The Casa Hogar (casa = house; hogar = home) orphanage takes children from newborn to age 16 who are orphans; have been abandoned; come from abused homes; or whose families cannot take care of them and place them there on a temporary basis. Most of the children do live there permanently.
The children attend the local public school in 3 shifts: morning, afternoon or evening. The older ones go in the morning so today the children we saw ranged in age from about 4-12 (elementary school age).
There is a separate section of the building for the babies and Gaye took us to see them. There were 10 babies from about 6 months to 12 months, in cribs, in one room. All the cribs had clean sheets and the babies were clean. Outside the room the laundry hung on lines to dry. I think all the them had just been cleaned up for the day and were ready for some loving and playtime! One little girl held her arms out to me. When I picked her up, she would point and I would take her to where she pointed. We took a stuffed animal from a shelf and played with it. She was ok when I had to put her back in her crib but most of the others cried when returned to their beds.
Gaye and Todd brought coloring books and crayolas and a big bag of the large Legos for the kids to play with. When Todd sat down on the floor, many of the kids ran to him and sat on him, wrestled with him, and enjoyed being touched and played with the way a father can play with his children. I was glad to see that interaction.
Gaye dumped out the Legos and the kids immediately started building towers with her. She also had 2 boxes of Dominos and 2 of the older boys took them and played with them. Finally the coloring books came out and, lying on their tummies, some kids created beautiful pictures!!
One little girl had a pen and a 5x7 spiral notebook and was writing names of her friends in it. We started talking and she told me she knew English and she counted to 20 for me. I asked her if she knew what "Buenos Dias" means in English. She said no so I told her. She asked me to write it for her. I wrote the Spanish phrase and the English equivalent and she was thrilled! That was the beginning of our "English lesson"! She kept reading what I wrote and asking me to write more for her. She called her friend over and said "We can learn English!!" We had fun together.
This is the front of the building. Inside there is a large patio with rooms surrounding it. There is a small pharmacy in the main building and a room with clothes (presumably in many sizes) stacked on shelves. We didn't see the dining room or bedrooms.
Here I am with my "English class"!
Gaye and the kids play Legos.
Young artists at work!
A 5th and 6th grade boy enjoy Dominos.
The Casa Hogar is one of several orphanages in PV. At least the children have a home and are not begging on the streets.
Hasta luego.
2 comments:
Hi Sheila -
I've read every blog you've written and enjoyed learning all you've shared. This one made my day. Thank you for going and sharing this.
Love,
Barbara
Hello Sheila,
My family lives in Minnesota. We are making a trip to Puerto Vallarta at the end of this month (Jan 2008).
I'm wondering if you would be able to provide contact information for Gaye and Todd. From reading your blog, I am assuming that they are members or staff of the Christian Community Church and live in Puerto Vallarta.
My parents have been to Mexico a couple of times and have had the opportunity to donate items to the First Baptist church and through them, the orphanage.
I had been searching all day to get information on the orphanage that is affiliated with the Baptist church and wasn't finding that information readily available and was feeling frustrated. I even called the church but was not able to communicate clearly enough to the person at the church because I am not fluent enough in Spanish and she could not speak English.
I said a prayer asking for God's guidance and had to laugh because the next google search I did sent me to your blog. You see, my name is also Sheila and if that wasn't a message from God to look at your website, I don't know...
Consequently, your blog answered a lot of my questions. I now know the name of the orphanage. I also now know that the Christian Community Church are the people that I needed to contact, for they are the people that visit the orphanage.
My reason for wanting contact information is that we may need their help.
Feeling very moved in helping kids less fortunate than ourselves, I contacted both of my girls' schools (one is in high school and they other middle school) to see if they wanted to participate in gathering donations for the orphans. The teachers thought it was a great idea, thus items are being collected to bring with my family to Mexico. I'm not sure how many items we will end up with but it could potentially be more than we could carry on a bus or load in a cab.
If you feel comfortable sharing how I would be able to contact your friends, I would really appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Sheila Mattson
tyandshe@aol.com
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