A Day In The Life Of The Kids

Most of the kids go to school. In Guate if you move in the middle of the year you are screwed - you ´lose´ the year. I think if you miss the first week its done, thus the kids that come to the orphanage from Jan to Oct have to wait till the next year. This I have deduced from my observations - I have never talked to a guatemalteco about this so I could be wrong. There is also no special ed so some of the kids don´t go to school with behavior or learning problems. The kids that go to school usually go from 7:30 - 12:30. There are also 4 kids that go to school at night - they go from about 7 till 9.

The kids have a tremendous amount of responsibility - there are 4 or 5 employees working in the main orphanage and 1 in the cafeteria (cafe run by the fundación to earn money). For instance Graciela (one of my favorites) works with the girls 4 - 7 years old (not sure exactly the age group -that is a guess). She has one other girl that works with her - they are responsible to get them up, showered, dressed, to breakfast, teeth brushed, etc, etc. They live with them in a big dorm room - right now Graciela told me there is only 7 kids but sometimes there is as many as 15. Graciela is only 15 and has been doing this for 4 years. She acts as if its no big deal - its like kid having the responsibility of taking the trash out once a week - no big deal (but in the states many kids would find a reason to bitch about it). Everybody works and I have never seen anybody complain about what they have to do.


Graciela's room - this is where the kids keep their clothes - they might share everything








Notice Esperanza has her monkey (note earlier post about the ferria)
















The girls making tortillas.













































The younger kids never leave except to go to school and the older girls get to leave occasionally. Graciela says she can leave on Sunday afternoons and checks her email. The thing that continually amazes me is the lack of complaining and how they seem to get along - they have a tough life but maybe they look at how lucky they are to be where they are when the alternative is so much worse.


Reyna Guadalupe and her cat - well I think all 5 of the cats she claims.