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Jubilant Junior

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I was hooked from the moment I first saw this precious little face peak out from under that hat oversized, faded blue hat.  His name was Junior and he was one of the most adorable little toddlers I had ever seen.  I met Junior my fourth year coming to the orphanage and was taken with his contagious laugh and continual smile– this boy was just bubbling with love.  But he was missing one thing.  At an all boy’s orphanage there are no mothers and only a handful of house mothers to love and pour affection on all sixty boys at the orphanage among all their other duties of cleaning, cooking, laundry and caring for the little ones.  It was a strenuous job, to say the least.  Think about the average American mother and her toddler.  She is always coddling him, changing him , cooing to him, snuggling and napping with him.  That is how that inseparable bond of mother and child is formed.

But Junior was missing this key aspect.  He didn’t have a mother present to hug and kiss and tell him that he was loved.  So when we came to visit Junior clung to us.  The first day, I picked him up, gave him some attention by playing peek-a-boo and from then on, he barely left my sight while I was at the orphanage.   He squirmed and whined when I tried to put him down, and was always nearby playing or trying to help while we were working.  I fell in love with that little toddler that week and gained a new appreciation for my mother.

Before that week, I never really understood how crucial it was for a young child to have a mother figure in his or her life at a young age.  The physical affection from a mother forms such an amazing bond between a child and mother and that is something sacred to be continually thankful for.

Where It All Started

When my parents first broached the idea of spending our spring break in the Dominican Republic, I was elated.  Until I found out that we would be working at an orphanage in a run down area, not too far from San Juan.  My family had previously vacationed over spring break, either on ski trips, road trips, or tropical vacations.  But this mission trip to the Dominican Republic was none of those.  Don’t get me wrong, I love helping people, but somehow I had the idea that spring break was my break and my time to enjoy myself.  I was in eighth grade and had not fully grasped the reality that some people never get that opportunity to relax and enjoy themselves because life is constant struggle of survival.

We left for the trip on a Friday night at midnight.  After driving through the night to philly, sleeping a little in the airport, catching

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an early morning flight, a connecting flight and another connecting flight, we arrived in the Dominican Republic.  The weather was balmy and there was a carefree attitude to many of the passengers who exited the flight, clad in the typical tourist garb of wide straw hats, sandals and loose shirts covered in palm trees.  I secretly wished I was one of those tourists, flitting a way to a weekend of uninterrupted

bliss.  But what lay ahead was infinitely more fulfilling and enjoyable.  We boarded a rickety bus with an animated native as our driver who insisted on the loading the many luggage pieces into the back of the bus himself.  The bus ride began and as we swerved in between cars on a highway where there were no pavement markings and clearly no rules. People passed each other whenever they choose and tooted their horn when entering an intersection to let others no they were coming.  I saw 1-2 traffic lights the entire five hour trip.  I realized that I had no idea where we were going and my life was in the hands of this overexcited bus driver and the man leading our trip… The surprises on that bus ride where nothing extraordinary compared to the 60 boys at the orphanage who were unable to sleep that night because of the anticipation of our arrival the next morning.