Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Los Niños

Another day of work completed, and we can really see a bunch of houses taking shape. The activity around the site is incredible and its been fun to work with the masons. The mason on the house I worked on, Fernando, is both a wonderful craftsman and a patient teacher. He has taken Steve under his wing and trusts him to lay block on his own without much supervision. Its been awesome to watch the two of them bond.

I will post more about this later after I can process a little more, but we visited an orpahnage this afternoon run by the same order of nuns that Mother Teresa belonged to. They care for 51 children around three and under. We spent about 1.5 hours with them, just playing with them and loving them. Some of them just soaked it up, and wanted nothing more than to be hugged and held.

One girl and I bonded quickly and I spent the bulk of the time with her. Even though I asked several people to help me, I never understood her name. She was three years old and beautiful, with shoulder-length hair and sparkling brown eyes. I sat with her along with some others drawing pictures, which started with a caballo (horse), moved to a perro and gato (dog and cat), and ended up being a portrait of the whole family. I also showed them photos of everyone.

But when finally we had to leave, it was hard to say goodbye. As the leader, I was the last one out the door, and she came to me and took my hand and held on while I tried to leave. I tried twice to leave and she held on, but finally I had to go. My heart is still heavy as I write this. What will become of her, I wonder...and I pray the good sisters will continue to care well for her and the 50 others...

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