Reporting Live from the Sala de los Voluntarios

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July 16th 2008

Published: July 16th 2008

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CrystalP

Jose and Vasquez

Two of my kinder kids

That's "Reporting Live from the Volunteers Living Room" for those non-spanish speakers. The move went really well. We all got here and were told to work it out amongst ourselves as to which room (more like fort) that we wanted. I got a pretty nice sized one with a desk in it which was really quite a score. We basically are in a large room seperated from eachother by lockers and sheets. Don't worry I've taken lots of pictures of everything including my section (not all of them yet, but I'm working on it). Make sure you look at page 2 so you can see the pictures of where I live. And YEAH, thats right MY section. I have officially taken up the post of kinder which are the babies-6 year olds. I love all of them already. It's really a great fit for me. Also kinder gets the most donations since they are just so damn cute so the place where they live is pretty big and they have lots of toys. It's pretty damn cool.
Saturday we moved and just kind of moved in for the day and got settled. Not very exciting in terms of blogging but exciting

My Section Leader and Bebe

This is my section boss who I love already and the baby of the house: Marisol. She's a handful but she's just so smart. She can do puzzles that the 5 year olds can't.

for me. Sunday was "Dia de los Visitas" which is a big deal in the house because its when all the kids who have family members come visit them. It was pretty nuts and it lasted all day. Yeah, not all of the kids get visitors but in an attempt to make them feel somewhat better we take them to the waterpark tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about that. There is this legendary battle of volleyball between the volunteers and the directors that I'm really looking forward too. We also got a supply of sweet NPH polo shirts so we all feel official and important. There are six colors: one for every day of the week and then Sundays we don't have to wear one unless it's a big event day in which case we weat the white one again. What colors are there you ask? Black, Blue, White, Green, Beige, and Red and in that order starting with Saturday I believe. As for my day to day schedule it looks like this for summer:
8:00- Arrive in Kinder
8:30- Breakfast
9:00- 1:30 Playing and Games with Kinder
1:30- 2:00 Taekwondo with Kinder
2:00- Lunch
3:00- 6:00 Help out with Sports

Jose

One of my kinder kids- when ever he sees me he sprints at me and gives me a huge hug- it's pretty much the greatest thing ever

Activites with the older kids
7:00 Dinner
8:00- 9:30- Soccer Tournament

Basically I'm in kinder for the morning and then in the afternoon I play sports with the older kids as you can see. For the summer they don't need any help in kinder in the afternoons and they need us to get the older kids into the sports. And I mean we play...hardcore. Today it was all Ulitimate Frisbee which I did with the middle school girls. It was so much fun- but it's so hot and tiring. I mean seriously we all sweat buckets. Yesterday it was basketball and volleyball. I can pretty much go where ever I want to help out but I think I'm going to stick with Ultimate Frisbee. In general, the kids are just great and I really feel like they are starting to take to me so thats exciting. The soccer tournament is really intnese. It's for the older kids and they are really into it so it's awesome to watch. Now once school starts back up down here I will be in kinder all day and these fun activities of course stop happening everyday. I'm liking the activities for now as

Juan

One of my kinder kids- the oldest in the seccion and I call him Mono (monkey) because he's always climbing on me and he can eat like 3 bananas in one sitting.

they are a really good way to get to know the kids. I'm going to have trouble with names for a while as there are 800 of them and 1 of me and I stick out since I'm a white girl, but I think I'm doing pretty well. Now I'm off to get some tacos because I've found that every few days I need to go out and get some protein or I start not feeling so well. I hope all is well back in the states and I will continue with the updates as I can. As you can see my days are pretty full and I"m loving it- but you better believe I sleep like a baby. Just for your update: it's day 15 and I'm still not sick!

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