a busy week and some good news

it´s been a crazy week and a half at the hogar. the head couple (full time honduran couple) had to leave for a family emergency which left the volunteers working double time without breaks. everything has gone pretty well, and the kids have been cooperative - so although we´re tired, it´s worked out just fine (slash: i need a vacation)

to update you on santos - his operation went well, and he´s now up and about as normal. he definitely milked the situation for all it was worth for as long as he could - sleeping in the volunteer room and getting as much extra attention as possible. the night before we went to the hospital he was knocking on our door at 2am crying and saying he was afraid. so we dragged a little mattress into our room and had him sleep with us. this wasn´t enough, however, as he kept us up saying ´tia alison, i want to sleep in your bed, i´m scared´. i finally conceded to lay on the floor with him til 5am, when we had to get up. he then repeated the same routine with the other volunteers the two following nights. (but i figure that every kid should have the chance to sleep with a parent figure when they are scared, and for the most part the children here don´t have that opportunity.) it was cute when we returned from the hospital - all the children crowded around the car then ran through the halls saying ´they cured santos!´.

other great news - my childhood (and my parent´s) church in kelowna recently raised a very generous sum of $ to completely correct the plumbing at the orphanage. this is going to make a huge difference to cleanliness and hygeine at the hogar. it´s something that has been needed for a long time - but was much to costly to fix with the lack of funds the organization currently has.
so to the donors at st. david´s church in kelowna -
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

photos

i've uploaded a few more photos onto flickr (the link is in the right column on this page). there's more pics of the kids from the hogar and from the campesino project - solares nuevos - that i work at.

all about santos

this is santos. santos is my sponsor child. he has 2 older brothers and 2 older sisters here at the orphanage. as you can see he marches to the beat of a different drummer... as do many of the kids at the hogar de amor.

sometimes when i look at him, all gangly in his flood pants and his short cropped hair, i think he could be in an 80's pop band.

the two of us have taken some time to develop a relationship, as he's kind of a solitary guy. he's also a little delayed for his age (he just turned 6) and isn't as out going as some of the other kids here.

that being said - we have had some opportunities to figure eachother out. his birthday was in october, so i brought him into town to go to pizza hut and then pick out a gift. he chose bright blue imitation crocs (shoes) and a beach set (plastic shovels, bucket etc.) unfortunately it's the rainy season, so he'll have to wait a while before he can make use of it. [the picture here is him trying on soccer socks and shoes that mary(volunteer) and her mom donated for the kids.]

on friday santos has an appointment to get minor surgery done. we went in on monday to the swiss hospital in la cieba to make the appointment, and in 2 days he'll have an embillical (sp?) hernia removed. this hospital does these procedures for free for people in need, and right now there is a team of surgeons here for a short time volunteering. i've been hoping this could get done since i first arrived here, so this is pretty exciting. i can't tell if he's nervous or not, he's been pretty mellow about the whole thing. the other kids are quite interested and excited about it - but that's the way it always is with santos... the most exciting thing could be happening to him, and he just floats around as cool as a cucumber as the other kids around him freak out and ask a million different questions.

as tyler (one of the other volunteers) always says: "santos, you're so cool..."