Nuestra experiencia con los niños.

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Mí Experiencia – Jasper

I have never volunteered in my life. So it was kind of a surprise when my mom and dad said that we were going to volunteer at a daycare. I was nervous because they only spoke Spanish and I was still learning the language. About an hour before we left for the daycare, I got “nervous poo” and/or butterflies in my stomach. I thought that all of the kids were going to be sucking their thumbs. Gross! Either that, or just sitting on their bums doing nothing. Boring! The daycare was located in a plaza, I forget the name of the plaza. I still know that it was in a plaza. When we got to the plaza there were two Caucasian, American ladies that were going to be helping us out. One was from Minneapolis, and I think the other was from Oregon; which meant that they spoke English. Phew! Sadly one of them was a little bit deaf.

The daycare was in a school, and the school was huge! I think that it was junior high and high school. Wow, two big sections of grades in one school! That never happens in Calgary. When I saw the kids at the daycare, some of them looked very tired and a bit ragged, and their mom’s were really young. I would never want to be in that situation, but I still feel badly for them. Also, I felt badly for them because they were going to get picked up at around 10:00 o’clock pm after their moms were finished their schooling. Wow that’s late! It turned out that they were some of the nicest, funniest and loving kids in the world that I have ever met. They varied in all ages: there were some that were two, and others who only came on Thursdays that were eight and nine years old. The younger kids were a little more fun, I have to admit.

There was this one two year old, I’m pretty sure his name was Coli. He was the most fun toddler that I have ever met. He turned out to be my best friend. He was a very, very squirmy kid! At one point I was piggybacking him and he had no hands on me. I got really scared that he was going to fall off, so I told my mom and she took him for the time that he was going to be on my back. It seemed like all of the little kids wanted to grab on to you and just hold you until you really had to do something, like go to the bathroom.

Luckily the kids got to have dinner at the daycare because the two ladies that we met at the start brought dinner. The dinner was a sausage casserole; they only gave the kids a little bit because there were a lot of them. They could have seconds though. There was enough that Macy and I got to try some. It was just ok…. well…actually I didn’t like it very much! All of the kids really liked it though, and that’s what’s most important.

After dinner we went outside because the teacher didn’t bring the keys for the classroom. I felt really badly for her. Still it was really fun outside. We played a lot of different games. The first one that we played was almost like a hide and seek game. It was really fun. At one point during the game, Coli just wandered off and people went to search for him. I found him first so I asked him if he wanted to try to find people with me. Of course, I asked in Spanish because that’s the only language that he knows of. It was soooooooooo funny watching the little kids run. It was like my walk, but they were still trying their hardest.

The second game that we played was pretty fun too. I don’t know what it was called, so I will try to explain it the best that I can. There were two or three people in the middle, depending on the age of the people. All of the other people that weren’t in the circle were holding hands and singing a song. After we were done singing, the people in the middle, who were the wolves, would say if they wanted to eat us or if they were just doing something completely random. If they said they wanted to eat you, you would have to scram immediately or else they would “eat” you. It was not very hard because the kids were pretty slow.

By 8:30pm, it was getting pretty late, so we had to go. It was the first and the most fun experience of volunteering de mi vida. Luckily we get to go every Tuesday and Thursday until we leave for our next place. I hope that next time we go we get to see inside the classroom.

Adios Jasper Me gusta los niños y niñas mucho.

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Mí Experiencia – Macy

Omg…. I had the time of my life four days ago. I volunteered at a daycare for young mamas that did not complete their school and they are advancing their education now.

The way it works is the kids would go to school for the day in their hometown, then the mamas would do a one hour drive to drop them off at 5:00 at the Cuenca daycare, then the mamas would go to their classes for 4 hours. After their classes the moms would come and pick up the kids.

The kids would probably be really tired because they are really young kids. It would then be a one hour bus ride home and the kids would not be in bed until about 11:00 pm. They would have to wake up at about 6:30am the next day.

I have never volunteered in my life, it was a pretty good experience volunteering. We did not once touch a toy, and the kids still had a blast. We had a sausage casserole for dinner. There was enough dinner for me and my brother to have some, it was really yummy.

All I had to do to help was just basically play with the kids. I made a friend, she was nine years old. I taught her how to do cartwheels. There was this one girl that was just starting grade one, she became my dad’s best friend.

The kids were awesome to play with. I felt like the kids liked having another kid to play with, it looked they had a great time. I think my brother, my dad, my mom and me had a great time.

Adios amigos Macy