friendship covered in dust

Last week Laura and I began work with the children’s charity Horno Casa. This is a charity aiming to encourage education and play for children from one of the poorer areas on the outskirts of the city in Sucre. This community really has very little, is very dirty and dusty and the serious lack of clean water in the area is sadly clear from the physical appearance of the children. Horno Casa runs groups for all ages every afternoon. The main focus for the older, school attending, children is for them to complete their homework in a quiet and structured environment where help can be provided. For the younger children it’s a time for organised play, learning, socialising and learning about values and Bible stories. At the end of the session the kids are then all given a nutritious snack that they all get very excited about! The programme was set up originally by a Bolivian man, but is currently run mainly by a group of Brazilian missionaries (1 of whom is 1 of our lovely new flatmates!).
Over the year Laura and I have discovered our preferred age groups to work with and so with the hope to be where we can help the most Laura is working with the slightly older, school-aged children and I am in with the gorgeous wee teeny tots!
Every afternoon from Tuesday to Friday we take the bus to the final stop, leaving behind the pretty white city and arrive up the hills in the dust-filled outskirts of Sucre. Generally by the time we turn the corner into the Horno Casa area the bus has acquired an entourage of screaming excited kids running to greet us with hugs and kisses as we disembark. We then split into 3 groups according to age and head to our different rooms. The rooms are very basic and always filled with dust from outside, but they still seem to adequately provide a kind of haven for these kids. The first half hour for my kiddies is free play where I generally become exhausted spinning squealing child after squealing child round and round in circles, but it’s that great, had too much fun and fresh air type of exhausted. After all this excitement the kids are brought together and we have group games songs and lessons, which they seem to thrive on.
We are both loving working with Horno Casa and I can’t wait to learn more about them. One thing I’m sure of however is that these children are beautiful in more ways than a pile of dust and lack of water can cover up and I can’t wait to know them more.