At the Orphanage
All photos are copyright 2007 by Dan MacDonald or Shannon MacDonald. All Rights Reserved.
The Boys!
Seeing the boys for the first time! The orphanage staff dressed them in matching outfits. When we first came in they were in separate cribs (one was in the one immediately behind in the photo), but the staff quickly moved them into the same crib. I'm fairly sure that Vinh / Matthew is on the left, and Thanh / Nicholas is on the right. They are staring at Shannon in wonder, and their shy awe carried through our entire visit at the orphanage. They were very sweet and cuddled right into our arms. Typically they would not get to meet very many people outside of the orphanage staff, so that explains some of their wonder. As you can see, the cribs are not very inviting; a very practical stainless steel, and you can kind of see in the back crib a rough looking mat (better picture to come on the play platform). The bars however are safer (closer set) than any other crib we saw through the entire journey. The green cloth in the background is a makeshift hammock. We were told that some babies sleep in the hammock according to their preference, but given the way it is rigged off an existing crib support I'm guessing that it also has to do with crib capacity as well. The hammocks are given quite a shove to set them in motion when the children are placed in them, but it doesn't seem to bother them (and I suspect many of them require it to help them sleep).
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