Days at the Children's Home

As a family, we are trying to spend two days a week at the Children's Home. This week it was Thursday and Friday. Oralia and Sebastian and their four children live at the Home. There are two other workers, Lita and Zoila. Everyone is supposed to get one day off a week. Oralia and Sebastian take Wednesdays (if they can), Zoila takes Thursdays and Lita takes Fridays. The issue is that the workload does not change when someone has the day off. There are still meals to prepare and clothes to wash and babies to take care of. We decided that going on Thursdays and Fridays may be when we can help the most by stepping in when someone has a day off.

Our main goal is to work. Don tries to help Sebastian with whatever project he is working on. On Thursday, they replaced a piece of plywood on a ceiling in a bodega (storage room). The roof was leaking somewhere and the wood was all rotted and moldy. They took down the old and cut a new one then hung it back up. On Friday, they were working on a planer that Sebastian uses to do woodworking. Someone has asked Sebastian to make some furniture but he needs the planer working. Don and Sebastian discovered that they may need a very specialized part to get it working. They are going to ask some more questions and think about it.

My typical day at the Home is spent cutting vegetables in the kitchen for lunch or plucking the remaining feathers from a chicken. Then I help serve lunch to the kids and then to the adults. After lunch I try to help put away dishes that the older girls are washing. The next item is usually folding the mountains and mountains of laundry. It is alot of work for them to keep everyone fed and in clean clothes. One day, Oralia told me that she was cooking lunch for 38 people. Many of us have done something similar at holidays but this is every meal, every day. It has been fun to be helpful to them and while we are working, I have lots of opportunities to practice my Spanish. Yesterday I learned, "Estoy doblando mucha ropa" which means I am folding lots of clothes. I tell them that I can only handle a few "palabras nuevas cada dia" (new words each day).

Yesterday, when we arrived, the vegetables were already cut so I asked what work they had for me. They said that I could help make tortillas. I think they were thinking that I would not actually do it! They often feel uncomfortable with giving me work, especially Lita. I told them that I would try. They make hundreds of tortillas a day. I was, of course, very slow. I made about 1 to their 7, but by the end, mine looked very similar to theirs. Bethany tried her hand at a couple as well. It was very fun learning something new! Here are a couple pictures with Bethany and I making tortillas.