Week Two in Colombia

Here's the latest from intern Ben in Colombia!:

The second week has been much better than the first. I am finally adjusting to living in Columbia, although I don't ever stop sweating. The kids started learning the basic of karate this week, which they seem to be enjoying. It is cool how many of the girls are taking an interest in karate. It is slow going, but going non the less. However the highlight of the week was Urine's birthday. Urine is a girl who has been coming to the foundation for awhile now. She is one of the leaders of the foundation for sure. She is always helping serve food, and behaves herself very well during lessons. This week Urine turned 13 years old. It was one of the sweetest things you can imagine. Below are pictures because words simply don't do it justice. 

We Have Only Just Begun

Right away I began to sweat. The line to get through customs was welcoming, but long and without air-conditioning. The people who had gotten off of the plane with me, were either tourists or locals. Which meant that they were either terribly impatient or ready to start drinking. (probably both) It took about a hour to reach the man who would stamp my passport. I greeted him with a smile, and some rough spanish. Just like that I was in.  Oswaldo, the father of my host family was there to pick me up. We hopped in a cab and were off to my new home for the next three months.
Once we arrived I was greeted by controlled chaos. Little kids playing in the road, dogs everywhere, and dizzying spanish. Once I sat down and chatted with Uris and Oswaldo, I found that they were incredible people. I am lucky to have such an awesome host family. Monday, we rose early to go to the food bank. There we picked up a weeks worth of supplies for the foundation. I met Father Pardon man who does as much good for the world as he possibly can. I will volunteer at the food bank once or twice a week, just to help out and continue to foster a vital relationship. Tuesday was my first day meeting the kids, and was I blown away. These kids are some of the happiest kids that I have ever met. I know kids in the U.S. who have every material possession and then some, and they are sad mopey kids. The kids despite their life situation enjoy every minute of their lives. (when they are at the foundation anyway) The rest of the week was spent getting to know the kids and my way around Turbaco. It has been an adjustment from what I am used too, that is for certain. But it is for the better, and I am beyond excited to watch the kids grow and have a positive impact. 

El Bichito: Getting started

August 18

We have just arrived in Peru and at El Bichito. For the kids here, school has just started again after their winter break. We are just getting to know each other, so we have been playing games after lunch, encouraging homework (of which there has been just a little so far), and getting to know each other. Many of the kids are around our daughter, Sierra’s age and she has already made a special friend. Milagros comes a little later than the first wave of kids, so Sierra waits to eat lunch with her. Milagros is good at bringing her homework, so Sierra and Milagros work on it together and then play together, even though Sierra hasn’t learned Spanish yet. Some of the boys have started teasing Sierra by calling her name and then when she looks they say “costa, selva!” These are the three regions of the Peru—the mountains, the coast, and the jungle. The boys of El Bichito seem to really enjoy our teenagers, Kai and Renen, which are also both boys. Kai and Renen don’t speak much Spanish yet either, but they are all enjoying playing together. We have been playing Jenga, Uno, and Bingo, doing puzzles and coloring pictures. One thing we have been trying to get each child to do to help us learn their names and who they are is to write their name (or have me write it if they prefer), color it, and write 3 good things about themselves or things they like. Then we take a picture of them holding their name, and by the next day we have it on the wall. As they see others with their pictures up, they are more eager to go along with this assignment, but we have many still missing. One of my favorite things to do is get a picture book and read it to a few children as they are eating lunch. They are a captive audience then, so I try to catch the kids that I have noticed leave right after lunch. Usually several others crowd in to listen as well. Next week more children will be coming as some of them were still on winter break this week. We’ll see how we do at getting to know even more kids!

El Bichito: Meet the Hicken Family!

We are excited to introduce the Hickens! This awesome family is volunteering for a semester at El Bichito. They are our first full family to intern for such a long period of time. We are excited to have them! Look for updates from them as we move through fall! Following is a bit of their story:

 This is us, Brent, Sunny, Kai, Renen, Sierra, & Lily.  We are the new “interns” at El Bichito. We are also, apparently, the first volunteer family.  Many have asked us what our story is, so here goes.

Years ago before my husband and I knew each other, we both spent an extended time in Spanish speaking countries working with people who had significantly less monetarily than we were accustomed to.  We both found this time so educational and beneficial to our personal development that we wanted our children to have such an experience (and we wanted more for ourselves, too!)  For years as we raised our family, we planned and looked for an opportunity to go to a Spanish speaking country, not as tourists or to live in an elite ex-pat neighborhood, but to really be part of the native community.  We wanted an experience for our family that could open their eyes to other ways of life, help them learn Spanish (since that is the second language my husband and I knew), and give them an opportunity to serve just for the sake of their fellow man.  Our children were getting older, and we finally decided we didn’t have any more time to wait for an opportunity to arise.  I searched the internet again looking for opportunities and came across Eagle-Condor Humanitarian.  Even though young interns were the normal source of volunteers, I contacted them to see if our family could possibly be part of their program for the time we could carve out—one semester.  They were flexible and had opportunities that would help us reach this goal for our family.  We spent about a year ironing out details (like arranging to do school and work online, since we couldn’t take off either one, finding someone to take care of our home in the U.S., learning about the different programs with Eagle Condor, getting passports, etc.).  Amazingly, it all came together, and here we are!

            As you might imagine, taking a family on such an adventure has been a bit more of a challenge than going just as a single young person.  We have only been here a couple of weeks, and we are just starting to settle in.  We still haven’t figured out a lot of how to do things.  Cooking, cleaning, school, work, errands, laundry—it’s still all part of our days just as before we came and it takes a lot longer now, too.  But I know this time of our lives will be life shaping.  In a way, this seems like a crazy time to leave home.  Our youngest started Kindergarten and we have a high school freshman and senior, both missing school activities that were a big part of their teenage lives.  The language has been a big barrier for them, though they do notice an improvement already.  Since our kids can’t talk much with the kids who come yet, one thing they do is to set an example by doing their own homework after lunch (something we keep trying to encourage all the kids to do).  Lily, our youngest, loves playing active games like ball or tag with the kids in front of the center.  Sierra, who is the age of a lot of the kids here, has both made friends and gotten teased by the boys.  (“Sierra…costa, selva!” they say to her, naming the three geographical areas of Peru—the mountains, the coast, and the jungle).  Kai, our high school senior, is teaching a small English class and just today he started tutoring a student in math for a college entrance exam.  He is currently taking AP Calculus online and felt confident about his math skills, but he said that teaching math in Spanish is a lot harder than he expected.  He also told us tonight that he realized that the hard things are often the best things to do.  I’m glad to hear him say that, because coming here has definitely not been an easy thing for our family, but it may well be one of the best.