Monday 17th

Second day of our volunteer work in Ecuador. Today my group is going to Ines Chambers. It’s a school slash orphanage. This one looked better off than Padre Pio. It was at least in a better looking neighborhood. The place was pretty big and had lots of what looked like class rooms. There are only 23 kids there, seems like a little number for a place that looks like could hold more. They have a lot of jungle gym type stuff in the back area which im sure the kids enjoy. First thing first, doing some work. We met some of the kids when we first got there pretty briefly; they were all very nice and polite. After saying hello to them we went outside to prepare the wall to be painted. But before we painted they wanted us to sand off the rust from the bars. They didn’t look like they needed it but whatever. We did that and scrapped more old paint off the wall. After that we took a small break to wash off are hands and hang out with the kids there. The older boys who lived there were big on soccer, so a few of them were kicking the ball around. Not to long the guy in charge of getting the paint ready was there with paint and bucket ready to mix the paint with water. I really never thought paint was expensive but it must be there if you have to add water to make it stretch. When we paint it seemed really pointless. A very thin coat of paint on a wall that looked like it needed a dozen coats. I’m sure they have been doing this a lot so I’m not going to argue with them. But the painting went well. We had lunch after, rice beans, and some meat. I actually think its pretty good. About 10 minutes after eating lunch the rain came. Lucky enough most of the paint stayed on. The last thirty minutes we were there we got to make bracelets with the kids. They seemed to enjoy themselves very much. A lot of the girls there were very helpful with assisting people in making them, like me who did know what I was doing. It was one of the girls birthday and we had brought a cake. That was really nice to experience, all the kids singing her happy birthday, getting a little birthday cake. I didn’t get to interact with the kids as very much; I found myself doing more work than playing and talk with them. We’ll see how the next goes.