New children
At the beginning of the month, we grab the chance to help four siblings, Sacha (8 years old), Keysha (6 years old), Tyrone (3 years old) and Maedelle (1 year old), who were in a miserable situation. They needed a home and we had fortunately the capacity to take them in. If we wouldn’t have reacted, they would have been homeless just the following day. Their mother was unable to pay the rent due to her unemployment which counted its fifth month. Due to the financial situation did the children also suffer from malnourishment which was clearly visible. Furthermore, were the children not attending school the whole past semester which was just one more factor to get us immediately active.
When children have to face such difficult circumstances we can’t look away, it always breaks our hearts seeing the children suffering under the immense struggle the parents are going through. As long as we have space within the secure walls of “yo quiero ser…”, we try our outmost to take them in and enable them to live a child worthy life.
When the two youngest arrived, we were in shock seeing their critical physical condition but short after we had to notice, that their mental state was equally alarming. The poor little children couldn’t get used to their new environment at first and were crying non-stop during the first few days. Something like that has never happened before and it required a lot of patience, affection and attentiveness from our staff
Meanwhile do Tyrone and Maedelle fit in as they always would have been with us. They seem to feel totally at home, very at ease and actually turned into two happy and giggly human beings.
José’s inguinal hernia
Our adorable whirlwind José, six years of age, suffered an inguinal hernia. Most likely it is due to his prematurity.
At the communal hospital, where the examinations took place, he received his appointment for the surgery only in October. Knowing José and his utterly lively personality, it wouldn’t have been a bearable situation for anyone. To keep him calm over five months, it would have been a thing of the impossibility. We had to come up with a solution and decided to have his surgery done at a private clinic where he was able to undergo the operation just the following day. Everything went very well and he was able to leave the hospital just hours after the surgery.
The paediatric surgeon has ordered one week bed rest and additional four weeks with no running, jumping and bike riding. Unfortunately, after a few hours he was running around alike are old whirlwind...
First flooding
The hurricane season starts always beginning of June and in a very timely manner it did indeed start raining heavily. The continuous rain is rather seldom and especially in this quantity, we were quite overwhelmed. The roof gutter of the Sala Cuna eventually flooded and all the water pushed through the roof onto the subjacent plasterboards. They soaked up everything until they became too heavy and broke into pieces. Luckily, it was only a material defect which was fixed within hours.
Baby clothing for the public hospitals
Since we do not have any babies at the moment at “yo quiero ser…” we decided to donate the clothes to public hospitals. After we gathered all the clothes, we were impressed by the number of boxes they filled.
The older girls helped our educator Karin to arrange all the items into small parcels consisting of clothes and underwear which were then wrapped into a bath towel.
We wanted our oldest girls to experience the reality of the public hospitals and therefore were they allowed to hand out the parcels within the different departments.
They were very shocked after seeing teenagers, the youngest one was only 12 years old, laying in their hospital beds next to a new born in utter pain and with ongoing heavy bleedings but they all have to leave the hospital within the same day. It was a very eye-opening experience.
High school festivity
The high school Madre Maria Luisa, Misioneras de la Caridad y Providencia, celebrates this year its’ 75 jubilees. A very nice mass with the bishop and different priests, including Edwing, has been organized at the
All the festivities took place a Saturday afternoon at the Club Arabe. Many local celebrities came along some politicans and in the middle of all this, there were Luz Marina and Jessica who presented a Chinese dance.
Visit from ROOM
For three days our local friends from Room came to visit us with a group from America. During the mornings they repainted the rooms from the boys house and during the afternoons they played with the children.
It is always a real pleasure to see how our children can communicate with our English speaking visitors even though they don’t master the language flawlessly. They are very eager to put their English skills into use and are always very positively surprised when they notice that this know-how enables them to communicate with people from around the world.
Weekend Camp
The organisation Carolina Cross Connection organized once again the weekend camp in Peña Blanca. From our children home were 14 teenagers invited to participate from Friday till Sunday in their camp alongside other kids from different children homes, some American friends and a group from CCC.
Within small groups did the children discuss and scrutinize different topics which were afterwards presented to the other children. After all this hard work were they allowed to jump in to the swimming pool for a well-deserved cool down.
In the evening were the teenagers gathered around a bonfire where they sang songs and got the chance to form friendships. During these three days they were able to form very genuine and deep rooting friendships.