Incan Ruins

These past days have been crazy! Every day that passes I love this place more and more. First of all: Casas is a mad house now. In the past week the number of kids almost doubled! We now have little Daniel, Karlita, and her sister Maria Jasmine. All the kids are the cutest little angels and I am uploading pics on imgur while I´m typing. If you still don´t have the imgur username and password just ask in the comments. I´ve learned to love these kids so much just by working with them seeing them through a perspective of service. If you change someone´s diaper just the right amount of times it´s impossible not to love them. 

The whole schedual right now is becoming a great daily routine. My alarm goes off at 6:20 then I wake up at 6:45. The bus leaves for my first shift at 7 then depending on the location I feed the kids, brush their teeth, and bring them outside for an activity. After that I basically hold them off until papilla, or snack, then more acctivities and lunch. Then at noon the bus takes us home to lunch and we leave again at 2 for afternoon shift.  In afternoon shift you work activities with the kids until pretty much dinner, then you leave for home around 6. 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, with three off shifts makes about a 50 hour work week. 

Recently the family went out zip lining in the mountains and toured the museum with some incan ruins out behind the banco central. The pictures are below.  I won´t bore you with a long story and instead just title the pictures!

A parrot that lives out in an aviary hidden in the bank gardens.

Didn´t know why but I took a pic... no real story.

The fountain between el Banco Central and el Museo.

The hillside that leads to the Native American gardens.

Una vaca... what else is there to say? (He´s not stray, this one is on a leash)

Brothers

The view from the mountains.

Some weird native tree.

The view from behind the bank.

After Zip Lining.

While Zip Lining.

Ecuador.

Houses

Car wash by the river,

yep.

Befor zip lining.

A house.

If you look closely, you can see the basketball court also has futbol goals and a volleyball net.

Yep. thats it.

Low Gas Prices

So I wasn´t sure what to write about and I even decided not to write yesterday because I just didn´t feel like it. But today is Sunday, and on Sundays we all get together and have a devotional. Today the message was in the song: I am a Child of God. there is a line in the song that goes something like

¨Thank thee for this earthly home with parents kind and dear.¨

The question that came to my mind, and the others, was why don´t these children have these amazing blessings that we are given? Why does God give one of his children more than an other? God gives his children these blessings so they can act as family for those children without parents kind and dear. The children here look to us as family. We are their family and I´m glad I have the oppurtunity to show them that Christ and I both love them so much. I have a new apreciation for this hymn, number 220. I love verse 3:

I would be my brother's keeper;
I would learn the healer's art.
To the wounded and the weary
I would show a gentle heart.
I would be my brother's keeper-
Lord, I would follow thee.

Love and miss you guys! Good luck to those starting school! See you guys in 6 weeks! Oh, yeah, and gas is a dollar a gallon here.

Truckin´ by the dozen

The rule for trucks in Ecuador is that you can drive as many as you can fit. So today I saw a family of 12 all piled in the back of a pick up. The driving laws here are crazy, it feels as if everytime we bus over to the orphanage we have a near death experience. for example today we crossed over the double yellow heading straight into incoming trafic because the bus in front of us was going to slow for the drivers taste. But we always make it there. At least we have every day so far!

This past week I was made site leader for Casas! I´m super excited! That means I am in charge of telling the  other volunteers about what´s going at the site, make goals for the volunteers and the kids, and make sure everything goes smoothly there. It also means I work at the site at least 5-6 shifts a week (around 20-25 hours) and I go on all the field trips with them. Basically the best job ever. Over the past week 4 new kids have come to Tadeo (the building with both Casas & Cunas), which is very out of the ordinary. A newborn baby was brought into Cunas, and they today named her Maria del Cisne. Three new kids were put into Casas last night! They were apparently taken from their homes by the governmnent, which is usualy for the kids safety. I get to meet them tomorrow in my morning shift. The past couple days I´ve spent my time in in the OSSO houses, where most of the children are handicapped. I learned something important there: 

¨The kids aren´t messy eaters, I´m just a messy feeder.¨

You can quote me on that. I felt like this idea applied to more than just feeding. The more you get to know the  kids the more you learn what they need most and what you can do to make their time here more worth it, to make their life less of a messy bib and more of a nurturing experience. Some people just need to be fed diferently. Christian from OSSO Alegria has autism and doesn´t get along well with the other kids; he doesn´t quite understand why he can´t just take toys from other people and why he can´t hit kids to get what he wants. But the other day when volunteering I noticed he calmed down when he found some puppets and was lining them up into shapes. He was very focused and proud of what he had made. The next time I went over,  I ¨fed¨ him deferently. I brought him some building blocks, gave most of them to him, and the others to the smaller kids so they wouldn´t try and steal the new toys. Christian spent almost the whole time making towers as tall as he could, making sure they were the same deminsions all the way up. He didn´t run around hurting the others anymore. I hope that I, and whomever else that reads this, can, when we meet someone new or diferent we can learn how to treat them in a way that brings out the best in them or in us. Some people need to be treated diferently, and when they are, they become a new person that we can´t even recognize anymore. I´ve had it happen so many times down here and I hope I learn more from these kids throughout my next 6 weeks. Love you guys!

Stray cow

So I finally came up with a system for titling my posts. I'm just gonna pick the weirdest thing I've seen that day or the day before and use that as my title. And yes I saw a stray cow walking through one of the neighborhoods here.

