Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Day 2

Today began in the foundation when I was waiting for Uri outside the building and a women came to me asked if I too worked there. I told her I was only a volunteer but she was desperate to be heard so began telling her story. She was hoping that we would accept two children 11 and 10, the oldest of a family of 7 whose mother recently died. She had been told that all the places were already taken. The school allocates 20 places for students who are recommended, that is, they are friends or family of other students or have heard about it and come to ask for a place. However, we also have places for children that our found working on the street during Operacion Amistad. As she told her story she began to cry, she was so desperate to help these children and the foundation was her only option. Luckily, Uri, who I admire greatly, came up with a solution. She told the women where and at what time to find us in the streets. If the children show up on Monday and participate, they will have the same chance as all the others. Thank goodness she came when she did because my Spanish was not going to get me through that situation.

At Peca we encountered much of the same as yesterday, mainly Bonice boys and a few boys who we hadn’t seen yesterday.
Before we left we made a house call to the mother of one of our students who we had heard was unwell. We walked through rocky muddy streets till we came to a three story caña house and yelled up to announce our visit. We were warmly welcomed into a room where we sat on the only chairs in the house. A brief chat was enough for me to realise she truly appreciated the help of Uri and even asked her to read her eldest sons report card as she had had difficultly reading the teachers handwriting. We said our goodbyes and not long later we headed to the second zone, Alborada.

We quickly found the same two boys washing windscreens but now they were accompanied by an older girl, obviously dealing with the money as she wore a bumbag, (fannypack). The girl from yesterday was not there, perhaps because there was an adult mine who was stealing most of the limelight. As we sat there, Uri recognised the girl. It was a much older Matilde, she had taken part in operation amistad in a previous year. We approached them and quickly discovered they were siblings, Roberto 10, Carlos 12 and Matilde now 14. Carlos, who had obviously heard about the foundation before was so excited and couldn’t wait to start. We told them we would be back to play games on Monday and asked them to bring any other children they knew that might be interested. We said our goodbyes but Carlos was so excited that when he saw us waiting for the bus he came to chat some more. As we chatted he told us they hadn’t come to the school last time because thier parents hadn’t allowed it. They are a familiy of ten!
Uri probed with questions about where they live because she fears that the father may change their location so that they can’t participate. If this happened she wants to try to make contact. I really hope to see them tomorrow because they are really sweet kids and want desperately to come to the foundation.

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