Orphans at the feast

Jasper Thornton discovers charity can't always begin at home
At times a place can act like a mirror, showing us our best, cheek- by-jowl with our worst. An orphanage can be one of those places, reflecting tarnished humanity, crusted with fault, yet never quite obliterating the glimpse of human kindness.
Last week, Al-Ahram Weekly and Nisf Al-Dunya visited Dar Al- Tarbiya Orphanage in Giza for Iftar. We came bearing gifts -- toys, sweets, shoes, a break from routine. We found the orphanage a true mirror of human frailty -- and strength. Within its walls is a separate world, isolated from the rest of the city. Here, in deeply trying conditions, a few people work at a vast and near impossible task, and, being human, usually fall short. But that only makes their small daily victories of patience and care, unrewarded and unthanked, all the more heroic.
Dar Al-Tarbiya, next to Cairo University, waits behind tall iron gates that open on to a grassy square as large as two football pitches. All around the compound loom buildings of various heights, and in differing states of decay.
In the centre of the square were four long trestle tables neatly arranged in a rectangle. About 150 boys, aged between five and 15, were seated along two sides. They turned to gaze at us as we approached -- eager, watchful, excited -- and we joined them for a brief but pleasant Iftar.
After we had eaten, the boys lined up in order of height, like toy soldiers, and led us into their orphanage, where we spent a raucous half hour distributing shoes. The boys sat on mats in neat rows as we tried to match shoe size to foot size. But order soon broke down and a happy din reigned, as we all swarmed around the heaped boxes, orphans and journalists alike, in the hunt for shoes that fitted. Mahmoud, five, his bright blue Disney top distinctive as his stubby legs hurried him through the room, acted the tyrant, shouting at everyone to bring him another pair, dismissing each with a regal wave -- too small, too brown, yeuch.
But a sharp reminder of reality was not far away. Mahmoud is no orphan. His father, present after the Iftar, cannot afford to keep him. He hovered mournfully on the edge of things; his other sons will go giftless this year. The children, after all, are in Dar Al- Tarbiya because they have no parents, because their parents cannot keep them, or, in some cases, because they do not want them. Money is scarce; hope perhaps scarcer. Older boys look after the small children, and those adults who can give what love they have.
But among so many, it spreads very thin.
Iman, who showed us around, was caring beyond expectation. She pointed out walls, bright and colourful, where she had encouraged the children to cover cracks and failing paint with cartoons, or stencilled flowers. She spent her time tirelessly picking up children who had fallen, helping them with their gifts, tying their shoes, showing them the way. She knew all their names; they turned to her first when something was wrong. Her patience was astonishing, though with so many to handle, it was often tested. Once, she snapped, though not at a child. A few of the older teenagers meant to be helping were lounging instead, leaving the children to fend for themselves. It was a harbinger of things to come.
After we had done with the shoes we were taken to a building across from the main children's ward. Here, the walls were unfinished, skeletal iron rods still exposed. Those cobweb sots that seem to cling only to hastily painted concrete spotted the walls. The stairwell smelt of urine, heaped with old dust.
At the top of the stairs was the dormitory reserved for juvenile offenders; girls are also kept here in a separate room. Interaction was not permitted; the children lined up by the walls, eerily quiet. A Weekly journalist began to hand out gifts; he was asked to stop. We stacked the crates of fruit on the floor and left.
At this point, tempers began to wear. A disagreement about how best to treat us broke out between one of the teenage helpers, a big friendly boy of about 17, and one of the orphanage staff members.
Our presence seemed to have disrupted the earlier discipline of the Iftar. Voices rose. All of a sudden, without warning, the older man, broad and middle-aged, his face turning puce, began insulting the boy who was soon reduced to great shuddering sobs. There was a pause, and then they fell on each other while the children looked on in awe.
The visitors struggled to heave the two apart. As the building rang to their cries, others raced to get involved. The fight grew and we could hear the rage frothing in many of the men's voices. Anger forged by years of thankless struggle to bring hundreds of destitute children to some kind of future, or, more probably, just to keep them from the streets, bubbles under the surface at Dar Al-Tarbiya. I could not help noticing how tired everyone looked.
Eventually order was restored (though what may have happened afterwards, we do not know) and we returned, tattered and shaken, to the well-lit hall of the main building. There, the indefatigable Iman was handing out toys.
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