Community Service

Lunes, 21-Julio-2014

El Tambo Soup Kitchen

After living here for a couple weeks, I feel as though I'm part of the daily hustle and bustle. We've been given so many wonderful opportunities in this city and wanted to give back by volunteering. Natalia found a soup kitchen in El Tambo that serves breakfast and lunch for 1 sole. 

The type of people who come into the soup kitchen are peddlers; they are the shoe shiners, ice cream sellers, and bicycle fruit stand drivers. It's amazing how much food these wonderful people can get at such a low cost thanks to the government setting up the soup kitchen. We arrived right after the breakfast rush and so we helped with cleanup and turnover to get lunch started. 

The very first thing I noticed was how smoky it was inside. This is because the wood burning stove is inside the main room! It was difficult to be in there for long periods of time. 

Morgan, Aaron, Lauren, and I helped the lady prepare lunch by chopping vegetables, plucking two chickens, and stirring the giant pots. It was a lot of work and I'm not sure how the lady does everything by herself everyday!

Lunch was served around 11:30am and we helped to collect the money and serve the food. There were two options for lunch: for 1 sole you can get the vegetarian option and for 1.50 soles you can get the chicken option. It was a lot of fun but also tiring. 

Maestro Hardware Store

Lauren and I left the soup kitchen for about an hour to go to the hardware store and buy supplies for the playground. Both of us are pretty knowledgable about home improvement needs but trying to communicate in Spanish was muy difícil. There's definitely a difference between everyday / medical Spanish versus construction Spanish. After talking with several employees, we walked out with the necessary wood cut and other supplies purchased. 

Dr Franćois talk on Child Abuse

Last week Franćois gave a talk on Child Neglect and this is the second part of the series. It is a sad topic but one that I'm glad I'm educated about now. Child abuse is a lot more obvious since there are clear signs and symptoms to look for. One saying is "if the child can't cruise then they can't bruise." Aka if the child isn't walking the likelihood of accidental bruising is very small. 

El Rosario Swing Project

After much planning we finally were able to go and fix the playground! We showed up with the pre-cut wood ready to build but much to our disappointment it didn't fit. We had measured the one working swing but it turned out to be 0.5 cm wider than the two swings we were fixing. So it was time to get creative... 

We only had a hammer, screwdriver, and sandpaper to work with but we were able to get all 3 swings up and running. Dad would've been proud at how well we worked together and problem solved. I'm so glad we could make an impact on these wonderful kids!

Vani's birthday

We had another birthday in our group! Vain turned 20 today and so we celebrated with an Huancayan birthday dinner. David and Aniña made a special birthday drink that is only made for birthdays. It was served in a small glass and had dark beer on the bottom and a whipped egg white and goma froth on top. Talk about amazing!! 

Also there is a lot of singing before you blow out the candles. They sang 3-4 birthday songs in addition to the American happy birthday song. Then Vani blew out her candles and took a bite from the cake. She also got her face smashed into the cake which was still funny! Oh also her cake tasted like a rich pound cake with frosting. Definitely a different birthday experience than La Merced but I'm so glad we got to experience both!