Stephen, an intern at El Bichito, introduces us to Israel: At first Israel seems really shy, but if you spend some time with him one on one, he becomes more comfortable and will talk with you. He usually watches others play games and is apprehensive to join in on the games unless you specifically invite him to play. He also prefers to join games where the kids who are participating are either his age and size or younger and smaller. His family is quite large, he usually has 6 other siblings who come to El Bichito. From what we understand, his father does not live with the family and his mother has to work a lot to support the family. As a result Israel's older sister dropped out of school to help take care of the other children. We were concerned because it appeared for a while that Israel was not going to school, but he seems to have resumed attending school. However, even though he shows up in his uniform to El Bichito, I worry that he may not actually be attending school. Israel likes to color, play football (soccer) and play with toy cars. He is reserved around the other kids and does not really interact with kids besides his siblings. He is really kind and gentle with his siblings and they all seem to have a good relationship and do not fight with each other. Even though Israel seems to be shy, he is one of the first to come to El Bichito and one of the last to leave, so we think that he really enjoys coming.
