Taking the children to the park (15/3/2007)

We had a nice time taking the youngest children from the orphanage to the park while the older ones were at school. It was incredible seeing how excited they were, Ariel (about 4 years old) in particular talking to us none stop on the journey. We were already finding it pretty hard to understand what he was talking about when we kept hearing random words like ´singing dragon' and ´racoon´ and it finally dawned on us that he was telling us a story. The other children who came were Normando and Alberto who are about 2 and Maria who is about 1. They have to guess their ages as they are mostly abandoned children, with no birth certificate etc. We really enjoy being with them-they are so beautiful and it´s good pratise for our Spanish. It took all of our energy (all 10 of us) to watch them on the playground, there is certainly no 'health and safety´here and the kids are so adventurous (Josiah Coleman would fit right in).

In the afternoon we helped with what is called a 'bread run' which is a project in the community of people who live on a rubbish dump. We took nice warm bread and bananas and gave them out to the people who live there. They have small brick houses about the size of one room, where a family of about 6 live. We also gave out shampoo of which the people seemed really grateful. It´s a very difficult experience, and really affects you to see the people hunting through the rubbish to find valuable items which they sell. To Timothy´s delight football is popular everywhere it seems in Latin America, so we played a game with the young people before we left.