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Tadeo Torres
I work in a windmill! Well I'm past the halfway mark and realised I haven't actually written anything about where I work. When I say realised I of course mean am reminded of that fact at every possible opportunity by certain people who are stuck in England with nothing better to do than check my blog all the time!
Ok, my week days are as follows - Adinea from 8.00am until 12.30pm followed by Tadeo Torres from whenever we get there til whenever everything's finished.
Adinea is a disabled school about fifteen minutes walk from where we live in Cuenca. I have no idea how many kids there are as I'm still discovering new classes (One of which I walked in on trying to take a short cut back from the kitchens today actually) There is absolutley no rhyme or reason as to how the classes are set out or indeed to the kids and teachers themselves most of the time. Apart from the pre-school kids the other classes seem to be randomly arranged with no regard for age or, particularly, ability. I'm in a class of nine kids ranging from the youngest at eight to fifteen.
The school also contain kitchens
Sleeping like a baby
Proof that we do work hard! and workrooms (where the disabled adults work), art rooms, physiotherapy, a doctors, dentists, library, computer rooms, art rooms as well as the language and recreational therapy section. Sounds incredibly posh but some of the kids are actually really poor. I still haven't quite figured out whether it's state run or private but I'm assuming state as they get subsidised uniforms and a meal everyday. The school has their own garden and produces a lot of the food as well as making handmade paper which is sold and used to subsidise the school slightly.
School always starts with the Lord's Prayer (which me and Lou have just about mastered in Spanish) along with the National Anthem on Mondays and a lot of random singing (preparation for Dia de la Madre celebrations.) Classes vary although mine seem to only manage a number a week and even then have forgotten it by then next week. Getting one girl to write the number seven for three days straight only to fnd she can't do it on the fourth is slightly fustrating to say the least but they all have the most gorgeous smiles you can't get annoyed. Deciding what day and date it
is can easily take half an hour each morning as can finding out if they actually have their homework with them (let alone if they've actually done it!)
Snack is at ten which is actually a full meal followed by washing up (always involving me getting soaked with freezing water) and break where the girls drag you mercilessly around and make you play made up card games which you always lose (surprise, surprise!) and the boys roll truck tyres around. No idea why - don't ask! Usually some sort of art until 12.30pm which again involves me getting covered in something or else threading a needle for the same child over and over after every stitch as they can't understand how to hold it to prevent the wool coming out. The only interruption to this routine occurs when one of the kids decides they don't want to do somehting (believe me, this happens a lot!) The most memorable occasion being when Jessica decided not to return to the classroom but to run away outside with me and Lou giving chase. After running outside and trampling the vegetable garden she somehow managed to scale a roof-high fence and carry on
round to the front of the school. Lou followed while I went round to corner her. In the end we had to physically drag her along the corridor (my personal theory as to why the corridors aren't carpeted), down the steps and back to the classroom where my teacher just looked vauguely surprised and asked 'Didn't she want to come?' Probably get fired if you tried something like that in England but that's one of the things I love here. The kids will just launch theselves at anyone when they want a hug and there's no ridiculous worry about the teachers touching the kids.
All the children are so physical although this entails being punched as well as hugged,as Lou found out early on when she tried to take scissors away from a girl who was trying to cut her hair and got punched in the face for her trouble.
We go home for lunch and then our 'dad' drops us halfway to the orphanage as it's on his way to work and we catch the bus the rest of the way. Tadeo Torres has recently moved and is now in a windmill (of course!) and is
run by a group of Italian nuns who are brilliant with the kids. Both Lou and I work in 'cunas' (cots) with the youngest kids whilst Bel works in 'casas' with the two to six year olds. There are fourteen kids in total in cunas (I think about 40 in the whole place), the three youngest were only three months old when we arrived and are in the baby room. The other eleven are between a year and two years. The four oldest (Carlos, Jose Maria, Alexandra and David) are moving up to casas at the end of the month as they are two now and are decidedly not happy about it!
Unlike Adinea the day follows exactly the same format every day (poor kids), we arrive and start to feed at three. Get through them quickly if the American volunteers are there and if the kids are behaving but when the other volunteers have their days off, it's just me, Lou and fourteen toddlers! Food is always colada for lunch and a bowl of soup followed by colada for dinner. Colada is some sort of disgusting fattening, sweet thing which some of the Americans actually like to eat
Jessica, Iñes and Nataly
Three of the kids in my class which is a little odd to say the least! Then back to cunas to change nappies (again a bit of a conveyer belt process), then on with shoes and into the playroom where the majority just fight over the new rocking horses (and duck) they've just been given or just aimlessly wander around to the strains of the most annoying children's tape (in Spanish) I have ever heard. I think the lyrics are even more inane than English songs and that's saying something! At least we now have a choice of two CDs - it was the same twenty tracks for the first two months non-stop and I actually went a little insane.
Second feeding time at the zoo is a 4.45pm but always takes longer as the kids are usually grouchy by this time. Back to change nappies once again before getting them into their sleepsuits (no mean feat when most of them have figured out how to get them off, some even when they're on back-to-front!) Then the highlight of the day - teeth brushing which always involves being kicked in the stomach. By this time they're either crying or asleep so we can say goodnight to
them all and make a quick exit! The kids are Carlos, Ali, David, Jose Maria (who are all moving up to casas soon), Fonzie (Alfonso), Raoul, Junior, Andrea, Cinthia (who was very premature and absolutley tiny but is finally walking!), Mirian and Ana Elisa.
Of course, at the orphanage, we sometimes get roped into peeling beans (for the soup) for an hour and a half as I did one memorable afternoon or, more often, painting. Every wall in the place needs to be covered with some sort of mural apparently and it's down to the volunteers to draw and paint all of these. Or, you can get stuck in the baby room as they have to have someone with them all of the time. They are put on mattresses on the floor for the day and once they're all asleep there is nothing to do - I actually fell asleep on the mattresses with them once! Very cute though, girls are Daniela and Fernanda (or Tarzan hair as she's more commonly known) and Santiago (who was found aged twelve days old in a bin!) We're currently trying to train the babies how to sit up. This involves propping them
up whilst they wear the most ridiculously oversized woolly hats as padding in case they topple back over (which of course they alwasy do!) Very cute to watch though!
We usually manage to leave the orphanage at 5.30pm on a good day and gone 6 on a not so good one and flop absolutely exhausted onto the bus. Sadly, not allowed to put photos of the kids on the internet as a lot have been taken away from their parents.
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Wahid
non-member comment
Hi Kat!!
Hi Kat! Nice to see where you work. I love the windmill. Keep up the good work. Love wahid