Los ninos

My last blog sounded really snotty, so I deleted it. I'm sorry about it!

So I think time has slowed waaaay down here. I'm sure it will speed up soon and these 3 months will be over before I know it, but for now, it already feels like I've been gone for ages and it's only been 5 days! It's been a really good 5 days, though :).

Saturday I went to a place where they have mostly abandoned kids. They're all split up into families with a mom and they all live together in an apartment complex thing. We go to teach the kids stuff and give their moms a break. We also had orientation at the main orphanage that day. It's called San Vincente de Paul (SVP). There are three different rooms:

Sala 1 has kids from newborns to 6 months. There are only three of them right now. This is where I spent Sunday morning's shift. It's a pretty uneventful place...except when this dumb kid named Fatima comes and picks the girls up when they just barely got to sleep and kisses them until they start crying, and then puts them back down. Grrrr...
Sala 2 is kids from 6 months to about a year. Pretty much when they start walking, they move them up. We played with these kids Saturday morning. They're way cute!
Sala 3 is the crazy 1-2 year olds. They have a ton of energy and some of them are kind of bullies. They are so fun, though. That's where I worked today from 7-noon.

The orphanage is awesome. The workers are way nice and fun, though they get a little frustrated at the new girls sometimes. The kids just eat sopa, but they all really like it. Also, a diaper company is doing a study in SVP so we get disposable diapers! We don't have wipes though, so we just use our hands and water. Sounds gross, but it gets the job done. The kids get to play outside all the time, which is so awesome. The workers don't even mind us holding them, giving them hugs and kisses, whatever! It is so great! They're really strict about pictures, just like in Cuenca, but we do get one day to take them, so that's awesome too.

The orphanages are really far away, so we have a driver that takes us there. It takes about 15 minutes in the morning when there's no traffic and a half hour or so in the afternoon or for night shift. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Santa Lucia.

Mom asked about the other volunteers, so here's more about them:

There are 13 of us, all girls. Four of them have already been here for 6 weeks and one of them has already been here 3 months, but she extended for another 3 weeks. Two of us are from Idaho, a few are from Utah, and then there are some from Canada, Arizona, the South, etc. My roommate Grace is the youngest at 18 and I think the oldest is 21. Most of them are 19. One of the girls in my group is engaged, which is fun; we've been helping her pick out a dress online :). My roommates are Grace, Amanda and Lindsey (Lindsey and I have the exact same birthday! Also, she looks just like Carol from the Office.)

Ashley is our site director. She's 24 or something like that and she's been down here for a year and a half. She's way fun and funny. She's adopting a boy from SVP (Manuel), so he lives with us too. He's 5 and he's kind of a show-off.
The boy is Andrew. He's the site coordinator, so he makes the schedule and stuff. He and I work at Casas together. Casas is where the babies from SVP go after they're too old for it. It's right by SVP, but the kids are split up into families like at Santa Lucia. There are 5 families and we go there Monday-Thursday. They have the same 2 people go there every time for consistency, so we can get to know the kids and vice versa. I'm not sure if I'm officially one of the two, but I'm scheduled to go there every afternoon this week. Anyway, Andrew is way cool. He's this tall, skinny white kid who thinks he's really gangster. He's way fun, though.
Angel and Jenni are the project directors. They're a local family and they live in the house with us, along with their 3 kids. They are so cool! Angel is hilarious.

Anyway, so that's all the people. This week I work a lot and we have a big Thanksgiving dinner planned! I'm not sure if I can go to it because I have night shift that night, but it will still be fun and make good leftovers! We're also going to a bullfight on Wednesday. I'm so excited!