First Week in at Hogar Comunitario!

The View from Hogar Comunitario

One can become truly busy when one tries to become involved in many aspects of a new culture...and also quite ill.  So this week I've been busy and ill, but oh has it been a grand week.  I have spent so much time with the women of Hogar Comunitario that I feel I am beginning to understand a fraction of what it means to live their lives.  These are STRONG Mayan women who have chosen to dedicate everything they have to these 31 children.  They cannot take a day off, or call in sick.  They each cook and clean, teach, change diapers, sooth tears and wounds, and never take a second for themselves.  Only on weekends do they get mere glimpses of lives without 31 children, and even then they are preparing everything for the next week.

Angelica (Doña Felipa's daughter) helping the children with crafts

The children at HC are wonderful.  Each child comes from extremely impoverished circumstances and at HC they are taught the value of rules, lessons, clean hands, brushed teeth, respect for others, kindness from others, and many other values that go on behind the scenes.  Some children are rambunctious, or ring-leaders, while others sit alone or often shed a tear, however all crave hugs and smiles and I offer those all day long.

 

My main job is every job.  However I can be of assistance, I try and be of assistance!  I mainly play with the children in the concrete floored main-room, take children outside to the bathroom, work on lessons and art projects with them in the classroom, run the hand-washing/tooth-brushing station, eat lots of fake food cooked for me :), or hold a crying child.  It is amazing what a "good kind of tired" I feel everyday when I leave.

Here are a few pictures from Hogar Comunitario:

Some of the boys!

The Class (Above), and the Kids' Play Area (Below)