Tuesday, Work Day 2

The mornings are lovely here.   If we can catch the birds’ songs in the trees just outside the guest house in between traffic noise, their sound is quite different and quite beautiful.  We all had a great sleep, ready for another day.  Last evening had been an emotional one for us and it was good to have each other to share the events.  We had been to hear the devastating stories of some of the new children from Directora Claudia.  These children have come from conditions and life situations that we just can’t even imagine.  She talks of the healing that has to take place and some of the difficulty that they have in adjusting at first.  She is able to give so much love to these kids and if we see her on the grounds during the day, she usually has to stop to give one or a dozen kids a hug and a reassuring word.   Shortly after this, we had heard of the horrific bombing in Boston.  So much to digest.  There was a lot of sharing together and we ended our time with a prayer for the team that Canon Stuart had sent in his congregational email about us.  Thank you Stuart.

Life at El Hogar starts early here and by the time we headed up to the Opening exercises at 0700, there was already several lines of laundry hung.  There several ladies in the laundry who work every day to keep 104 children in clean clothes.

Before we dispersed for the day to the jobs and projects that we were doing, we got to watch a video with Claudia of the election for the new school president that had happened just this past Friday.  It was run like a national election so that the children would know what to expect when when they can vote at 18.  Complete with election campaign, ballot voting and even scrutineers.  Quite impressive.  The best part of all is that the president who is a Grade 6er, was once a child who lived and begged in the street.  El Hogar has indeed been important in shaping his life.  He is also an honour student. 

Most of us where continuing work on the large main office building with our painting which took us all day.  Chris added his own creative touch for us. 

 

Lynn conducted an Anger Management workshop for the teachers here.  This is an incredible school  with dedicated teachers and they were pleased to have input from our expert.  Ros spent a fair bit of time translating for her, though some of the teachers do have some English.  There was also some sorting of all the contents of the packed bags we brought with us.  Some of it will go out to the Technical Institute and some of it to the farm.



Jane continued with several classes of conversational English today assisted again by Erika, and Gillian had another art class with three very talented young men.  One made a comment about Gillian - "She good art teacher". 

Our Art Teacher today - ready for a little building painting before she meets with the boys. 






You need to know that our talented teachers only found out they were doing all these classes and workshops on Sunday, so they have had just short preparation times and have done so well. We certainly never know what to expect until we get here.  Meanwhile the building is almost finished with it's first coat of paint!

The evening activities were the crafts we provided for the kids to do which they love and also the skipping and basketball and Frisbees. 

 We need to thank 13 year old Josh from Cambridge who bought and sent with us so many of the soccer balls, frisbees and skipping ropes for the kid's activities.  THANK YOU Josh.

 All of the children are so very precious and love to have fun!

 The littlest guys at 6 are having a visit with Jane.

 

 The time when we can all be together is for our devotional and sharing time in the evening.  We meet in the porch part of the guest house.  What a great group we have. 

 Looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.

Just to remind you, be sure to click on the picture to get full size for viewing.