Mothers of the BCHs

It was rarely quiet in the BCHs. My first day in BCH1, all the feeding schedules of the babies happened to coincide, resulting in chaos. When the babies were quiet though, the caretakers took care to fill the silence. Each home had five caretakers at any given time, plenty for continuous chatter. Jessica, Emily, and I often laughed at the end of a day about the gossip we had overheard--more than one of them had children who were struggling in math, one of them had a son who was growing incredibly quickly, another had a son who was finally passing the 'rebellious' phase.

On the day more kids from Baoji were expected to arrive in Beijing, the condition of provinces still affected by aftershocks were brought up. As most conversations in the BCHs do, the conversation quickly turned toward children, and the number of babies orphaned because of the earthquake.

"Yesterday, a mother and a baby were discovered in the ruins," one of the caretakers said. "They thought the mother was breastfeeding the child, but it turned out she had already died hours ago."

"Is the baby still able to get milk that way?" asked another.

"No. But it is still better for the baby. The baby lived."

For the first time since I had been there, BCH1 was silent. I noticed one of the caretakers rock a baby in one arm while wiping her eyes with the other.

A few minutes later, a baby's cry finally broke the silence, and everyone was back to work.

Sometimes we joke about how the caretakers don't seem to notice babies crying as they get carried away with their own conversations. But we can only joke about it because it is evident they do care about and love the ChinaCare babies. Sometimes, I almost forget that they are orphans.

--- Erica Lin, 2008 Summer Intern