A day in the life of a Volunteer Worker

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The day begins at 0642 when the alarm first goes off. It's quickly turned back off again and one of us drags ourself out of bed, searches for the keys, goes out, unlocks the gate to the girls' dorm (so that Antonia, the one high school student at the Hogar can leave for school which starts at 7am) knocks on the two dorm doors and shouts 'Buenos Dias' into each one, then blunders back into bed, resetting the alarm for 7 o'clock and goes back to sleep for 15 minutes!

At 7 o'clock we both drag ourselves out of bed to go and get the girls up properly and start them doing their chores. If we're really lucky a few girls will already be up and ready when we come out of our room but it usually takes a couple of visits to each dorm, some blanket tugging, and our first dose of patience to get them all out of bed at which point we can retreat back to our room to get ourselves dressed and ready for the day. The girls dont have to get themselves dressed because they sleep in the clothes they're going to wear the next day - I dont even find this weird or gross anymore - it's one less thing to tell them to do! The morning chores consist of sweeping and mopping each room, the corridor, the terrace and the stairs. Also the bathrooms have to be cleaned. Each of these jobs is assigned to one of the girls and our job is to make sure that they are done properly.

At about 0815 (after shouting about hair combing and bed making) we get the girls lined up for the first time in the day and take them downstairs. Forming them up is something the Mayora is very fond of so it happens a lot - otherwise there is apparently no order. I cant help thinking that life would be a LOT easier if we didnt have to spend about half an hour each day yelling 'UNO...DOS...TRES' over and over while they line up!

Once downstairs the kids have a little while to play, depending on if the boys are down yet or if the Teniente (Lieutenant) has come back with the bread yet etc. We normally try to start breakfast routine at around 0830. This consists firstly of getting them all formed up again, not always easy having to chase them round the slides and roundabouts - feel like I'm trying to herd naughty sheep into a pen! Once they're formed up and reasonably quiet they sing grace - 'Padre Nuestro' - Our Father to the tune of Frere Jaques, or 'Te Damos Gracias' - We give you thanks - to the tune of La Cucaracha! There are several! Then one of them has to pray - normally ends up being one who wasnt singing or paying attention. Then we can go into the dining hall. Breakfast consists of coffee and bread or cake, depending on what the bread shop gave us. The children sit at 7 tables, boys and girls separated and theyre arent allowed to switch tables. Only the head of the table is allowed to stand up and they have to bring more for the others and clear everything once they've finished. It's a constant battle to be always telling those who aren't head of the table to sit down, which is what we spend most mealtimes doing, along with hurrying people along with more chores.

Yes there are always chores to be done and these are usually the punishments we give them if they dont behave. Bad behaviour = drying the dishes, continued disobedience = drying all day or all week. I even threatened to make someone dry for a month once! Other chores to be done during breakfast time are the washing up, washing the pans, cleaning the kitchen and dining hall, sweeping the patio outside and finishing off anything that wasnt done before breakfast. Alix, the Teniente and I are there to supervise all of these jobs as well as making sure the kids dont just wander off, they're not making too much noise or running about, but also trying not to let them get TOO bored as they're not allowed out to play until all of the jobs are done.

From whenever the kids finish breakfast (about 0915) until 10 is their time to play. At this time Alix and I either go to the Mayores house to have breakfast if we didnt already eat with the kids, we go upstairs to calm down if we got angry during breakfast, or we go and play or chat with them. These kids can never get enough of UNO whihc is driving me MAD! I will be glad never to see another pack of UNO cards after I leave here because I'm just so bored of it! At least it keeps them occupied and mostly happy which is a very good thing! The kids dont like to play organised games really - as proved a few days ago when a group of girls came to play with the kids for an hour or so. They started trying to get them into groups but as soon as the kids realised they jkust wanted to play most of them just wandered off and went back to playing UNO or whatever they were doing before. I asked Louisa why she wasnt playing with them and she told me she didnt want to play kiddie games - she wasnt a kid (she's 11). I tried telling her that the girls were here to do whatever she wanted but she just ignored me. The only thing Louisa finds worth doing seems to be sitting in front of the TV watching mindless cartoons - same all over the world apparently. In fact the only thing these girls did that really seemed to provoke the kids interest was to bring with them a lot of sugar!!

