Like Marvelle said it was a very early wake up upon arriving
to the orphanage. I started the morning off right by losing my phone and
running up and down the floors to find it while it was in my purse the whole
time. Classic me. Once we arrived to the orphanage, we were greeted by Monica
who was the director of the orphanage and Eric who was representing Southbridge
Access. This orphanage had around 80
children that ranged from as young as 5 months to as old as 13 years. These
children were put here either because they suffered from being abused or
abandoned. The great thing that I found different from a USA orphanage is that
the staff really tried to make the orphanage as homey as possible. They wanted
to create an environment where the children would feel as if they were at home,
not just some place to say they were living.
Throughout the day each group was assigned to
doing different tasks to help make the environment better for the kids. My
group (TEAM AMARILLO) was in charge of sanding and repainting a picnic tables
for one of the houses. Since that did not take very long, me and Leah went to
go help out the other groups and pulled weeds from the soccer field which was
actually not as easy as it sounds since we had 90 degree on our backs.
After we helped clean the orphanage, we were
provided with lunch in the gym where we ate cheese and meat empanadas with soft
drinks. Some of the children kept on coming in and out of the gym because they wanted
us to hurry up and come play with them. During lunch a women named Elliana from
Germany that has been volunteering at the orphanage for 3 months talked about
what she does there and how she now aspires to be an adolescent psychologist. Also at lunch, one of the Southbridge guides
went to the store and got a cake for one of the children, Benjamin, whose
birthday was that day. After we ate lunch we sang him happy birthday and gave
him the cake which he was SO happy about.
Later on during the day we participated in
many different activities that allowed us to interact with the children. I
first started off as setting up a dance party, but the speakers ended up not
working and we turned to coloring which the children still enjoyed. There was
also face/ body painting where some of us would painting cool designs/ whatever
the child wanted on their bodies. For the students who wanted to be a little
more active with the kids, there were options such as basketball and futbol (soccer)
that went over really well with the children.
Overall I believe this was one of
the days that everyone will highly remember because we were able to make a
difference in a child’s life. Just being able to put a smile on one of the
children’s faces made that day all the more enjoyable.
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