Today was a great day, which was nice especially after such a long and painful day yesterday! We started off around 10:30 am with a brief orientation of what we'd be doing and the history of the group we are with. After that, we headed out to the village of Lupsa (pronounced as Loop-sha) to visit one of the feeding centers. It was about an hour away but this time, we sat in the back row and had much more room! However, it was also much worse in terms of feeling the bumps especially when we turned off the main road and onto the rocky road.
When we got to the feeding center (where the local children come for free lunch everyday), we went in with the younger children first and probably totally overwhelmed them. We were all crammed in the little room and EVERYONE was taking pictures. These children were probably wondering what in the world was going on! When they were done, we gave them a whole bunch of stuff outside.
They got candy, bracelets, bubbles, and then I pulled out the balloons and chalk and we drew pictures all of the ground for a bit. When they left, the next group of children who were a little older came in and the same thing happened with them. Schantile was having a great time with this 10-year-old named Andrea and the girl kept copying everything Schantile wrote with the chalk all over the ground.
When they left, we hopped into the bus to go see an empty field basically. Rica, one of our contacts here, wants to buy some land for a church retreat area I think and we took a little hike out to that area. It was not that close to the main road and we were pretty hot but I guess it was good that we saw it (so the other people can go and raise money for it at their churches). When we got back to the feeding center, the oldest children were there (like 9-13 years) and they were the fun ones. We sat down with them inside when they finished eating and I basically took over! We made cootie catchers and paper footballs with some notebook paper and then we were all flicking the paper footballs all over the place. We also had some balloon volleyball going on. When we were done inside, we went outside for a group picture and we also made a few water balloons.
If you look closely, that's a little puppy chewing on my hand in the picture. There is definitely a stray dog issue here like I read about. They are everywhere and most of them are friendly and cute. When we finished with the older children it was finally time for us to eat a late lunch. It consisted of chicken, cabbage, and really good rice (and lots of coke... that's all they seem to drink here and since that water wasn't purified, we pretty much didn't have it).
Once we left Lupsa, we headed back to Severin to check out the orphanage that they are building. Since it was an hour or so, I napped on the bus but was woken up every 5-10 minutes or so when my head would slam into the window from the bumps! The orphanage was really nice and surprising for this area. I found out that the government here now has new standards for orphanages and they have to have a 1:12 ratio. So, this new orphanage will have 3 children per room (for a total of 12) with a couple who will serve as their foster parents. It looked wonderful inside and it seems like it will be great when it is up and running (which should be soon).
The orphanage is right up the street from Rica's house (and his wife Kathy) so we went there next for dinner. It was homemade and delicious! Some family members worked on dinner while we all made phone calls back to the states (they had a dedicated line for that) and we also played ping pong with Drako (his name is longer but I know I will butcher trying to spell it), who is a local who has helped out with a lot of the building (he was also with us all of today and will probably help translate at the clinics over the next few days). When we got back to the hotel (at like 9/9:30), we spent the next two hours sorting medicine and toys for the clinics which start tomorrow. All the medical staff and some of the others sorting medicines and vitamins while I was in charge of the toys. I was working with another former teacher who also happened to be from Midland, TX (we chatted about that earlier in the day) and we sorted all the stuffed animals, school supplies, and art supplies. We finally finished around 11:30 pm and everyone made their way to the rooms for sleep. I've been in the lobby for the past hour or so working on getting my pictures up since I know I'll have a lot after tomorrow too and I don't want to get behind on my posting. The plan for tomorrow is to leave around 9:00 am and head to our first clinic in Rogova (about 30 minutes away). We'll be there all day and I don't know when we will get back or what it will be like so stayed tuned tomorrow!
P.S. In my previous post I said you could see Bosnia from here (at least I think I said that) but it's really Bulgaria instead.
Wow you've been busy already. I like the pics. Sounds like it's going to be a really good trip.
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