Compass Foundation

Ahhh finally I am no longer a tourest but an inwardly tormented and selfless missionary, haha well maybe not quite but this private school is filled to the brim with orphans and desperate stories has definitley changed me in many ways. Our first visit to Compass was right after a visit to a rather well funded- still filled with orphans but pumped up with hope, love and very bright futures for the children- orphanage. I was rather let down in some perverted way that Hanne's (this was the name of our first orphanage visit) was not filled with clearly visable problems for me to fix. I seemed to just stand there with a couple other visiting white people, just looking around and feeling rather invasive. So after about an hour of chatting with Hanne (a Canadian who had come down on vacation one day and then just stayed and built an orphanage) we piled back into the van and headed over to Compass Foundation and MY what a difference! Here is a place that is just crying out for the touch of an overly motivated white person. First off, the teachers haven't been payed for 3 months and are rapidly resigning. Then there's the classrooms. 300 children divided up into dilapetated and dangerous cinder block, tin roofed rooms with no electicity and and wooden trusses drooping so low that one feels the entire thing will likey fall down at any moment. They do have some beneficial parts to the roughly half an acre in size lot though. There's the garden, which hasn't recieved rain in about 5 months so... then there's the cute little rabbits... that all have fungal infections and are really more of counted on mouths to feed... ahh but the fish pond will pull through! That shallow little mud hole that has no way of filtering water in or out and has turned so thick with talapia poop and all sorts of stagnant algea growth that it has now taken on a rather ominous glowing, opaque greeness. I could go on but the conclusion is the school is about to implode, literally in some ways, upon itself. *sigh. I am sleepy and the thoughts of filthy, hopeless, little children are fogging my mind and making me rather melancholly so I think I will continue this yarn after a hopefully peacefull sleep.