Where it all Began

Yesterday (Tuesday) we met at 8:45 at the office gate to go on a tour of the city. We started at Gota de Leche. This is another part of the CMT, the building is an old house from the 1920's that Padre Juan bought and renovated in 2000 as a maternal health center. (It's located directly across the street from a public hospital and a maternity hospital). At La Gota, they provide milk for mothers & infants and medicines, free of charge. The CMT has agreements with the neighboring hospitals so if any of the members need additional services, they can get them at a reduced cost. 

When we arrived, Marcia greeted us and asked us to play with the kids for a little while before our tour. The two little girls that "supervised" me serving soup at CMT #1 were there, Nicole recognized me immediately and came over and gave me a big hug and led me around to all her friends. All the children want to take our photos or at least be photographed with us. I think they like to see themselves on a screen (like TV)!

These are two of Nicole's friends and David in the back!

In order to make more space at CMT #1, the elementary grades were moved to La. Gota a few years ago, so we visited the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade classrooms. Each class had prepared a song, or poem for us, one had a mime who "performed" a skit about waking up in the morning. It was early cute!

From there, we got back on the CMT bus with Vincente as our driver and went to La Compañía (a Jesuit church which was built in the 1600's) for a tour. It cost $2 per person, and Marcia arranged an English speaking guide for our group. The inside of the church is entirely covered in gold leaf, over 120 lbs of it and it's amazing. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the church for security reasons. 

However, there is one area where the original bells are housed (the bell tower collapsed in an earthquake, but there are restoring it). 

For the first time (for Maria and I) we got to see the attic of La Compañía. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the center, there are festivities planned for the attic area - a cocktail party and mass is the church in November. Because of that, they are working on getting the space ready. 

In the early days of the CMT, they had 250 boys in the space, which they quickly outgrew. In the early 1970's padre Juan bought the land and started building CMT #1 downtown.

After our tour of La Compañía, we walked across the Plaza de la Independencia, which is the square across from the presidential palace. There were several paintings on display and there have been protests about the water laws here in Ecuador, so there were people gathered, speeches being given and lots of police out in force. 

When we arrived at CMT #1, Marcia gave us a brief tour of the center. Then a lady named, Marta rode the bus back with us to CMT #2. During the bus ride, we met a man from Switzerland who had worked at Hewlett Packard for 20 years, retired from there and took a trip around the world. He was in Ecuador and decided that the best sun was here, so he bought land and built a house near Mitad del Mundo.