Each day we eat, we laugh, we work, we sleep.   Each of us has a different story about how we arrived here, but all of us share the same the goal – the children.  It is that common goal that unites us.

Right now I feel like I have writers block.  I want to share my feelings, my experiences but there are so many different feelings and experiences that I don’t know where to begin or end.  I feel sadness because I wish all the children had loving families, I feel sadness for the families that had to give up their child.   I feel happiness because I see so many loving people wanting to care for the children.   I feel overwhelmed every time I step onto the bus because of the organized chaos on the roads, I feel tired after a long day’s work.  I feel a certain peace inside because I see tiny miracles happen each day thanks to Half the Sky Foundation. The one thing I haven’t felt is hungry thanks to Rachel Xing, Half the Sky’s Program Operations director, who makes sure we’re all well fed! –Gloria Kowalski

Today I painted some of the walls in the rooms. I was glad I wore clothes I didn’t mind getting dirty because I got just as much paint on them as I did the walls! Even so, it was quite fun.  I am really enjoying the build and I have made some good friends with other people in the group. Although I have been having fun and making friends, I always feel sad when I see all the children in the orphanage because they don’t have any mothers and fathers. It makes me feel extremely fortunate that I was adopted into a very loving family.  I hope that someday all the children will have someone to love and take good care of them.  –Lea Kowalski, 10

Last June, I decided to grow my hair out. With exactly half of my college years already accounted for, I figured that time was running out before I could “experiment” with new looks without any consequences. This was a great idea until two days ago when a few stubborn strands of my hair decided to plant themselves on the surface of the table I was covering with enamel paint – bright pink paint, to be exact. Since then, after repeated attempts in the shower to wash out my new, unintended highlights, I’ve moved on from painting tables with enamel paint to painting walls with latex paint, which washes out with water.

Today, we finished adding second coats of paint in three of the Half the Sky rooms inside the orphanage, and while I was working on the third floor, something out the window caught my eye. I peered down to the courtyard, and, for the first time since we started working, I saw kids actually playing on the playground outside.

There were three kids in wheelchairs and twelve others sitting on benches, playing tag, going down the slides and swinging. The playground itself is new: the ground is covered with interlocking, red and yellow squares of firm but foamy material. The plastic structures match the exterior colors of the orphanage – bright red, blue, yellow and orange – and, among other things, there are three castle-like turrets, three lime green palm trees, a rope bridge and a mini merry-go-round.

These kids live in a surreal situation: they call home a colorful, modern, three-story building that has a playground with castle turrets and palm trees and that guarantees them three meals a day, while a few hundred feet from the institution, you can see slum-like shacks that other people presumably live in.

But that’s not the entire story. So far, institutions have focused on providing the simple, basic things: letting kids play outside, or making sure they eat well and stay clean and healthy. For the basics, you need lots and lots of caregivers – people who are committed to doing the nitty-gritty work required to take care of over a hundred fifty children. That’s what the institution staff has been trained at and is superb at, but Half the Sky comes into play to supplement the care and provide nurturing, educational and mentoring programs to round out what the orphanages can do by only focusing on the basics of care.

As I watched the kids play with one another, the song on the iPod we were listening to while painting switched to “Midnight Train to Georgia,” a classic Gladys Knight and the Pips tune that I hadn’t heard in a long time. I caught a few of the lyrics – “going back to a simpler place in time” – which for me at least captured the moment I had witnessed outside. There’s nothing new fangled or high-tech about what Half the Sky or any of the institutions are doing; it’s a simple attempt to go back to the basics, and understand what it takes to love and nurture a child who hasn’t had that experience before. –Patrick Lee

“Many hands make light work”…isn’t that how the saying goes?   We had a productive today….we sanded and put a second coat of paint on the 52 tables; finished taping off the 9 Half the Sky rooms; started painting the walls lavender, light blue, light green and yellow; and assembled the majority of the toys donated by Radio Flyer (small bicycles with training wheels, wagons, walkers, tike bikes, and rocking horses).

I’ll never be able to walk through Toys R Us again without thinking of Carol’s touching story about Paul Pasin of Radio Flyer, who started donating the bikes, wagons, etc. because he was so moved by Half the Sky’s build in Guangzhou, and without thinking of the seven of us working in the lobby of the orphanage, in what felt like a huge Christmas Eve factory.

In between the painting and assembling, we went outside to the playground area with the older kids (ages 8-18) for a treasure hunt, which had all the excitement of a huge Easter Egg Hunt back home.  Most of the kids had special needs, and many were in wheelchairs.  They had just constructed treasure boxes and treasure bags with their new Mentors, using glue, pom-poms, and other craft materials (a project my girls would have loved to help with!).  There were SO many kids smiling and laughing.  One came up and wanted to shake each of our hands, and proudly opened his shoe box to show us all of the treasures he had collected.  I think I will remember his smile forever.

In the midst of our painting, I walked by one room where the children were eating around a little table. They were probably about 2 years old, and they all had little bowls of beef and rice—the same as we had had for lunch that day—and sippy cups that looked like cute little frogs.  They were all dressed in red-checked smocks made of raincoat material, as if they were about to paint in a kindergarten class.   It was heartwarming to see.

I thought of my little Maddie, who at 13 months was still getting no solid food – just formula with rice cereal mixed in—and most likely, from the flat spot on her head, had had her bottle propped up in her crib.  The director’s words echoed strongly in my head…“A More Beautiful Tomorrow” indeed. – Kim Beagle