martes

This has been another busy day working in several parts of El Hogar. The aches and pains of yesterday have been mainly cured thanks to our wonderful private medical staff (Louise, Carolyn and Janice) and once again we have been able to accomplish a great deal. After a filling breakfast of thin crepe-like pancakes with syrup and fresh bananas with peanut butter we got to work. 

 Tom, our Mr. Fixit, worked on several electrical problems with Ramon (a graduate in electrical technology from the Technical school) and plans are in the works to provide more lighting in the classrooms this week.  Tom has a gift for being able to fix anything and he is our Go-to guy for anything that doesn't work.
 





The main work crew continued to work on the school's Art Room. Michael and Bruce finished the walls and then were joined by Alan, Louise and Janice to start painting the floor.

  Rick started on the porch floor while Carolyn, Carrie and Terry continued painting the outside play structure.  Sometimes all that work just requires a little rest.  Ayyway, it is very hot!

After several hours of work in both the morning and the afternoon the inside painting, the playhouse and half of the porch floor was completed. Hopefully, tomorrow the floor will be varnished, the rest of the floor painted, and the outside play structure will be put back together.

 There was also a lot of work done with the children today. Lynne and Ros observed in the grade one and two classrooms in the morning and in the afternoon they withdrew students to assess them for reading readiness and reading skills.

Also in the afternoon, Carrie and Erika observed some of the new students in their classrooms to see how they are coping with their new situations.



 

Ros and Janice worked with another group of students on the painting of their individual canvases for the mosaic which they continued well into the evening. They are pleased with the progress and the fact that the students are really involved in this project.  The individual canvases will come back to Canada to b a fund raiser for an event in the fall.

 Louise and Carolyn spent another day in the clinic dispensing medicine and providing TLC for a sick little boy in grade two.   Rita is the teacher/nurse who holds clinic hours most days and so was glad to have our two nurses to help her for a few days.








 
The craft group after dinner was the girls (from grade one to grade six). They created ribbon gymnastics wands, worked with beads, coloured and some had great fun with the bubble jars. The young ones, especially, were delighted with their gymnastic ribbons and really enjoyed twirling around and around. The girls also really enjoyed making coloured pipe cleaner bracelets. 

As a finale, they danced around on the stage to create a brief video! When their time was complete, they enjoyed homemade treats made by Jane and Tom. As usual there were many warm goodnights. 

 
 Before our daily evening devotion, Ros presented a big surprise from Directora Claudia. Tomorrow the school will be celebrating Earth Day and she would like all the children to be wearing green or brown. So as we are sitting outside at the "Internet Cafe" sending this blog (as in the picture on the left), 



 


the rest of the team are at the "Bodega" (warehouse of donated items on site) to try and find 102 pieces of green or brown clothing to be worn by all the children on this special day).

 Our rallying cry this week continues "Be flexible and thou shalt not break"!   We are shown how to use our gifts and give us the awareness to notice the gifts of others that you will use to bless us.

Posted by Terry and Carrie