s eyes lit up. In no time other women and children came rushing out. We had no problem giving away all the dolls and toys. The first woman we met was so grateful that she led us back to her home. It was very modest. Barely more than a one room house and she had four children. She didn’t have much but she invited us in and offered us a drink. Not knowing the language we could only smile as she held her hands over her heart in a sign of thanks.
No matter how hard it seems to be somehow it almost always works out. We usually find some children who are grateful to receive a gift of love from a world away.
Rosio, 4 year old daughter of the family I stayed with in Peru. Her kindergarten class received dolls.
June of 2007 I went on a GAP Adventure trip to Peru. I had just gotten divorced and wanted to travel but was nervous about going by myself. GAP was perfect. We hiked the Inca trail 5 days and ended up at Choquequirao ruins, volunteered at a children’s center in Cusco, visited Machu Picchu and helped out in a mountain village for several days. We stayed in locals homes and I volunteered at the school.
The kindergardeners had so much fun with the dolls. The boys played “army men” with them and the girls tied them up in sweaters on their backs. Later in the day we saw a woman with a baby on her back and one of my students was walking with her and had her doll on her back. Cute!
