Wow! You've got a sticker up your nose......

Yesterday I visited a Catholic orphanage that is in the South part of the city. I wanted to get the chance to see how other orphanages are set up and run. This particular orphanage has about 70 children ranging in age from newborn to 16 years old. Upon arriving I was introduced to some very nice nuns. They escorted to me to a house where I was told to supervise a 13 year old boy who had to wash his clothes. So the boy and I chatted while he put his clothes in the washing machine and then washed some other clothes by hand. About 15 minutes go by and up comes the nun to check on the progress of the washing. She begins yelling at the boy when she sees that he has put his clothes in the washing machine. Apparently he was supposed to be washing all of his clothes by hand on the slabs of rock. She gave me an irritated glance, like I should have known better. His punishment was to wash more clothes by hand and then rewash the already clean clothes from the washing machine again, by hand.

Shortly after I joined in for lunch with five 2-4 year old girls. I was amazed to see the kids cutting their own meat using a fork and knife at the age of 2! Before beginning lunch we all practiced praying and doing the sign of the cross, numerous times. Then the little girl sitting next to me, decided to put the sticker from the banana peel up her nose. It got stuck there. She started to cry. I told her to take it out. She took it out. Wiped it across the table. And stuck it in her mouth. As we say here, “Qué asco” – how gross!

The visit ended with me being left alone with about 11 kids, helping with homework. I finally left without a nun in sight.

Meeting their Parents

Jessica and Fabian had new clothes on and they were told they could not get dirty. It was a morning filled with anticipation. The orphanage is surrounded by a tall gate and in order to enter, you need to get “buzzed in.” So every time we heard the click of the door, everybody would turn with expectancy hoping to see Jessica and Fabian’s new parents. After carrying on like this for about ½ hour, we finally put on Finding Nemo, and retreated to the living room. After waiting awhile more, I realized I needed to get some things from my house for some activities I was doing with the kids later. As I was leaving my house I saw the parents walking across the street to meet their children for the first time. I ran out of my house, because I really wanted to be able to witness this whole event. Well at approximately the same time they are about to enter the house to see the kids, I run up. Bad timing! I am introduced as the “lady teaching Italian to your children.” Naturally they assume I speak Italian, which I obviously don’t, and they figure this out very quickly.
Finally the door opens and out runs Jessica and Fabian with flowers for their parents. They all hug, the tías are crying, pictures are being taken, and the kids are SO excited! They are already calling them Mami, Papi in the first 30 seconds. They run and get the photo album that their parents have sent them about a month ago with pictures of their new home in Italy and pictures of their new family. This photo album has been looked through many times by the kids and shown proudly to anyone who wants to look.
In the year that I have been here, I have never been able to take part in the actual meeting between parents and children. It was such an emotional event and definitely one of the highlights of my time here so far. It is awesome, knowing what Jessica and Fabian have been through, and now knowing that they are being given a second chance. The orphanage uses the term “forever family” when talking about the adoptive family. How amazing to know that these children will never have to worry about being abandoned again. Please pray for them as they transition to a very different life in Italy. They will be learning the language and placed in an Italian school. This week we will have the goodbye party for them here at the orphanage and then they will be in Quito for the next month or two with their parents getting all the paperwork they need before traveling to Italy.

The Gym

So I’ve joined a gym. Last week was my first week. It is a small gym, but has some very fun classes. Monday you jump on these small trampolines, Tuesday is dance class, Wednesday is Aerobics/Strength training, Thursday is spinning, and Friday is dance again. I am the only foreigner and there are only about 7 people in each class. I have arrived late to each class because it takes about an hour to get to on the bus. I also forgot my sneakers to the spinning class and had to do the one hour class in boots. So I have made quite the impression so far. I am thoroughly enjoying the classes though and feel quite energized after!

