I am losing track of what day it is....yes, it is Wednesday. Today, I went to the one of the Barefoot Angels sites in Santa Ana. We pulled up alongside a brick wall with a large metal door, with Angeles descalzos (Barefoot Angels) painted in bright blue paint on the outside. We opened the door, and there was another world inside. A grassy field, playground equipment and a low-slung building with about 25 children, from ages 7 to 12 waiting for us. Part of the building had walls in the back, but the part we worked in had only one wall. Hard to explain...
Anyway, we pulled out frisbees and played with the kids and they had a wonderful time. We gave out soccer shirt to the boys and mini-frisbees to the girls. Funny how most of the girls wanted their frisbees to be pink.
We then played a extreme body fact, dental hygiene, nutrition, and general anatomy jeopardy game. The kids were smart and got almost of the questions right. They were exhuberant and very excited.
We noticed about 4 or 5 of the kids' shoes were in bad shape and talked with one of the teachers, America, to figure out a way to pull them aside and give them a new pair of shoes from the bag of donations we had. We managed to find a pair of shoes for each of these kids and they were extremely appreciative. One little girl asked if she could give me a "besito" to say thank you for her new shoes. She gave me a sweet kiss on my cheek and through her arms around my waist and gave me a long hug. All of the children were so affectionate and loving.
We also rode on a swing - we affectionately called "the death swing." It was fun, but rather scary. The kids squealed every time they rode on it, and we also squealed when we rode on it.
We came back to Asaprosar for lunch and took a short break, then returned at 2 pm. In the afternoon, we had a group of 12 to 18 year olds. Marvin and Sid talked with the teenage boys about sex ed and Tara and Caitlin P. talked with the teenage girls. The girls were very open with their questions, and the boys were too. We played frisbees again with all of the kids and they loved it and also the jeopardy game with the younger kids.
I should write more, but am tired. I will upload a few photos.
Tomorrow, some of us who went to the Barefoot Angels today will be going to the dental clinic. New update tomorrow!
I love the Angeles Terminal site. They are just so cute and positive even with all the things that life throws at them. And yes, they are very appreciative of every single thing that we do for them. I'm very glad that you guys had the chance to spend such time with the kids :)
ReplyDeleteps. The dental group was at Galiano today--the infamous work-under-the-mango-tree site. As always it is wonderful to be at someone's house/front yard. Upon hearing that our 12 people still needed to pick up Yvonneeth and 2 other dentists, we literally had to sit on each other's laps to pack in 13 in the van, plus the driver. Luckily only 1 dentist, Dr. Jorge from la Unidad de Salud showed up. Anyhow, the road up to our dental site was bad because of the July rains, and to tell you that that van full of people and supplies, and lunches almost tipped over when the tire got stuck in one of the muddy ditches on the side of the road, well, most of us had to get out for our driver Kenneth to maneuver the van out of the situation. Finally there, it was great to see the nicely decorated place with moms and children already there sitting down waiting for our arrival. Things went pretty smoothly, and even the Doctor from Relaciones Exteriores helped out with some kids!
It was nice to see lots of familiar faces of the little kids today, and dogs who were not showing their ribcage right out. At one point we got some mangoes too, although this year there wasn't as much as previous years. The end of the day came fast after that morning rush, and it ended with Baharak making some very nice photo framed pictures that the promotoras all put in a request for. Soon we were back in ASAPROSAR headquarters ready to chow down a very delicious dinner.