Usually at about 10am we get the kids to make a start on their homework, if there are people visiting like the girls we maybe start a bit later but 10 is the goal anyway. Kids sit at the tables outside according to what year they're in at aschool with someone in charge of each table. Alix is in charge of the older boys in year 5 and I'm with about 15 kids who are all in year 3. The following 2 hours are always among the worst of the day. You would think that having them all sitting at one table, all doing the same thing wouldnt be too difficult - you'd be wrong! These kids do NOT enjoy doing their homework and will do whatever it takes not to do it. They are constantly running off, then I notice 5 minutes later that they're not there and have to shout at them to come back. I cant go over and get them because then the others run away and hide. Running away too often generally results in a very angry me, and lots of chores for the kid at lunchtime!
Another difficulty is that when the kids come to you to ask for help, they're not Really asking for help but asking you to do it for them - this is not helped by the fact that on several occasions the Teniente DOES do it for them so they expect it all the time. I have to also be on a constant watch for older siblings doing younger kids' work. So what I'm really saying is that an extra three pairs of eyes and another mouth would be very useful during homework time.
Occasionally when I do actually get to sit down and go through something with a kid it can be almost as frustrating as all the rest of it. Let's face it, theyre not the brightest children in the world. I dont know how many times I had to explain how to do 493 - 125 the other day, 'no, 3-5 is not 2!'. And after three weeks off school due to the swine flu half of them couldnt do any of the times tables and some of them didnt even know how to do additions!! Oh dear!
On the up side however we do occasionally have some fun during homework time - usually when I break the rules though. The Mayora says that if they arent given homework I should set them to writing out times tables or copying a story from their Spanish books - those days never turn out well so sometimes I just let them draw or write a story instead and those days turn out quite creatively! On Thursday they all made get well soon cards for Alix using some of the art things I was given by the craft shop in Kirrie. The whole thing turned out well and the kids were happily occupied until lunchtime and very excited about giving their cards to Alix - Achievement!

Midday is time for lunch so yup, you guessed it, time to form up again. Lunch time is very much the same as breakfast only with more food and therefore more mess and more washing up to be done. They generally eat some kind of meat (lots of chorizo and sausages), rice or pasta and tortillas and also beans or brocolli or nopales (cactus). Trying to make the older girls eat and not think they're fat and ugly has become almost a daily struggle which is crazy considering they're all absolutely beautiful! It is something we have to be very careful with though considering bulemia is something that several of them will and have resorted to!
Lunch is always a little more stressful as we're working against the clock to get everything done before school time. We normally get done at about 1315 at which point it's time to form them up again and get the girls upstairs to change into their school uniforms. This job has been made considerably easier now that Alix comes with me and the girls rather than going with the boys as she used to. It is also easier now that they are only in two bedrooms instead of three which means that one of us can be in each room with no need to walk around between them. The older girls are again the problematic ones here as they would rather sit and chatter than get changed (can't possibly do both at the same time). Alix and I have both been seen to throw a girl's bag out into the corridor and have her change there so that she can't talk with the others!
These girls also have something about their hair which doesnt allow them to spend any less that 10 minutes in the bathroom fussing over it, even if it looked perfectly fine before they even went in! There cant be a single hair out of place and it all has be stuck down with ludicrous amounts of sparkly gel!
At 1345 we get them formed up AGAIN to take them downstairs and get them onto the schoolbus ad gone, at which point we can finally relax!

Our afternoons, between 1400 and 1830 are fairly relaxed and uninteresting. We have lunch, check e-mails, read, chat, catch up on some sleep, shower and while away our time until the kids come back. If we're unlucky we'll end up stuck listening to one of the Mayora's endless monologues in which she repeats everything at least 3 times - that woman, as lovely as she is, does talk FAR too much!

The kids arrive back from school generally at some time between 1830 and 1900 and either have time to play - more UNO! or have a devotional. A devotional is like a short service usually run by the Teniente or the Mayor and generally involves the kids just sitting and listening to the bible or one of the Teniente's stories. Needless to say they get rather restless and try making mischief which is when they end up standing behing the Mayor in silence or being dragged around in a headlock by the Teniente - two fairly different approaches! The whole thing does seem rather pointless considering the kids dont listen and if they do listen they dont care. Alix and I generally find ourselves something else to be doing while this is going on so as not to end up being annoyed by something said, or to avoid being asked to pray in front of the kids which can result in a fairly awkward situation if we refuse!!

After or before the devotional/play time comes dinner - almost identical to breakfast, coffee and bread and occasionally some leftovers from lunch. The kids are generally over-excited and hard to control but at least we're not working against the clock this time so things can be a little more relaxed than at lunch time. On the other hand we're getting tired by then so it can be hard to stop yourself from overreacting to the little things that get on your nerves.
If there's time the kids go out to play again for a little while before it's finally time to take them upstairs again - yes that means forming up one more time!! Of course after playing they dont exactly want to form up, and the fact that it's dark by then doesnt help either so this usually takes the longest of all. I kept the older girls outside in the rai for more than 5 minutes the other day because they just wouldnt calm down and do what I said, so I just waited!

The night time is when the girls have their showers but Alix and I just give them the shampoo then close the gate and go down to have dinner - tired out after a long day. We have some cereal, perhaps watch a little tv and then back upstairs to make sure the little darlings are in bed - which of course they never are. Some nights are easy and they go to bed quickly and are quiet. Other nights we have to go out several times because they've turned the light back on and are shouting so off we go and threaten to wake them up at 5 in the morning (hasnt been done yet but there have been a few close calls). So the day finishes somwhere between 2215 and 0000 depending how long dinner/devotional/showers/shutting up takes ad this leaves us about enough time to brush our teeth, write our diaries, maybe chat a little bit and then set the alarm for 0642 and fall asleep ready for the next day.

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