El Dorado: Day 1

El Dorado: Day 1

We were awakened by yet another cold morning, but the anticipation and excitement of our journey to El Dorado seemed to take away the morning chill. This morning was very similar to yesterday: we were greeted by the sisters with warm, welcoming smiles, and we were provided with bread and more of that amazing jelly, hot water and milk for tea and coffee, and pizza. Yes, I said it, pizza. We had last night's leftover pizza because the sister cooked so much. After a balanced breakfast, we all headed up stairs to pack up and get ready for El Dorado. 

Finally, after what seemed like a long ride with endless repeats of Chris Brown, the song "Call Me Maybe" (which is still annoying here), and various songs in Spanish, we arrived in El Dorado. We dropped off our bags at the farm house and headed down to meet Lourdes the principal of San Adolfo School, the Fe y Alegria school. We were warmly welcomed and taken on a small tour of the classrooms. The children were excited to see us and to practice there English with us. After seeing the children, we grabbed a few mattresses for our stay. After situating ourselves in our rooms, we gathered wood for a fire because the farm house doesn't have heating like the retreat center in Montevideo. We explored around the farm house a bit, and interacted with the dogs and horses. We were then taken to a small presentation about the Fe y Alegria schools in Uruguay led by Mercedes, director of communications for Fe Y Alegria in Uruguay. We learned that there are 23 Fe y Alegria programs in Uruguay.  Public schools in Uruguay are often under-funded, so Fe Y Alegria seeks to meet the needs of students with various programs, including schools and after school programs, throughout Uruguay.  At the end of the presentation, Florencia showed all of us how to make mate, the Uruguayan national beverage, and we drank and passed it around. Then, our work began. We started to scrape rust off of the bars around the windows, which we will paint later in the week. After a pleasant meal cooked by our caretaker, Betty, we're going to bed, beating the cold and getting ready for the day ahead of us.

Kenan Mathews