First Encounter at the Orphanage

The first two days can basically be summed up as travel. Some of these experiences and interactions were interesting , and will likely be the subject of other postings. Today, I´d like to talk about our first day at the orphanage, which goes as follows:
A few minutes before our time to leave, the taxis arrived to take us to the San Martin the Pores, which is one of the orphanages we planed on visiting. As some of us rushed to the entrance of the seminary (where we were staring), I can say there was much excitement and anticipation. As we arrived in the orphanage, a large wall surrounded the area and from the outside, it was not very clear what the area would look like. After ringing the bell, someone opened the door for us.
The orphanage was possibly larger than expected with several buildings and a long stretch of land which was filled with various crops. The buildings had probably been in there for some years, but seemed overall in good shape. After waiting for a while, we were greeted by one of the staff at the center. We went on to get a tour of the orphanage. The orphanage is not only a place of residence, but also a place where kids learn technical skills. Typically, they go to school for part of the day and spend a few hours in one of four areas: carpentry, mechanics, farming, and a bakeshop.
We went on to visit several workshops. I personally stayed at the bakeshop with Kenny and Father Mike. At this point; I will mention that one point of stress for me was being able to simply communicate and establish commonality with kids of various ages. After some time of working at the bakeshop; conversation started. I broke the ice with music; whereas Kenny broke the ice with martial arts.
The work finished ahead of time, and we were able to take some time to play basketball with the kids. This helped to brake barriers even quicker. A funny noise came in the middle of recreation time; it was the bell that called out the children to come for lunch. We were able to talk a bit with children during lunch, albeit lunch does not seem like as much conversation- prone than other times of the day. After lunch, we went to a small park behind some of the buildings. The kids were quick to show us the way to a small farm, where they raise chickens, guinea pigs, turkeys, and rabbits, as part of their agriculture workshop. As the downtime ended, I was able to see a the largest group of kids, I´ve ever seen pack into a pick up truck. They were wearing uniforms in preparation for an afternoon at school.
Towards the end of the day, we opened up some of the toys we bought from the states. In the middle of a large, dusty field; an organized chaos erupted with a small group of kids playing Frisbee, another group playing soccer, and yet another group playing baseball. After we left the orphanage, we went to visit a sanctuary and ended the day at the seminary with a small celebration (ps- seminarians can dance).
A lot more can be written about this day, but hopefully; I´ll be able to share more about my visit in conversation or later during my posting.