Home Visits and WBC #2 Work Day

This morning, our group and the group from St. Peter's Prep in New Jersey (10 boys, plus leaders Ryan and Mora) left this morning on the large bus at 8:30 am to make home visits to some of the employees/volunteers and clients of the downtown center, la Marin (WBC #1). We drove through the city center, through the south side into a barrio. We arrived at about 10am. The bus dropped us off at the bottom of a hill. We still had to walk quite a ways up to reach the first home. The views were amazing!

We visited three homes. The first family was a wife and husband and his mother. Between them, they have 10 children who attend the Center. They had 2 pigs, and a couple of dogs. There house was just one room with a big bed and small kitchen area.

 The next house was further up the hill. The lady who lives there has two children. Her house was little more than a shack. The entire family leaves home at 5am to go to the center and returns at 10pm. There are no paved roads, no street lights, no safety measures of any kind. She used to be able to cook inside, but someone borrowed her gas tank and has yet to return it.

The next house belonged to a man who works at the downtown center as the maintenance man. He lives with his 18 year old daughter and three other children. His wife died so the oldest daughter now acts as the mother. When we were there, she was home with a little baby, her sister. They had 2 kittens, a litter of puppies, chickens, and quite a large plot of land which was further up the hill stilll then the previous two. There house had three rooms, the middle was the kitchen, then two bedrooms; one the left for the father, and the right for the children. The children had a TV and stereo in their room.

The house was neat and tidy, everything had it's place. Following these visits, we walked back down the hill (some of the kids ran down) and boarded the bus. Teresa, our guide, wanted to show us more houses - these folks are her neighbors and friends - but we were tired and didn't want to walk anymore. We drove into town and we stopped at a woman's house, she was a fish monger. She let us take a photo of her fish, but not her or her house! She had a lovely house, two rooms, but a great courtyard out front as well as a patio set up for her fish selling business. She also had a real bathroom which a lot of us used!

We continued our journey back to WBC #2 Cotocollao to eat lunch, then volunteer in the Center. Turns out they had jobs for us - painting some classrooms. We partnered again with the "Jersey Boys" to paint the two rooms. We met the Director of the Center, Marco Polo (yes, his name is really Marco Polo) who has worked her for 30 some years. When we had finished painting, he invited us to attend the Kindergarten graduation at 5pm which we did. It was so cute! Now it's down time until a slide show that Madre Miguel will show at 7:15pm, then dinner at 8:40 pm and off to bed. We have an early start tomorrow morning...and a walking tour of the city!