Anyways these past days have been crazy. It's an experience where the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. It is hard for me to imagine that I've already spent a week here. I love it so much here and I love the kids. These past 2 days I've been working in OSSO Alegría, where the younger kids are. As soon as you walk in it becomes a mad house. Kids are crying right and left and it's your job to make sure that they aren't. On the bus ride home after my first 5 hour shift I was wondering why I was even here the work was so hard. But when I went back later I was reminded why: these kids, when they are cared for become some of the happiest people you've ever seen, and they rub off on you. It's impossible not to feel amazing when you're helping Pablito walk around on his feet. You can't be mad at Dominica when all she wants is to sit on your lap while you help the other kids. These kids are so precious and I hope I can learn from them and become happy for the little things, like the spirit that cones from service. Yesterday I got to take Marcelo and Edison to church, and even though I couldn't understand much of what the speakers were saying I was glad I could take someone who normally wouldn't have the chance to a place where they could feel the spirit. I just love being here and I can't wait to work tomorrow. I miss all of you and love you all!

Also: I've got a drawing that Marcelo did on my iPod of me. I though it was pretty cute. I'll also upload some other pics but if you want to see pics of the kids you need to message me privately and I'll give you access to an imgur account with pics.

The view from our casa.

Another pic of the view.

I guess I kinda overdid it...

Yep. For sure.

A pic of all the produce they have at the fruit market.

Sketchy baggage claim.

This is what Marcelo thinks I look like.

Looking out the car window

From the OSSO house to the orphanages there is a 20 minute drive through lawless roads con loco drivers, and one thing I've noticed is that if you pay close attention while looking out the window you will see some pretty crazy things. 2 days ago I saw a dog looking in display cases at a pharmacy, except there was no one else in the store and he was intently staring at one thing, as if he was trying to decide wether or not to buy it. Yesterday I saw a man cooking a whole pig over a fire then scraping off all the black ash so there was no hair on it when he took his first bite. To top that off I saw a white horse today. In the middle of the city. Walking around on a soccer field. Completely alone. Things are so different here it blows me away sometimes.

Other than that the last 2 days have been so busy. I got put in Casas all day yesterday and I got so tired at the end of the day, especially since they don't speak any english. But it's such an amazing job and it's impossible not to love these kids, there so cute! I have some pictures online and if u want to see I can message you my imgur username and password. I made an account especially for this. This morning I finally got to visit Cunas, where the babies stay. Today I changed more diapers than I have in my entire life. But I still very much enjoyed it. José Luis started walking this week and he is the cutest thing. He is so proud of it and I wish you could all see his little smile after taking his steps, I love them all so much. And can't wait to go back tomorrow.

So this afternoon I went out to buy food at the fruit market and me and Zach made a passion fruit smoothie, it was awesome but I started thinking that I really miss American food. So in the next couple days could you eat something American for me and tell me all about it? I love Phil's, In n Out, and anything that includes muchos carne! I would much appreciate it! Love you guys!

First day on the job and also first time realizing I'm using way too many firsts in my titles!

I've been here for 2 days but it feels like I've been here a week. I love it so much here! Last night in "casas" (ages 2 to 10) I got to meet Maria, Mercy, Linda, Carlitos, Christian, Dilan, and Wilson, basically the cutesy children ever to have lived. Mercy during dinner (I don't eat with the orphans but I help them eat) gave me her food and told me "Corta! Corta!" but I pushed it back explaining that I would eat later. 3 seconds later I remembered that corta meant "cut" and she was asking me to cut her meat... I also spent a good 25min singing to Maria today. These orphans are so happy and it's so hard telling them no to anything! I don't know how the nuns can be strict when the kids are so adorable. Yesterday I also worked in "Casa Esperanza" where all of the children are severely handicapped. Esperanza is such a perfect name for that place because all the children are so happy and hopeful. Lucy is a girl in a wheelchair who doesn't talk at all but she loves being pushed around the courtyard. You can tell because when you do her mouth turns into an enormous smile. If you work hard enough you can get her to laugh which is one of the most precious things ever. I'm having an awesome time and can't wait to start work in the morning! By the way I was thinking if you want to know anything specific about here just leave a comment and I'll answer it in my next post. Also I am gonna start an album on imgur but it's going to be private because of Ecuadorian law. If you want a URL or password just comment and I'll message you privately. Love and miss you all!

First night!

After 2 days of travel I am finally in Cuenca! The country is so beautiful. The city is basically a colorful array of buildings built right into the mountains. I wish I could post pix, but still pictures would hardly do it justice. The sunrise this morning made it look like the city was on fire, it was so beautiful. Today we went and visited the city and also the OSSO orphanages. The city is awesome and the children are precious. Most of the children have disabilities and need to be wheeled around, but are always happy and super excited to do activities. Tomorrow I get to work in "Casa Esperanza," and my job will be to assist the tías in taking care of the couple orphans there by dressing them, brushing their teeth, feeding them breakfast, then do physical therapies to keep them developmentally on track. First day on the job starts in 6 hours. Wish me luck!

First Post!

Hey so it's Jérémie from San Diego and tomorrow I leave for Ecuador to work in an orphanage for 2 months. I'm gonna post here a couple times a week to share what it's like and some thoughts and impressions from working with the kids. I hope it becomes interesting and thoughtful and a place where I can still connect with people back home.

I would also love it if people would comment on things! I miss you guys and would love to talk!