On the whole, I was very impressed with the Home. It was much larger than I imagined, and had a very large courtyard with classrooms surrounding it.
The dorm rooms were new, thanks to previous team trips. There were several teenage mothers in this home and they had their own dorm room, separate from the other girls. It was sobering to see, but a reality nonetheless. Each bed in the mother's dorm had a crib next to the bed. It made me ache for these girls who for whatever reason, were now saddled with the responsiblities of motherhood.
While touring the Home, we saw one of the active volcano's in the area spout a puff. My first real volcano siting!
After saying goodbye to the girls at Manchin, we headed back to Guatemala City. We visited a Baby's Home. This was an actual house, not an institutional building. There are house parents that live in the home, and a staff that assists with the babies/toddlers. We brought them a treat for lunch, as well as some new toys that were a hit.
I know there are a hundred different reasons the babies are in this Home, but holding this little one really affected me. Oh, I would have brought her home in a heartbeat! I think ALL of the women passing around this sweet baby thought the same thing.
Below is Estuardo playing with the Pizza toy we brought. He was quite the expert at serving pizza!
The Men worked on installing artificial turf in an outside play area (to replace the hard concrete.) As they unrolled the large, bulky roll of grass... gasp! Oh no. It was short. About 1/3 of the length short. The looks on the faces of them men told it all. What a sinking feeling! As it turns out, the rolls of grass that we used in Xela were mis-marked. That explained how we ended up with so much extra grass at Xela... The picture below is seconds before the end of the roll was reached.
What would have taken about 1 hour to install ended up taking several. Fortunately, Red Dot had stored some extra grass at the Buckner storage facility on an earlier trip. And the storeroom was nearby! So after a trip to storage they were able to add 3 seams and make the grass fit.
The women said our goodbyes and left the men working on the grass. We went to town and purchased a DVD player and about 20 or so movies. With this, we headed over to the Boys Transitional Home. Red Dot (thanks to Melissa's dream) has been significant in creating this home, after getting to know some of the older boys at Xela on previous trips. Some of the older boys needed a smaller home to grow up in, with personal attention, tutoring, etc. It is a house, in a neighborhood, very close to the Baby Home we were at earlier. There are currently 4 boys living there with a mom and dad - House Parents. The home has room for a few more boys as well. These kids were awesome! They were so well behaved, sweet teenage boys.
Here is a picture of Melissa with "her" boys!
Here are the boys excited about the movies we gave them.
We spent some time with them, and pretty soon the men finished installing the grass at the Baby's home and joined us. The boys were excited about the following day, when we would take them with us on a short plane ride (their first!) to see the ancient pyramid city of Tikal. So when we said good night to them, we were looking forward to the next day with them.
Dinner on this night was a special event. It was our "thank you" dinner for our Buckner translator team. We went to a very cool steakhouse, at the top of a hill that overlooked the city. I wish I had a picture of it, but I don't. It was a real treat for us all! Following dinner, we officially "thanked" our translators for their hard work. Without their help, there is no way we could have been as effective as I think we were. They were always involved, working alongside us... helping us communicate with the children.
We went to bed that night looking forward to the next day... Seeing the ruins at Tikal, and then ziplining through the the jungle. (yikes!) I'll work on our last day and post it soon!
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