15-1-2011

Claudio has grown so much! He´s so animated now, and literally too as he has a cartoon voice!

Julio loves to drink water from my bottle!

Jenny always carries the sweetest smile.

Lemar´t holding a bunch of newspapers.

A group of American students came and spent a week with the kids. We went water rafting together.

Francesco showed me his drawing proudly.

Kevin and me, and Carlos Torres without his head. LOL

Lemar´t and Francesco played doctor at therapy.

It´s Francesco´s turn to be the doctor.

Jhosmelyr and Jenny played tea party at therapy. They were so loud! haha

Now I´m like running towards the finish line. Everything seems to work very well, and looking back it has been such a valuable experience. It is almost like we fought and worked so hard last year, and things got paid off now. The new volunteers arrived last weekend, and I happened to be in Lima and so I came back with them. They are adapting so well as everything is so much more organized this year, and so many things have changed in a positive way that they are really getting into the home and their work. I really hope they would enjoy this coming year.

Although it would be nice to go home and resume some normality in life, I will have a hard time leaving here. Things are so much better now, I adapted and integrated quite well here and everything seems running like a well-oiled machine. But the most difficult part was to leave behind the kids. I just couldn´t imagine myself leaving right now. The day when I came back from my weekend off with the new volunteers, while everyone went to the dining room for dinner immediately after receiving them, I went to my room and dropped off my bags. I passed by kínder´s room, and I heard someone crying inside and so I immediately went in to see what happened. It was Lemar´t who cried and I figured that he had a bad dream. So I comforted him and hugged him tightly. I then took him to the bathroom as he wanted to pee. We saw different types of insects in the bathroom and he started to feel more relaxed. Tía Laly came in shortly, and I told her what happened, but she told me that Lemar´t had been looking for me all weekend, and he had had bad dreams when I was away. It really broke my heart and I almost burst into tears everything I thought about it.

Francesco has always been very special to me as I spent quite a bit of time with him when he first arrived. He is really sweet to me, and he acts like a baby when he´s around me. Last week we had our last party for the holiday season, and they got more candies and treats like that. I was sitting next to him, and suddenly he fed me with his biscuits and candies. It was so sweet, and he is indeed a very wonderful kid that I will always treasure in my heart. Yesterday he did some drawing, and he ran to me after he´s done and showed me what he drew. I encouraged him and told him that his drawing was very beautiful. He giggled and ran to do another drawing. His voice is almost cartoon like when he giggles, and I feel so good when I see him building positive habits and higher self-esteem. It will be super hard to leave him too!