One Week Report

I have been here for a week! My schedule has been like this:

Emily and I leave Casa Hogar around 9am. We walk down the hill, about a 10 minute walk, and it is already very hot outside, to catch a bus. Public transportation here is a really interesting experience in itself. It is very fast pace and you have to get on and off very quickly or you'll get left.

It is God's little gift to us if we are on the corner when an air conditioned bus passes. They are five cents more expensive than regular buses, but they have cushioned seats! Normal buses are HOT and have HARD seats. When we are in an air conditioned bus, we laugh at the people in regular buses, and we cry when we see people in air conditioned buses when we are in a normal bus.

We ride the bus for about 40 minutes to Jesus de Nazareth church, and work there til 1pm, organizing pictures and profiles for the children at Casa Hogar. My job this week has been to make Christmas cards for the kids to send to their sponsors in the States. There are 62 kids in the orphanage and 284 sponsors....so you can imagine that I have a lot of Christmas cards to make!

After another long ride back to Casa Hogar, it is Siesta. Workers will just lay down in the shade and will sleep from about 2-4pm because it is too hot to do anything. I love it! I wish we had Siesta in the States!

In the afternoon, I help the little kids with their homework. It is very easy and I've begun to love helping them, because I get to practice my Spanish and be with the little ones.

Dinner isn't til 7:30. I love the food, but the portions are not very big, and its usually cold by the time its served. Rice and beans are a given, and there is some sort of main dish with meat and potatoes....or sometimes just potatoes. The orphanage is struggling finacially right now. The 12-14 year old boys make the food, and lately, I've enjoyed helping them in the kitchen, serving the plates and pouring GALLONS of milk into 62 cups!

After dinner, it gets kind of awkward for me, because everyone does their own thing. I'm tempted to go back to my room, but I know that I will never get to know people that way. So I tell myself to stay outside and talk to people. I have had a lot of fun getting to know people.