The Explorium

When I was home in New York over the summer, I visited an outside explorium at one of the local libraries with my nephew and niece. It was very cool with all different centers to encourage imaginative play. I decided it would be great to have something similar (on a smaller scale) here at the orphanage. Since the group from CO was here, I asked if they would be willing to help me set it up yesterday.
I did not have high hopes going into the project. I had started on Friday morning at 6:30 AM searching for wood, sand, mulch, and other tools that I would need. I ended up empty handed. So Saturday morning I set out again and was much more successful. When I returned to the orphanage, I was told that somebody had made a donation and included in the donation was a plastic turtle sand box. How cool is that?
Four of the women from the team stayed behind at the orphanage for the afternoon to help. We started our project by surveying the area that the explorium was to be set up in. It was filled with llama poop, rusty metal poles, and a huge hole in the middle that had previously been used as a compost pile. Once again, I wasn't feeling that this project would be the most succesful of projects.
Well four hours later, the llama poop was gone, the compost pile filled in, the rusty poles removed and now it is a very fun space. The centers include a water table, a sandbox, a tire with sand, a mulch pile for digging, tree stump hopping, and a chalkboard and painting center. There are some centers that I would love to add during the year; including a small stage with musical instruments and a sensory wall.
The kids all watched as we were working, and they were excited to try out the sturdiness of our tree stumps. I will take some more pictures of the kids playing at the centers this week. A big thank you to the CO team for helping me with this project!

Drilling the water table into a tree stump


Transporting the sand over to the sand box

Using the post digger to sink the trunks into the ground

Here are the trunks that they can climb or sit on, the mulch pile is in the background, and you can see the blackboard and art center in the very back.

The completed water table, sand tire, and sand box

Chocolate Chips

So when I left for Ecuador last month, I thought of the things that I needed to bring down that I couldn't get in Ecuador, the necessities. Among these items, was a 4 1/2 lb. bag of chocolate chips from Costco. The chocolate here in Ecuador is amazing, but unfortunately chocolate chips can not be found in any store. I felt pretty confident that this bag would come in handy for baking projects throughout the year. Well it served me well for 3 weeks. All 4 1/2 lbs. have been put to use!

Fish and Bread

There is a group that is visiting from Colorado. They are here on a short term missions trip and are staying at the orphanage. They were here last year too, so it is great to see them again. It is cool to see groups that come back every year. A lot of these people have known the kids since they were just babies.
Today the group did some different activities with the kids. They told the story of Jesus feeding the 5 thousand. The kids made a really cute project where they put tissue paper in a plastic cut out of a fish. Then they weaved together paper to make the basket where the fish were placed.

In church on Sunday we were asked to pray for one of the members' nephew. He is 24 years old and he was shot while trying to protect the president last Thursday night. I would ask that you would pray for him too as he is in the hospital and has to undergo many surgeries.

Very soon three of the children from here will be adopted. Over the past few months many children have been adopted from here in Ecuador as well as in the United States. We also have some new children who have joined the orphanage. Below is one of the newer members. His name is Michael.

The Week in Review

Wow, where to begin? It's been a crazy week. As many of you heard, Ecuador had a police strike yesterday in the entire country. There was also an attempt to run out the president, made by the police. It was a crazy day as many places were robbed and violence broke out since there was no police force. I live in Quito, but thankfully the orphanage did not have any issues yesterday. Today, things seem to have calmed down.
Also this week, my house was struck by lightning. It is rainy season here and every afternoon there is a pretty intense rain storm. On Tuesday, it was a particularly bad storm and that is when the lightning struck. So high adventure here! No damage to the house except for the internet modem thingy being burned out. So no internet for the past few days.
I have been really bad about taking pictures and I am going to attempt to be better at that. This past week has been a good week with the kids. I am helping with the special needs kids in the therapy pool once a week, and this has been really fun. They are awesome kids and love the water! Bubbles in the water are a big hit. I've also continued with the cooking classes that we were doing last year. We've already made and ate ants, butterflies, and today kiwi faces. Here are some pictures of the kids imitating the face that they made on the kiwis.