A little extra..

I know Alex just wrote here, but I feel like I have to tell you guys about friday and monday.
Friday, I went to Proyecta de Vida ("life project") with Iris, our social worker, Miguel, our driver, and Mary, another volunteer. We went to visit the families of some of the kids that are not attending school and ask them why they're not coming.

We first went to Javier's house, a 17-year old boy with downs syndrome. His parents couldn't really give us a reason for him not being in school, but apparently they had a lot of problems in the family - the dad, 68, having trouble with his hearing, and the mother, 64, having severe back problems. They had 9 kids, and 2 of them died. Having a kid with downs syndrome on top of it cannot be very pleasant. Iris told the parents to visit a clinic to get a hearing aid for the dad and some physiotherapi for the mother, but they seemed very sceptical. She also told them to get a health insurance and to give her a copy of it - very strict lady, she is!

Afterwards we drove to a nearby town called Ollantaytambo to visit Jose Alberto. His mother works in a restaurant and might let her go soon because of the lack of tourism in Ollantaytambo. His dad is currently in a hospital in Cusco because he's got cancer - another very sad case that really made me appreciate the life I live!

Today has been a very interesting day - I was sitting in Mel's office when a 16-year old girl comes in - apparently she was waiting for Eli to come talk to her. She starts crying and tells me that yesterday her mother hit her on her thigh and pulled her hair, and that she was in pain. It was quite strange not knowing what to do, seeing as I am not used to speak to 16-year old girls about their problems with their mothers in Spanish, but I think I managed to make her feel a bit better. Eli comes in, and I walk off to help with Inicial. After about 10 minutes though, Eli wanted me to come to the office again to take pictures of the girls bruises. She had two huge bruises on her thigh, and when Eli told her that we were taking photos of it to have proof, she told her not to talk to her mother, 'cause she would get mad at her and hit her again. She couldn't explain why her mother hit her either. Quite a different experience compared to what I'm used to!

I'll find out what the school's going to do about her mother... In the meantime, we'll go celebrate Marco's birthday at the Rainbow House.