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This day has been sponsored by : Gertrud Haubach


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Week 5 Day 5 - "Group 78"

Do you all recognize Lucinda & Rebekah from the group 77 picture? And do you find myself? Well... I am in there, but for those of you having trouble finding me, I have added the second picture.

All the volunteers who were here upon my arrival and most of the ones that arrived with me have already gone. This weekend is full of arrivals: there will be a new group of 8 volunteers, of which 7 will only stay for two weeks, and be gone before the New Year. Also, my friend Sarah will arrive from Colombia to visit for about 10 days.

Here's introducing the new group:

Front Row, left to right:

Anna - Last summer, she volunteered three weeks in Ghana with CCS. She says that was a very different experience, as she was dealing with a large group of handicapped people at her placement and she had virtually no assistance. After initial frustration, she found it very gratifying, though. This time she is placed at the boys' Orphanage, la Tesalia.

Caitlin - She has come back to San Carlos after her two months volunteering experience last summer. She had worked at the Hogar de Ancianos and wanted to go back to make them feel they are not forgotten.

Edward - He is a lawyer from Texas with coaching experience and brought a bag full of sports equipment: an American football, plastic baseball bats and balls, a soccer ball. He went to the boys' orphanage together with his daughter Anna.

Cynthia - She is Edward's wife and Anna's mom. She is a doctor with vast experience in caring for the elderly. I would have liked to see her in action at the Hogar de Ancianos. She came up with various ideas for "gym classes"... well, appropriate movement combinations.

Rebekkah - In the meantime, she has found a church to which she goes three times a week, and through church she made a lot of friends. After the Las Mercedes School closed, she moved to work with teenage girls from the Mariano Juvenil.

 

Back Row, left to right:

Catherine - She is the one person who arrived for more than two weeks, and will stay until 9th Feb. She splits her time between the Hogarcito and AMURECI, a group of women who recycle paper and make art craft from it to sell.

Michelle - She joined Caitlin and Cynthia at the Hogar de Ancianos and was probably a powerful and entertaining element in the team. For the past five years she has been writing a book where she bases her fictional characters on actual people she has met in the past. "Bad" people, as she says. How flattered was I when she mentioned that she had thought of including me... "the travelling heiress". She was very disappointed that my background was much less colourful than her fantasy had imagined.

Erin (and if you look behind Erin, there is me) - She and Michelle are friends from school and came to do this experience together. Erin worked with Rebekkah at the Mariano Juvenil, but found communication very challenging when Rebekkah was not around.

Adrienne - She is into making films and brought her camera to do a documentary on her experience here. She also worked at the Hogar de Ancianos and her Asian looks caused a lot of curiosity. She felt like she was the only Asian looking person in all of San Carlos.

Lucinda - After her experience her, she goes to India with CCS. As the start date in India is shortly after her return from Costa Rica, she decided to leave two weeks early, on 20th Jan. Though she had the plan to go to India from the beginning, she only signed up recently, as she was not sure she wanted to go there through CCS. I have the same doubt regaring the other destinations I have planned. I think for her the timing eventually was too short to properly investigate alternatives. She spends the remainder of her time at the Hogarcito.

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For today's sponsor

Tante Gertrud... vielleicht schaust Du ja mal bei Mutsch ins Internet und sie zeigt Dir diesen Kalender. Ich frage Mutsch, ob und wann Ihr das plant und würde dann die Herrschaften auch auf deutsch für Dich vorstellen.