2nd Day in El Durado

Today was our first day waking up in El Durado and to my surprise we actually woke up late. I felt pretty excited about the day, so I threw on my sweats and was anxious to get my day started. We had a warm breakfast of hot cocoa and bread with butter and jam. We quickly split into group: one group stayed at the farm house preparing the adjacent teen center for painting, and another group prepared San Adolfo School for painting; San Adolfo students and teachers were not present. I went with the group that went to the school and we moved excess wood that was laying around and took the wood back to the farm house. This took quite some time, but fortunately we were introduced to Fernando, the painting contractor, Edith and her daughter Kimberly, volunteers at San Adolfo, who were helpful and very kind to us throughout the day. While we were moving the wood, I got to talk to my Bell brothers and truly got to know them on a different level. It's funny to think that a few weeks ago we were meeting in the AGAPE lounge, unwilling to talk to each other at all, and now we stay up late, unable to fall asleep because we have so much to discuss about the day's events.  After we finished working at the school, we headed back to the house at around 5:45, welcomed by teens and counselors from the Fe y Alegria after-school program held on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays in the youth center. The local teens were thrilled to hang out with us and under the direction of Jonathan, Ricardo, and Belen, adult leaders in the Fe y Alegria after-school program, we had lots of fun playing games and dancing to tunes. We also played ping pong and talked with the fellow teens personally through the games we played. I think the highlight of all that is the fact that the adults who were chaperoning played games with us.  It made me feel closer to everyone, even though they were complete strangers. Today was a jam-packed day that made me really happy to be in Uruguay. Not only am I growing as a person but I am helping others grow as well.

Thank you,

Ben Gebrat