Wow, today was the whole other end of the spectrum from yesterday.  I spent the day at Fundación Vinculo de Amor (The Love Link Foundation), an aid organization set up in 1987 by a couple from Texas, Sam and Julie Hawkins.  They take in severely malnourished babies, either brought by their parents or referred by the child welfare agency, and they nurse them back to health.  Concurrently, they train the parents on care and feeding.  Then when the babies are up to healthy sizes, they return them to their families and have them return for periodic check-ins to help them form the habits to keep their kids healthy.

I got permission to take photos today, so you’ll get to see some Salvadoran cuteness this time.  But first, here of some before and after shots from their website of two of the kids they’ve helped:

Vinculo de Amor San Salvador - Enrique Before    Vinculo de Amor San Salvador - Enrique After

Vinculo de Amor San Salvador - Nelson Before     Vinculo de Amor San Salvador - Nelson After

photo credit: Vinculo de Amor

Yes, each of those pairs is of the same baby.  The little guy on top’s name is Enrique, and the guy on the bottom is Nelson.  They’ve long since grown up, but here of some of the tiny folks I played with today:

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This is Alejandro, the smallest one there today.  He weighs just about 5 lbs.  His parents have lots of kids and were struggling to feed him and his other brother José.  He’s so small that he has to stay in a quarantine room for now, but he has a great set of lungs and uses them when he needs something, and he’s getting great care.  After yesterday, it was heartwarming to see him today.  Here’s his cute older brother who’s also there, by the way:

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Always a little partial to Josés.  :)    He’s still short for his age but is already putting on weight like he’s supposed to.  And the caregivers do encourage the kids to be as independent as they can be (also different from yesterday’s experience, but they can do it here because their child-to-staff ratio is so much better), so José feeds himself his bottle of (very calorie-dense) milk.  His roommate Jairo is with him.

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This little gal is 3 years old, but I asked the nurse caring for her how many months old she was ’cause that’s how small she is.  She has cerebral palsy, so aside from feeding her, her nurse got down on the floor with her during playtime and massaged her muscles and tried to encourage her to stand and to walk.

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This next little guy was my buddy for most of the day because he was sick and was serving out his last day of quarantine, so I could only play with him in his room or outside in the garden area – not with the other kids.  I left my hand in the picture to show how small he is; he’s almost a year old.

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After lunch, he sampled some of the foliage outside as well!

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I’m glad I hit CIPI and Vinculo de Amor in the order I did.  They are both temporary care facilities for kids whose parents are struggling (or outright neglectful or abusive).  So they both have kids who will be reunified with their families and kids who won’t.  One is state run; the other is privately funded by charitable donations.  The feel is just so different.  Here’s the livng room/playroom at V.d.A.:

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Clean, bright, lots of toys (CIPI had almost none), murals on the walls… And the courtyard “jardin” area has been set up for walking the kids around.  Also note the actual grass in the grassy space!

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Sam’s and Julie’s story of how they ended up running this home is one of saying “yes” to something small but personal and then watching a total life-calling grow from it.  It started with them being handed one little baby in the off-chance they could help and has grown so much over the years that they have saved the lives of several hundred.  I met Julie today, and you can see her passion for what she does as soon as she walks into the room.  She’s also no-nonsense with parents who aren’t following the nutrition plan during their post-reunion checkups.  I got to see that today, too!  She cares about these kids, even though their average stay is only 3 months.  She still gets attached to them but then releases them back to their parents when they’re ready. 

The best part about today was that they didn’t really need me there.  I’m sure they didn’t mind the extra hands feeding and changing and playing with the babies, but they have a great system of care, and it was heartwarming to see, even if it did mean I had down-time during both nap hours.

I’m heading back to CIPI in the morning, and that’s good.  There is an actual need there.  But I appreciated today.  Always good to see a happy story.