Africa 2006

Earlier I promised I would only be harassing you dear readers twice about donating to a good cause on this blog. One was with the Ecole Christ-Roi in Ouagadougou (and, ok, unplanned was the Peuple du Monde orphanage which is also a good cause) - and the other is Spes.
Spes, which is Latin for hope, stands for Soutien pour l’enfance en souffrance, and is an orphanage in Lome, the capital of Togo. It was started by a group from Iceland, so of course I needed to pay it a visit on my trip!
The orphanage is housed in a multicoloured building with various different turrets – like a fairy tale castle. Everything is in excellent condition and the 61 children all seem well cared for and happy.
The orphanage is funded predominantly by Icelanders and French, but anyone is welcome to sponsor a child. When a child is sponsored, the next person on the waiting list is given a place in the orphanage – this way, every resident always has their place paid for. There is still a waiting list, and Spes are hoping to build another orphanage in Kalime, 120 km north of Lome.
All the kids here sleep in rooms with screens on the windows and get three cooked meals a day. They wear clothes donated from abroad (one had a great Sparisjodurinn Tshirt from the Icelandic bank).
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Now is the point where I insert lots of insightful comments and little quotes from the children and the staff about life in the orphanage – little details that would really make the place come alive and would make you give to this worthy cause.
But I’m afraid I don’t have too many of those. And my future article on the orphanage will suffer from my (for lack of a better adjective) sucky journalism. For from the night before I visited Spes, and increasingly after I arrived on Saturday morning, I felt unwell … headache, aches and pains, feverish and only just about enough energy to walk (trudge is more like it). Which all led to have rather a feeling of … DÉJÀ VU (so see the next blog!)
PS: For more information, or to sponsor a child, visit www.spes.is or spesworld.free.fr