Computers, Stitches and Hats

It was Wednesday again, so that means we were back out to El Camino boys home outside the city to do some computer teaching.  It was another hot one again today (which means a two or three shirt day for me), so we made sure to take lots of water and fruit with us to keep us hydrated properly.  Today we did some training for the younger boys in the morning on Word 2007 where they learned how to create a basic document with some formatting and a picture.  Some of the boys have hardly ever seen a computer, so Lukas was put to work helping out a couple of them.  He spent a fair bit of time with a boy named Ramon who just recently came off the streets and is still adjusting to life at El Camino.  Ramon was really quiet and had never touched a computer before today, so Lukas helped him out by showing him how to use the mouse, and where the letters are on the keyboard.

In the afternoon, the older boys came in and they had mostly used the computers before for listening to music or looking at pictures, so we did more or less the same as the morning class, but got into some of the fancier stuff like word art and picture formatting.  They have all asked if we can do Powerpoint next week, so I am going to grab a bunch of soccer pictures and pre-load them on the computers so they have lots of good pictures to use in their presentations.  Every last one of them is soccer crazy.

We had lunch with the boys between classes and got to spend some real time trying to talk to them in our broken Spanish and their broken English.  Most of them are really excited to see a family and "gringo" kids (white kids) because almost all the groups that come in to help them are all late teens or early 20s and they hardly ever get a family coming in.  Many have never had a real family, so they are always very excited to see us arrive.  They also like to help the kids do their homework.  By help, I mean give them the answers.

After classes today, we stopped by the YWAM girls home on the way home to drop off some of the hats we brought along with us.  Walmart was kind enough to donate a whack of girls hats that were last years stock, so we brought the entire duffel bag with us and told all the girls to pick 3 hats.  I had figured that we would be out of there in about 15 minutes, but we ended up being there an hour and a half while they all tried on hats, looked in mirrors and critiqued what each other looked like.  Logan and Jordan took to playing with the a couple of the girls children to pass the time.  Some of the girls in the home have kids of their own, so they stay with them.  They also had orange trees right by the house, so we just picked oranges off the tree and ate them while we waited.  Some of the best oranges we have ever eaten.  The funniest part is that the male gardeners from the home, came and picked out hats for themselves as well even though they were all girls hats.  We thought they were joking until they walked back to their work and kept them on.

While we were at the girls home, we asked the Dutch doctor who comes by both El Camino and the girls school, to save us some time at the clinic tonight and take out Logans stitches.  She said no problem and took them out in a couple of minutes.  Logan seemed most concerned while they were coming out, but he didn't feel a thing.  He might have a small scar for a while, but it will fade with time.  If it doesn't, he will have a cool story for the girls when they ask about his scar.  How many other guys can say "I got my scar when I was in Bolivia helping street kids".  That will get the "awwww how sweet factor" and the "hey I have a rugged scar on my face" points at the same time.

We are hoping it will rain for the next couple of days to cool things off here, but even if it doesn't, we have a plan for the weekend.  Since we have the weekend off, we are going to drive up to Samai Pata which is up high in the mountains where it should be cooler.  There is a hotel for about 30 dollars a night and there are the ruins of an Inca fortress about 5 minutes out of the town which is a world heritage site.  I have always been a big fan of archaeology (or any other ology for that matter), and can't wait to see it.  The downside is that I hear the road at some points is mountain on one side and 1000 foot cliff on the other.  Should make for some interesting pictures.

Speaking of pictures, every once in a while you take that picture that you just think is spectacular.  Well here is mine today.  Its even photoshop free.