monday.  june 29.  2015

every day, we know the kids are just happy playing.  we have done art projects with them, which they seemed to enjoy, but we don’t have a ton of supplies to do more, and i think they are pretty bored of them.  so in planning for today, we knew cupcakes(magdalenas in spanish) had to be involved.  and i had brought some belgian chocolate with me from the states, and knew there was going to have to be a ganache topping.  luciano had come up this morning, and he helped make the last of the cupcakes with nadia and i.  he even helped wash dishes-nice of him to help out!  we considered teaching the village kids manners…don’t hit and kick each other, don’t be mean, don’t make each other cry, don’t grab and take things from the girls…but we decided to have everyone go and pick up trash in the village again.  it was quite warm today too-so everyone was sweating.  we get to the casa in the village, and there are three boys…which isn’t usual, we usually have 20-30 kids.  after waiting about 15 minutes, i decided we should just go and get started.  kids in the street would see us and wanted to help, they would ask for a glove and bag, and pretty soon, we had 25 kids helping out.  we worked for probably 30 minutes, the kids dumping bags and bags of garbage into the cans along the street-it was awesome!

we headed back to the casa, had everyone wash their hands, and we gave them their cupcake.  this time, they didn’t throw their garbage on the ground, they put it in the basket.  yay!  small steps!  alex started london bridges with them, and they absolutely loved that!  everyone was just playing and having fun.  camden and i and nadia made flower headbands with the girls-they were all wearing them-it was so cute.  we started doing helium booth videos with the kids, and they just couldn’t stop laughing.  it’s hilarious! we were there for a few hours today-such a fun and fulfilling day.  we headed to hans for dinner, and home.