This past week has been a whirlwind of emotion! Everyday I am learning something new about this place, the people here and even myself. I wish I had more time to tell you everything. I´ve been at my new home for just over a week now and am getting used to the new faces and names of the people I will be surrounded with for the coming year. There are 30 kids living in this home with me... thank goodness I have my own room! It can get pretty crazy around here, especially when its rainy and around meal times when all the kids are crammed into the dining room. Most of them have some pretty tough stories of their lives before coming to live in this place. I have had quite a bit of experience working with kids, but this is something completely different. Thank goodness there are such wonderful "educadores" or educators that are here loving these kids day in and day out. There are about 12 folks that rotate on a regular basis through the house and there are always at least 3 of them around at a time. Right now I am working on establishing myself in the house as a person of authority, but also a person of fun. It is a tough balance to achieve with these kids, but I think with time things will get better. Once I feel more comfortable being able to discipline and instrucut in spanish, then I will be helping to lead different workshops with the kids to provide an alternitive to the television and computers! I will live here all the time, but I only am technically working 3 days a week.
I also work 2 days a week at La obra ecumenica Barrio Borro, which is a project of the state that functions kind of like and all day afterschool program with different workshops for the kids that come, including the tutoring center where I will be helping teach english to high school aged kids as well as music and physical education sessions that I will be helping with too. My first two days there went really well. Since the kids don´t live at this place, it has a little bit different feel to it than the hogar where I live. I think it will be fun to experience them both and perhaps I will be able to share new ideas between the two places. The idea of me working in these two places was intentional. The program wanted to build a bridge between the two organizations and their first step is me!
On my two days off, which happen to be monday and tuesday, I haven´t figured out exactly what I want to do yet, but there is a choir at one of the churches in town that practices on tuesdays that I might join and I am looking to see if I can´t find some kind of dance lesson on mondays. Other than that there is a group of young adults that get together on thursday eveinings and I plan on trying to integrate myself into that group as well. And I still have plenty of exploring to do in and around the city. After all, I have only been here a little over a week!