Orientación, Parte Dos

I'm going to backtrack again and give the details of the past few days.

Thursday was also hectic (are you seeing a theme here?) We visited Acción Callejera in the morning. I fell in love with the organization because of their mission and their aims, but really, it's not what I'm looking for. Acción Callejera is kind of like an indoor playground for street kids. When the kids check in, they leave their shoeshine box or whatever they are selling at the front, like a hotel. Each room has a different “station” where they can play and do different things. It's a really cool concept and I liked the idea but it's not really what I want to do. In the afternoon we visited Arte A Mano and I don't even really know what they do. By Thursday afternoon I was so tired that it was all a blur. On Thursday night, we had a movie night at one of the Estudiante de Apoyo's house. We watched The Orphan and it was probably one of the most terrifying things I've seen in my life.

On Friday we only went to one organization. At the end of the day Wednesday I was set on the fact that I wanted to work for Cuidado Infantil. Friday afternoon we visited Niños con una Esperanza (Children with a hope). Niños con una Esperanza is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Santiago, Cien Fugeos (100 Fires). Cien Fuegos has the only dump in Santiago and many of the children drop out of school (if they even ever go) in order to dig for metal in the trash dump. They melt the metal down (hence the fire part) and almost immediately, they have picked their future. It's a huge problem because the kids are not educated at all and they are essentially stuck with one job for their whole life. Niños con una Esperanza provides an alternative for the kids. They have a program set up that encourages kids to go to school and then they give them a place to play and meals. They tell the kids that if they drop out of school, they'll be kicked out of the program. Because the kids like the program so much, it works. I loved the neighborhood around Niños. It is by far the poorest place I have ever been but I have never seen so much joy in my life. People in the neighborhood were genuinely excited that we were there and that we might be interested in working with their kids or their grandkids or nephews or what have you. It was overwhelming, but in a good way. When we left Niños on Friday afternoon, I was absolutely torn between which organization I wanted to work for.

Saturday morning we had a few short seminars on “dominicanismos”, dominican-haitian relations, and race and identity in the Dominican Republic. On Saturday we ate lunch as a group at a pizza restaurant and that officially ended orientation!!