International Rotation #4: Visiting the Orphanage: Puericultorio Pérez Araníbar

Life is an interesting phenomenon. We are all born as young children and usually we do not have any myths whatsoever. The world to us is what it appears. Depending on the cultural, familial and “say what may” context, we in conjunction with our lives start building on some myths as we grow up. We live with our myths heavily guarded by them, akin to the security blanket. They keep on giving us some mental frameworks and we keep on reinforcing them, until one fine day life itself tells you that she is going to debunk one of them.

I have never had set foot in an orphanage in my life till recently. The half baked knowledge I had was partly from all the Bollywood dramas I had seen growing up & partly what I learned when I started reading the child psychiatric literature regarding orphanages and their implications on pediatric mental and emotional health. I was heavily influenced by the scientific literature from the Romanian orphanage studies. As a matter of fact we had a great discussion about the impact of institutional deprivation in our journal club yesterday. With this background I had to share this experience I had when I got a chance to visit one of the orphanages in Lima. A disclaimer must be given that I understand minimal amount of Spanish and the person(s) who gave me the tour did not know English much. So what I am about to tell here might be partially my tendency to look at the filled part of the glass.

As I was talking in my previous post how I saw this shiny yellow building on the other side of the HVLH. I finally had an opportunity to visit the Puericultorio Pérez Araníbar (PPA). This is the oldest orphanage in Lima. We had to have a few recommendations from the ministry of mental health before the visit could be finalized. An early February morning I reached PPA on another famous Iron door. The Security person with his shiny moustache asked me a few questions in Spanish at a lightning (normal for the locals I guess) speed. I tried to use my skills and after telling my nombre, and trying a few broken phrases I finally decided it would be best to hand him over the letter I had previously obtained from Dr. Tovar. Seeing the letter he gave me a smile of approval and took me into a room with real high ceilings and a lethargically moving table-fan. I introduced myself. A few phone calls were made confirming who I was and a young lady in scrubs came to receive me. This great person was Dr. Milena Mattuti. She told me that she works at an outside place other days of the week and has continued to work one day a week at PPA for many years now. This she said was her way of giving back to the society. She took me to a tour of the facilities. PPA has a portion which is heavily funded by the WHO, UNICEF and other international organizations which houses really young children, who might be having problems like failure to thrive or are too young to be transferred to the orfanato. I did not get a chance to visit that part. I got to see the residential part. PPA is divided into various dormitories based on age and gender. The whole PPA campus has a school, play grounds, gardens and a small hospital of its own. Pacific Ocean lends it a beach on one side where children play & believe it or not, the children have an orchard of their own within the campus.

We began out tour from a section that housed kids staring from a few months and younger than 1. This place was adequately staffed. The warmth I saw in the staff members was heartwarming. Also it was in contrast much more than what I have seen displayed by some biological parents on occasion as a part of my infant clinic work. The staff asked me if I wanted to hold Januasta (name not real). He just fit into my one hand. His beautiful stare, and want to be hugged. It was a moment that was longer than a lifetime. He did not say anything but just with his eyes very poignantly posed many questions for me. One of the questions I translated from his eye language to my world language was what I wanted to do for the society. The societal teachings of “men don’t cry” came screeching from “that” part of my brain. I let a smile come across my face instead of the tear that naturally wanted to come out.  Life just debunked a lot of myths within a half day. All orphanages are not the same. What you learn or think is not true, until you have yourself experienced it. But then you know what; all myths are not the same. Some myths are better than the others. Some peacock’s feathers are prettier than the others. The fellow inside me just told me that I have some notes to finish. Shall talk more about PPA and all of its sections very soon.... ( I do have some pictures but am not sure if I have the permission to use them, these are pictures from google image search)

Mas tarde

Pallav