FIESTA!!

Friday, July 24, 2009 (Day 14):

I always love Fridays! My mom hid some cards in my suitcase and I found them on the first night. Each envelope has a different date at the top for when I am to open a card and read it. Each card has a Friday date, so I look forward to Fridays when I get to read a card!

Today was such a fun day!!! When we got to the home, we noticed all the little girls were not out. We only had the older ones greet us. Once inside the courtyard, we noticed the door to the little girls room was closed. We decided that we were going to wake them. It ends up that they were awake, they just had not come outside yet. Another odd thing we had noticed when we got there were the extra adults wandering around. Come to find out, the home was hosting a retreat in their little chapel. Sadly, some of the older girls have been booted from their beds for these people on the retreat. After hanging out for a while, some playing volleyball, me teaching little girls how to knit, we decided to try to play a game that wouldn't disturb the retreat. We went inside one of the little classrooms and started playing "Heads up, Seven up." It was a little difficult trying to translate the game, but we made do. The older girls understood, but the younger ones didn't quite understand that you only push one thumb down. We still enjoyed our time playing the game. After that, Julie finished the story of David and then the girls made little castles for their craft. While Julie was telling the story, she would ask questions to make sure they remembered the first part of the story. They certainly did. Julie went round taking pictures of the girls castles, which I have included for your enjoyment. These castles were amazing. Julie and Allie decided to have a competition on who had a better castle. They were adding trees, cars, kings, fences, etc. I think they were having a little too much fun with the craft :)

A lady here in Peru is gracious enough to make us sack lunches everyday. Most days are ok, however, today's meal was not so great. She made these two sandwiches that we were really unsure of and we got papaya as one of our fruits. I realized that I didn't like papaya last week in Cusco. I got it one morning for breakfast thinking it was cantelope. Not so much. None of us really wanted our sandwiches or papaya, so we convinced a few of the girls to come sit with us. We gave them our leftovers, but told them it was a secret. This one little girl scarfed the food down. She probably ate her body weight. It was so sad to see. We were so happy to feed them, but also sad to see how hungry they are. Once we finished with our lunch, the girls had not eaten their lunch yet. The people there for the retreat were being fed first. This kind of irritated a few of us. Plus, we noticed how much food the people on the retreat were being served. We were all about to throw a fit if all the food we had just bought was being used to serve the retreat people. However, we did find out that the people on the retreat paid for the food, so everything we bought for the girls was still going to the girls. That made us feel much better.

After lunch time, we did our program with the older girls. I actually jumped on the trampoline with the little ones. Meredith and I were keeping them entertained. They decided to play, "Pero, Pero, Gato." As we were playing, they would throw in the Spanish word for bunny. Meredith and I just went along with everything and laughed. After a while, they gave up and wanted to jump, so we did! While the older girls were working on their crafts, I noticed one of the girls had "I love God with all of my heart and my friends from Texas." I about fell out of my seat. I thought that was the coolest thing. She had one of the girls write what she was saying in English, so she could put that on her castle. I have included a picture of that one too! As the older girls were working on their crafts, we surprised them with our little party. We started handing out coke, cookies, cheetos and candy. The younger ones were still eating lunch. Once they found out about the goodies, they made sure they got some too! The girls were very excited about their treats.

After we sugared the girls up, we played games with them. I played volleyball with one of them for a while, and then one of the girls from Spain came up with an idea to play this game where there are two teams and you try to pass the ball to your team members 10 times without the other team getting the ball. We played that game for a long time and it was so much fun. You could tell the girls loved it. We liked it too. Gave us a little exercise! After that we played partner tag for a while. We ended up staying 45 minutes later than we planned, but it was totally worth it! Once we got in the van to head back to the hotel, it wasn't long before everyone was asleep! Our drive is about an hour each way and every morning and evening, we all fall asleep.

It has been a great week at the home! Tomorrow is a big celebration for Mama Rita's birthday. Apparently we will be seeing some dances. I can't wait!

Thank you for all your prayers and support!

God Bless,
Dawn