6-26-10

It has been an awesome week for sure! The VBS went amazing and it’s nice to have other people in the house. The last night of the VBS there was a party or I should say FIESTA for all the kids and their families. Since it was still my shift I helped take the kids to the park. So we loaded up the 19 kids in the car and headed to the park. Wow that was the hardest thing I have ever done by far haha. Try taking 19 kids to a park with 5 adults and 2 of those adults (being me and the other intern) not being fluent in Spanish haha wooo it was a task for sure. We only lost one kid, Sarai, and that was for like 5 minutes. She ended up in some line she really wanted to play some games. After the all the kids got their turn on the bounce house it was time to get them settled down to eat. we had a table for all the little kids and the 5 older ones were kind of on their own. After all the kids ate and no one else was in line me and the two other interns got to eat and it was sooo good. I don’t think I could ever get sick of chicken, tacos, rice and beans. It was a total success and such a great thing for the community.
Thursday we were cleaning up from dinner and I went in the bathroom real quick and when I came out Isabelle came up to me and said “Tia Tia the police are here!” I didn’t even know how to respond to that lol. When I came out another said “Tia Diana the babies are outside!” I was gone for maybe 2 minutes and bam it was craziness. I saw that both Tias were outside and Elizabeth was sitting on the couch with some other kids so I decided to go get the babies from outside lol. Selena came in and told me to hurry and clean up but because Raquel was coming. Raquel is our boss and it was her day off so things are a little more relaxed when she isn’t there but within two minutes we had the whole dining room cleaned up and in place before she came in. so not knowing what was going on I finally got a chance to ask and found out it wasn’t the police it was just a lady from the state coming to check on a little girl named Sandra. Sandra was here for a short while last summer before leaving in September. Sadly, wherever she was placed was not good for her and when she returned she had bad burns on her foot and arm. No one knows any details really so that lady was checking her out.
Today was a great day, very relaxed and it went by very fast. Melissa and I did some laundry in the morning (Dory I don’t know how you do it every day). Imagine sorting out 19 kids clothes and putting them all away woo that’s a task for sure. We had lunch then Raquel put me in charge of the older girls. That was really fun! After we cleaned up the room we went outside to play. We learned a new handshake and then turned it into a game. A little later the college group from Ensenada came so that meant that we pretty much didn’t have to do anything. They brought a piñata for the kids some candy and then gave us all fresh fruit … it was GREAT! While they all played with the kids Selena helped me with some Spanish. I brought some of my notecards and we were going over the Spanish side and English side then Danna saw and wanted to play the game too. She told us that she was our teacher and it was the cutest thing ever. I don’t think I will ever have a favorite kid here because they are all so amazing and wonderful but Danna has a special place in my heart for sure. She is the most beautiful, crazy, energetic and wonderful girl. We made up a dance and she wants to do it all the time. She also loves to flip around with me so we flip and dance together and joke around all the time and it’s so much fun. After work we took a little trip to the store. Seriously though when I say the store I wish you could visualize what it is. I’m pretty sure there are gas stations that have more food than the store haha. We got some food and decided that one of these days were going to try and make a legit Mexican meal so this should be interesting. So I have this obsession with solitaire haha I can play for hours and I don’t really know of anyone else that does that. My roommate at school always made fun of me for playing it all the time. Well it turns out Elizabeth and Melissa, the other interns love solitaire so we were sitting in the living room for an hour playing solitaire on our computers and the whole time they were trash talking each other. I then decided that we were the biggest losers for sitting and playing solitaire for an hour and trash talking then Elizabeth gave the best quote by saying “we have already been to the store, what else is there to do in Porvenir!” That quote describes Porvenir perfectly. Porvenir has one store and three restaurants and one of them closes at five. It has one paved road and the rest is all dirt. Finding things to do in Porvenir is difficult but for some reason this little town has captured my heart. I wake up every morning with a smile on my face ready for my day. Everything is so easygoing here and it’s awesome. Angel, a boy at the orphanage wrote a letter to his special friend and asked Elizabeth to give it to Alison to send it in the mail for him. The kids have special friends in America that write them letters and send them gifts; I think I talked about that in my last blog. Anyway Alison has been gone for the past two days so it’s just been sitting here at our house. Well we got a little curious and decided to read it and I just wanted to go give him a hug and take him home with me, it said something like this. “Hello how are you? I wish to see you and I love you with all my heart and I know you love me too. My name is Angel” I couldn’t read it perfectly of course but combining the three of us together that’s what we got. I cried when I read that. I wish you guys knew Angel. Gosh it really just yanked on my heart. Angel is this super athletic boy who doesn’t really smile that much but loves to run and play. To know that this wonderful letter came from him is just wow. How could anyone not want such a sweet little boy? Once again such an eye opener at how much love these kids need from everyone. Porvenir you have captured my heart!!!