Una semana chevere

We have finished another week here in Cali. This past week was a short week because Monday was a holiday. We now have a new schedule. We work with the kids at Oscar Scarpetta on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday mornings, and Friday mornings. On Wednesday, we work with the kids at Chiquitines and on Thursday and Friday afternoons we work with pregnant women.

The kids at Oscar Scarpetta continue to make progress and we are almost done with the printouts we want to provide for the care takers. We have begun working more with a couple young girls who have facial palsies and they really enjoy practicing the exercises with us because they involve bubbles! The older kids have been amazing Spanish teachers for us and we learn more and more everyday and we continue to teach them English as well.

At Chiquitines we are working with 7 babies and one 8 year old girl with spina bifida. Most of the babies have developmental delays and we work on positioning and strengthening with them. The little girl with spina bifida is so much fun to work with. We are helping her learn how to recruit the muscles in her legs to help prevent atrophy and also working on general core strengthening. She really enjoys the exercises and asked us for more!

There are currently 9 women at the home for pregnant women. On Thursday we had an exercise class with them and they really enjoyed it and wanted more exercises. None of them have exercised in the past, so we did not want to overwork them on the first day but promised we would provide more in the weeks to come. We were also able to get some Theraband for them to use for strengthening and will begin with those next week. Yesterday we returned to their home to provide low back and foot massages to each of them. They really enjoyed those. So each week we will have one day of exercises and one day of pampering.

Other than volunteering, we have been keeping busy with many activities. Last Friday we went and saw Delirio, an amazing salsa show. Then on Saturday we went out salsa dancing for the first time! It was really fun but exhausting. We also took a trip to the Rio Pance (a nearby river) which was beautiful and very refreshing. On Wednesday and Thursday we experienced a bus strike, which made getting places a little more difficult. The drivers of the smaller buses decided to strike because the Mio is going to be allowed to have routes on the smaller roads now. And now we need to start running because we decided to attempt the Cali 1/2 Marathon on July 4th. We're crazy, but trying to take advantage of as much as possible while we're down here!