31-7-2012

My chicos doing exercise with me!

Anghello and Antoni are a lot more animated!

While waiting for lunch, my children all sat around me.

Lemar't leaning on me while waiting for lunch to be served.

Our lunch donated by a señora in town.   A lot more food than we normally get!

Claudio wanted more food, and there, I fed him.

Lemar't feeding Esmeralda, sharing his food.

Our sleepover night!

Jose Huari, Frank and me at the movie sleepover!

Nicolas, Kevin, Elvis and Nelson working hard on their project.

It has a such busy time, with 100 children and only 3 professionals in the field of psychology, there are so much needs in the home.  but I feel so good just being here, being the daddy of many many children, small ones and big ones.

In Casa San Francisco where I stay, the older boys and I have been much closer than ever.  They like showing me what they do, and now I do exercise with them daily.  They are very interested in learning kungfu stuff, but at the same time I explain to them how important it is to train other aspects like flexibility and cardiovascular strength.  

One day, Claudio called me “Papi!”, but then Lemar’t told me, “he is not your papi!  He is your tio Ryan!”  They just love to be hugged, and I love hugging them.

Leticia told me that the bullying from the pageant still affects her as a couple kids still don’t treat her very well.  I told her that it is their issues if they don’t treat you right.  You have done nothing wrong but did everything right.  Just believe in yourself and not to be affected by people who are negative.  It is a very strong issue for the children here to cope, and they need to learn to be strong and believe in themselves.

Last weekend it was the Peruvian Independence Day holiday, and all the workers were off, and we volunteers took over the houses and helped with them.  We did things fun like playing with them, watching TV, movie night with popcorn and followed by sleepovers.  And we got to give them a sense of responsibility that they needed to finish their chores before we did the fun things.  It was so much fun!

Next Saturday we will have a talent competition, and the kids are so excited about this!  They are working on their projects very hard, and often ask me to look at what they have done.  I feel so proud of them, and even the children who have a lot of problems are working really hard together!  I was so touched to see them collaborate so well and do something so positive together.