It’s been quite an experience.  Ecuador is considered the third most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere.  Until a few years ago, it was legal to beat your wife.  The tradition that goes back centuries is that a woman had to prove that she was fertile before marriage.  If she was, the man was obligated to marry her.  What has changed in the last few decades is that the man has forgotten his obligation.  Consequently, there are thousands of orphans.

The orphanages fall into mostly two categories.  One type takes in any child who comes to their door, generally abandoned children and abused children.  Some infants were found in dumpsters and others were found on train tracks. When the police find them, they take them to an orphanage.  The State typically pays nothing for their care.

The problem with this first type of orphanage is that they live in conditions that we would call horrible.  However, it’s better than leaving them to die on the streets.  There might be 10 children sleeping in a small room. Often their beds and mattresses are decrepit, but the children are required to make their beds every day.  The floors are kept immaculate; however, since cleaning solutions are expensive and scarce, they clean the floors with gasoline which is about $1.50/ gal.  The fumes are terrible.

Their food staples are rice and potatoes.  We went to one of these these types of orphanages and found out that they were almost out of food.  Dando Amor bought them 1,500 pounds of rice and potatoes plus dozens of chickens so that they would have protein.

The other type of orphanage is quite nice.  The children are divided into casas, similar to small apartments, with one “mother” and usually about 6-8 children.  They lead a cleaner, more normal life in these relatively nice apartments.  The problem here is that some children are turned away when they reach capacity.

In all orphanages, the children are schooled, sometimes in a one-room school with a single electric bulb hanging in the middle. 

The little girl in the picture above adopted me for a morning. She was totally rambunctious and never stopped laughing.  She lives in a home run by a woman who opened her home to orphaned children.  The conditions are poor and they need help, but there is no lack of love.