for the last three days it seems like i have been working nonstop. maybe its not nonstop, maybe i just forgot what work is. tuesday was the first day where i figured out what i will be doing at juconi. basically i go as a team of three to houses of families in slums here in guayaquil. the families that are members of our organization, which means that our programs gives certain incentives (like food, medical supplies and emotional therapy) to these families to keep their young ones from working on the streets. the team members include one educator and one therapist. i am a volunteer which means that i assist the other two doing the things they dont want to do or i get to play with the kids. tuesday was the day where we plan out what exactly we are going to do that week. therefore it was really boring for me and jack (my austrailian friend who also works at juconi). it actually ended up where the director said there was nothing for me to do so i could go home but i decided to stick around just in case something came up. that was a bad idea. about 20 minutes after that i sat through one of the most boring and pointless meetings of my life. i had nothing to say on any of the issues present. so yes that was my first day of work in the office. later that night i met up with the rest of the afs kids here in guayaquil at pizza hut. it was really fun to see everyone again and hear about all their expiriences. after pizza hut of course we had to ditch the afs adults and go to a bar. that expirience didnt last long though we were all so tired and we had to work the next day. wednesday was the first day which i would be working with juconi in the slums. i met my coworkers at a bus station and we took a one and a half hour bus ride through the city to a shanty town on the south side of the city which didnt have any paved roads to speak of. when we were arriving i remeber i could feel my heart pounding inside my chest. i knew what to expect but i didnt know what to expect. i knew it was going to be poor but i didnt know how poor. i knew there was a good chance of getting robbed but i didnt know when. i think the thing that was making me the most nervous was how i was going to react to the children. it all became more clear at the first home though. it wasnt as bad as i thought and the family was very happy to have all three of us there. i played jenga and blocks with the two young boys and i also tought them a few words in english. after all the playing the whole family was lectured by the therapist on how to best fit your respective family role. we also handed out some medical and hygenic supplies. we saw three families that day and it all was so exhasting. the last family was really interesting to me. they were a family of about six kids who pretty much lived on their own-their mother was in jail and their dads have never been seen. after all of that at about three thirty i got home and retreated to my room and sleeped for and hour and a half. the emotional and physical strain of touring the slums was intense. for all that i saw on wednesday thursday was supposed to be worse becuase i was going to the poorest of the poor to meet with some families and kids that need a lot of help. i was heading to a place called isla trinitaria with only one educator. when i tell people from guayaquil that i am going to isla trinitaria they look at my with eyes like mellons and then think i am joking. the poverty there is too much for people who live here to handle. once again it took a really long time to get there. all these slums are on the edge of town far away from people who wouldnt want to see such a thing. the first family we visited live in the kind of conditions that i have only seen on those christian charity commercials, where some guy is holding some innocent little girl in the poorest place you can think of saying "for only 25 cents a day you can help this child". the mother of the family was a drug addicted prostitute, the floor was cover in chicken shit and in the house lived eight people. the other families werent nearly as bad and today i wasnt so tired. i am learning so much from going into families homes and seeing how they live and talking to them about their life. this job is a real challenge, a very personal challenge but right now i feel its worth it in so many ways. i think what i saw today was some of the worst poverty that i can imagine but im sure that somewhere in the world it is worse. before this week i never thought i would see poverty like what i saw today. the shocking thing about it is that when i go into the homes of these families im not shocked. i admire the stregnth and the bravery of these families that i work for more than i pity them. tommorw we go out on the streets to meet with kids who might need our program. ok bye.
-mark