Our last day at Chiquitines was on Wednesday. The staff had flowers and a cake for us at lunch. We really contemplated smuggling some of the babies home with us!! We will really miss working with them and seeing their amazingly cute smiles! One of the little guys we have worked with has gained a lot more weight and is developing more of his personality every time we see him. We did not get to finish making the exercise folder for the little girl with spina bifida due to some of the pictures not being printed so that is on our list of things to do this weekend. That night, we went and visited the little guy who was adopted! It was the night before he left and it was great to see him! He has bonded so well to his new mom and dad and it was such an awesome experience to see him so happy!
On Thursday, we had a meeting with the staff at Oscar Scarpetta to go over the work we have done with the kids there. They were all really happy with our work and thought it was a great experience from both sides. We also brought in a piece of softer flooring for the salacuna where the babies can play so they are not on the hard concrete floor and jump ropes for the older kids. Along with the fun stuff, we brought in the last two exercise posters for the medianos y jardin. They also had a farewell luncheon for us, which was extremely touching. Representatives from each sala came up to give us cards that they made. We hated being the center of attention, but really loved the fact that we have been able to form such great friendships and bonds with all the kids here. We even attempted a little inpromptu thank you speech in Spanish in front of everyone!
That afternoon, we gave our last exercise and massage session to the pregnant women. It has been really fun working with them and they all expressed their gratitude. Over the past couple sessions, they have started opening up to us more and having more conversations which has been great. We are almost done with creating an exercise poster for them. More snafus with our pictures kept us from delivering the poster this morning. Oh well. Just add to our list of projects for this weekend...
Today was our last day at Oscar Scarpetta. We went with some of the "externos" and "internos" to see Bodies at el Museo de la Tertulia. It was interesting and fun, but hot and tiring at the same time. The kids all seemed to really enjoy it. And what's not fun about cramming about 80 kids and about 10 adults into one school bus on a hot, hot day?? After we got back to el Instituto, we spent the rest of our time hanging out one last time with some of the older kids. We jumped rope, we chatted, we took lots of pictures, and we went to play with the babies. Then we had to say good-bye...but of course we will be back next week because we have to bring in our makeshift balance beam for the younger kids and pictures for the older kids. This is the last of the tasks on our "to do" list for this weekend.
Now for lots of pictures from this week:
All the kids at our farewell luncheon
Our thank you "speech"
All of the thank you cards we got from each sala
The babies having fun on their new playmat
Chilling on the new playmat
Us with some of the older girls and babies
Tanya working on the exercise poster for the medianos
Anita working on the facial exercise poster
Us working on the jump ropes
Us with one of the "niñas grandes" with a thank you card she made for each of us
On the bus to see Bodies. There were lots of kids sitting on laps...
Double dutch
Tanya with a bunch of the kids
Anita with some of the kidsA todos los niños y niñas, les queremos mucho y les extrañarémos mucho!! Nos encantaba trabajar con todos y la experencia aqui fue muy chevere. Solamente tenemos una semana mas... (To all the kids, we love you very much and we will miss you very much!! We loved to work with everyone and the experience here was great. We only have one week left...)
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