show and tell: placement through the ages

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The hubbs, baby and I recently went to Barcelona, Spain (where hubbs and I first met). While we were there we spent the afternoon catching up with an old friend of mine who I worked with while I spent a semester in Spain many years ago in graduate school. We were sitting in a plaza that we had already visited several times during our visit when she pointed out what used to be an orphanage. The sign for the orphanage was still painted above the door, but the building now houses some kind of social service organization. And she pointed this out:

This is the exterior wall of the building, which faces the plaza. It may be hard to visualize it from this picture, but that piece of wood on the wall is actually a cylinder and at one point in time would spin around. The inside of the cylinder is hollowed out and a woman could place her baby inside the cylinder and then spin it around so that the baby could be retrieved from inside the orphanage. The small slot to the left of the cylinder was for people to put "limoznas" - gifts of money for the orphanage.

As I stood in front of the wall and this cylinder I imagined the women who had come to this wall, and those who had placed their babies inside. Though I'm sure most if not all of them are long gone by now, my heart goes out to them.