August 5th, 2011 - The Toddlers

Because today is Friday, this morning began with BIG circle – which I was able to record a few things on my camera to bring back to you. We heard from Gerson about helping and having mercy in your heart rather than helping and expecting something in return. They now have a microphone and speakers this year which makes it a lot easier to hear. In the past they just spoke as loudly as they could, however it was a little difficult to hear with such a huge circle – putting you more of a distance away from the speaker.
After circle, we headed to breakfast. On today’s menu was arroz con leche, so I had a little bit. Joy was in the clinic, so I had to do dishes on my own (and discovered later that I didn’t do the greatest job). I felt a little pressure to hurry as I was doing it since all the girls in the kitchen had left and I was expected to be at the toddler house ASAP. Just to give you an idea of how many people they feed in the little girls’ house – I think I heard something about 72 tortillas being made.
I was at the toddler house most of the morning, watching the older toddlers (ages 3-5) in the yards. I think there were 32 of them, but they were running so much I can’t be too sure of my counting. After a few hours of helping toddlers climb & go down slides, pushing them on swings, giving them water breaks, watching them on the various jungle gyms, helping them on the teeter-totter, and helping them search for toads (the highlight of their morning)…I desperately needed a break before heading to lunch to do even more dishes. I can’t believe how much water I drank – I felt like my husband (it was a VERY large water bottle!).
When I headed up to do the dishes, we found that the sinks in the kitchen were not working properly, so Joy & I had to take all of the dishes up the hill to the lavanderia to wash them out of a water spicket there. It was tedious & back-breaking to be bending over the spicket the entire time scrubbing so many utensils, bowls and cups (and then the pots/pans as well), but this experience also made me thankful that I purchased a new tube of IcyHot and Aleve right before coming down here!
After doing the dishes, I headed to the clinic once again to watch over Erika – who has bronchitis. I discovered many things: vomit is easier to clean up on ceramic tile than on carpeting, 3 bowls of food for supper is WAY too much for little Erika (don’t worry, she didn’t want to eat any of it), I feel really old when I’m called Ma’am, Luis David (the RIGHT one, Andres) is still here, I now know what lice looks like (no it’s NOT ME who has it…I hope), and a few other things I’ll just put off mentioning.
Julie relieved me from the clinic and will stay there the night with Erika, but I did help her clean a little bit before taking off. If Erika keeps coughing the way she has been, it’ll be a rough night for Julie.
And with that concludes my day. It’s now 6pm and the sun is going down. Tomorrow the group from Maryland arrives, and I’m so excited to catch up with them!