Day 3 Didasko

June 25: Didasko Orphanage

Today was a beautiful day and all of the Torchers had several choices as far as work to choose from.  Three houses were built, a group went to the hospital, some stayed back and sorted hygiene products, (There seemed to be three times as much that was donated this year! J ) a group went to the open air market to buy fresh vegetables for a food distribution, a group went to the warehouse “bodega” to sort clothing and supplies, a group broke down medicines to be put in smaller quantities.

  I was fortunate to go with a group of eight people to Didasko.  Our task was to sign up families for the upcoming medical clinic and check out the site for the garden that we are going to help them put out.

The normal road was closed for construction and we spent about 45 minutes being lost riding through a cute little cobblestone pueblo (town).  Terry Reeves was the main driver and his directions said to turn by a yellow house.  We saw many yellow houses! J We joked and said the turn was the road past the brown dog in the road!  J  We saw many of those too!

 When we drove we saw a bunch of little boys and girls playing.  They immediately started talking to us and taking us by the hand.  I pulled out some combs and ribbons and did the little girls’ hair.  They were very sweet and easy to communicate with even though they knew little English and we knew very little Spanish.  Diane had brought some cute tattoos and we put on tons of those and they loved that.  We stayed there several hours, while we were playing with the kiddos and an intern was taking information from the families so they could sign up for the clinic, Terry was walking around the orphanage and checking to see what work and repairs we could do there.  We left and headed back to the city and stopped at a large “Lowes-like”

store to get supplies for the repairs.  Torch will be repairing some of the playground equipment and painting it.  This was equipment that Torch has built in the past.  Didasko is a beautiful place and I have visited it almost every year that I’ve come.  I actually remember some of the children from year to year.  I really regret that I can’t communicate better to tell them that I remember them from previous summers.  Tomorrow is Sunday, and I have heard that we are going to break up into three groups and go to three different area churches.  Sundays are usually fairly relaxed.  We may have the opportunity to go Valley of Angels for shopping for local crafts and souvenirs.

          I haven’t share this yet, but there is supposed to be about 130 in our group this year.  We have people from: Washington, DC, Florida Keys, Brandon & Sarasota, FL, Tennessee (me), PA, AL, and a smattering of other people from other places. 

          I’m still doing well and I’ll try to keep posting.  Please leave comments on my blog because we are really supposed to be on a media fast and I’m not really spending time on Facebook!!!

Until next time….

Via con Dios! (pictures following)

Xoxo PJ

Sights leaving the city (if you look closely at the second picture, you will see workmen leveling the road by hand)

The nice cobblestoned village where we drove around in circles looking for the turn off.  We actually found a Inglesia de Christo!  (It's in one of the pictures.)

Medical clinic and Church of Christ

Didasko Orphanage (Most of the children are there because their parents can't afford to take care of them.  Didasko is a beautiful and the children are well taken care of and seem very happy. 

I actually combed her hair and added the bows. (pretty good for me since I'm not used to little girl's hair.)

 Diane doing tatoos.