Olympics at El Bichito! (Cynthia)

Can you believe it is already time for school to start?

To celebrate the last week of summer we planned a Mini Olympics for the kids here at El Bichito.

We divided the activities into outdoor and academic to try and ease out of summer and back into school.

The outdoor games were a blast and the kids enjoyed discus (Frisbee) and shotput (water balloon throw) in addition to a few fun relays and races. We had pretty small numbers because it is the last week of summer but the kids that came had fun and we certainly had a blast. We played a hopping tag game, a water balloon waddle relay and a tossing name game.

After we had exhausted ourselves outside and handed out suckers as prizes to everyone we moved inside to get their brains moving. The kids were broken into teams and raced to see who could finish a puzzle fastest. In their rush they started trying to force pieces together until we told them the puzzle still had to make a picture…

The kids also loved solving math problems on the whiteboard for their team (mostly because they think it’s fun to write with whiteboard markers). Thanks to some donations we were able to get some fun prizes and treats for all the kids to finish the day. Wish us all luck as we start school this week!

Fabricio: Getting Better Little by Little (Julia)

Fabricio: Getting Better Little by Little

This week I’ve been getting to know the baby Fabricio better. I love to hold this baby and give him as much love as possible. His muscles aren’t strong enough to sit up straight, or even hold his head up yet and he can’t see very well, but he does react when someone’s in front of him so we think that he can at least see light or shapes. At the beginning, I never knew who Fabricio was even though I’d heard his name a lot until one day Katie brought him over to our house to take care of. We now like to babysit him in the mornings, along with the other babies, and I think that ever since we’ve been taking him out of his house and helping him to exercises, he’s been getting significantly better.

Manuel the Monkey (Kathryn)

Manuel is the brother of Braylin and Kristelle. He has just as much enthusiasm for learning as his sisters but is completely his own person. Whenever I am with him, he is always climbing up something or jumping up and down, full of energy. Though small for his age, he is surprisingly good at sports and balancing himself while climbing trees. This past week he out did himself by climbing to a very high point in one of the Aldea fruit trees. No fear, he raced to the top, only stopping to turn around and wave at me. I joke with him calling him mono (monkey in espanol), and the name definitely fits. The whole Aldea benefits from his spunky personality and commanding attributes.

Feliz Cumpleanos Cesar!! (Natalie)

Image: Cesar with Fabricio

Thursday was Cesar Hamberto's 16th birthday!
He didn't even know it was his birthday, he was surprised when we told him his birthday was coming. He got ambushed with a few traditional eggs cracked on his head of course. His birthday request was a soda, and being dumb and agreeing to bet a soda on our futbol match which I had no chance of winning, he gladly accepted two sodas for his gift. I don't think he expected anything for his birthday because when I asked him what he wanted he didn't think I was being serious and when I actually gave it to him he couldn't believe it. His huge grin was great! After dinner we enjoyed a delicious cake and sang to him. I'm glad to report that he told me he had a great birthday is very happy.

Other updates:
The kids started school again this week.
We are teaching some of the girls (plus Victor and Jose) a dance that they are going to perform on Tuesday at a party.

I regularly play a match with the older boys and am get them to participate more and more.

We made a new schedule for the school year that includes weekly sports, crafts, dance, and self esteem classes after homework is done.

The kids are all happy and having fun.
They love learning new English phrases and repeating them back to us.

Everything is going good and i'm LOVING it here!!

Young Man (Carrie)

Reuben with Alondra

February 28 post from Carrie:

You can’t help but smile when you see Rueben who acts well above his age.

When I think of the best behaved and one of the sweetest boys at the Aldea my mind immediately goes to Reuben. This boy is only 11 years old yet he not only willing participates in all our activities but he also provides a calming atmosphere that more often than not rubs off on the other kids. This week I was more aware of the small acts of kindness he does and how wonderful his personality truly is. On Wednesday night all of the volunteers went to House 5 to play monopoly. While we were there Rueben was doing other activities but even though we were being loud and taking up a lot of space, Rueben never once complained. He even had to sit 10 feet away from the TV, when he decided to watch a movie ,with his vision blocked and the sound barely audible. I was amazed at his patience and lack of complaining. On another occasion Rueben had a huge piece of watermelon which he ate a little bit of, gave some to Caesar and also broke off a piece for Llennifer( the girl with special needs from House 9) when she came up and pointed at it. We feel like Rueben acts well above his age in how calming and mature he acts but occasionally, like when we go to the pool, you can see the kid emerge from him that is usually hidden deeper. When we went first went to the pool Rueben didn’t know how to swim and so he’d cling onto the volunteers but he was really interested in learning how to swim and he learns really fast because now he has no fear of jumping in and swimming around in the deep end. We’ve taught him how to do a proper cannonball and he was learning how to dive this week, during both instances when Rueben first emerges from the water he comes out with his arm up, raised above his head, grabbing for the air in an almost triumphant looking pose. All of us volunteers can’t help but smile when we see him, he truly is a young, old, man.

Carnival at El Bichito (Erin)

Post from Erin at El Bichito:
Today in an effort to teach the kids the importance of having clean clothes we had a pre-Carnival water party. We started out by talking about where water comes from and what we can do with water. We tried to focus on the importance of having clean clothes, especially how it can help them get better jobs when they are older. We then asked the kids to show us how to properly wash clothes with a bucket of water and a bar of laundry soap. We washed the shirts we had asked them to bring yesterday.

After we hung the shirts up to dry, we played some water games. We had a water balloon toss and then a little water balloon fight. Of course, the interns were the main targets. We hope to make this a weekly tradition for the summer- to provide incentive we told them that next week if they bring a shirt to wash they will get an extra water balloon for the games!

El Bichito visits Granja Porcon!‏ (Cynthia)

8 kids, 4 leopards, 2 lions, 7 monkeys, a few thousand fish and 1 great day!

We had the opportunity to take a group of kids from El Bichito to Granja Porcon, a successful evangelical cooperative a couple hours outside of Cajamarca. We had a pretty crazy bus ride up the mountains with all those kids and we had the great opportunity to just sit and talk (or sing or play peak a boo in the curtain

Once we arrived at Porcon, the first thing we noticed were all the pine trees! Something of an irregularity- the mountains of Porcon are covered with millions of pine trees, an entirely man made forest. The surprises didn't stop there though, Porcon was a beautiful and clean place with plenty to see. We started off our trip walking through some of the artesian shops where we saw carpenters and other craftsman hard at work.

We then hiked to the zoo and saw lions, bears and ostriches. Alvierri said his favorite part of the trip was the monkeys because they were so "cute". Junior liked all the different types of birds and Ana Maria liked "everything"!

These kids were so full of energy the whole day and the only time we stopped running was to play on the slide.

We ate our lunch in an open grassy area and the kids got some of their energy out playing soccer.

Next we visited the trout farm and some even tried their hand at fishing. It was so interesting to see the progression of the baby trout in the tank to full grown fish in the lake. The kids were sad when it was time to leave and it took a little convincing to get back on the bus. It was fun to ask what they all enjoyed most and we are sure they will remember this trip in days to come.