Monday, August 11, 2008

so it´s not an orphanage..

Well today was my first day volunteering. The pastor Juan Barrientos came to pick me up. My dad has known him for a long time now. He works for World reach. He is so nice and his wife is really sweet too. On the way there I asked him about the orphanage and he told me that it wasnt an orphanage it was a school..Well I sure felt like an idiot but I guess my dad was just confused when he told me the details. But really I didnt even care. I was happy to be working with children in any way. The town where the school is located is called Jose Galvez, Pachacamac. It´s about 20 minutes from Stefani´s house. It is a really poor town. The roads are all dirt and the houses look really run down. There is alot of trash and dogs everywhere. It´s really sad to see but it just makes you realize how different other parts of the world can be. It truly maks such a profound impact on my life and my way of thinking.

The school grounds are surrounded by a tall stone wall. It´s really nice inside though. There is a garden when you walk in and alot of space. I went to all the different class rooms and met everyone. This is a new school that started with 16 kids and now they have 90. They only have grades K4 through 1st grade. But each year they add another grade. The pastor and his wife had a church and they decided to start a school as well to help the poor kids from the little town get good education and have the opportunity to learn english too. The whole property consists of their house, the church, the school, offices for the directors, a playground, futbol court/field thing and they also have a prenatal clinc they just opened for unwed pregnant adolescents too. There are alot of american missionaries that work there as english teachers. They are all really nice too. One of them is leaving on Thursday to go back to the states to finish school and she teaches the K5. So that is the class I am going to help in. I went today to observe the class. Supposedly they are the least well behaved class in the whole school. But I thought they were all adorable. And I have been around bad kids alot and these kids are great! They just have alot of energy and are loud, but that´s just how latinos are most of the time! heh heh...Anyways, they were all pretty shy at first then one little girl came and gave me part of her orange, then another little girl gave me some banana chips. Then little by little they began to come around and start talking to me. They are all so cute! I just want to squeeze their little faces!!! I got there around 11:30, they would normally have recess at this time but since it´s been raining lately everything is wet outside so they just got to watch a movie in the classroom. They were watching Shrek 3 in spanish. I really enjoyed the time I was there today. After class I went to the pastors house and had lunch with him, his wife, and their daughter. His wife made this fabulous pumpkin soup. And also some garbonzo beans and rice. It was delicious!
Tomorrow morning I am going to come help again! I am excited to spend the whole day there this time.

So on another note my tio Ismael was supposed to have surgery this morning. Well they did some tests and apparently the cancerous tumors he has have gotten alot bigger and the doctor says they can´t operate on them while they are so large. He is going to get some treatment for 3 months and the have the surgery in November. It´s so wierd how both my tio and tia that were supposed to have surgery both got postponed..crazy

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