Casa de Moises Orphanage

As for today, Marshall and I left early this morning to meet up with the volunteer group from EAB that was headed to an orphanage ("Moses' House") in Aguas Lindas, a satellite city of Brasilia about 30-40min away. Apparently the students at EAB have to complete a service project, and can come up with any idea they'd like. Volunteering and donating to this orphanage is one of these ideas. Everyone in the group (five students, two computer tech friends, and us) donated some money so we could buy cleaning supplies and candy for the kids at the orphanage. On our way we also found the Wal-Mart lurking in Brasilia that I did not know about. It was next to the store we shopped at for cleaning supplies.

Upon arriving the kids were just about to eat lunch, so we got a tour around the place and learned something about its history. Basically it started with one lady that took in a few kids, which expanded until she had to find a new location to build an orphanage. We met her cooking in the kitchen and she really seemed like a mother figure for all these kids. The orphanage has expanded with donations to include a smaller library, a computer lab, and more recently the bank donated enough money to build a second dormitory to separate the boys and girls. Right now someone is donating money to rebuild/renovate the storage area.


But our job was just to hang out with the kids! For Marshall this was a little interesting considering his lack of Portuguese, along with the two EAB students who didn't speak much Portuguese either. It was still really a great time. The kids always called us 'uncle' or 'aunt' whenever they wanted attention, too. The students painted the kids faces with face paint, but we didn't get a group picture afterward. . .sadness! I did get one of the kids playing some games (the three taller girls in front are students from EAB), as well as the adorable little girl who just walked up to Marshall, tugged on his pants and threw her arms out at him. It was sooo precious.


She was too young to be talking, but the body language said it all! And when Marshall would put her down she'd just throw her arms out again. But even more amusing, after a little bit of holding her, the founding 'mother' called over from the nearby bench to Marshall saying she needed to be changed. . . It was really hilarious.




I also got some of the older students to play SET, the 'family game of visual perception.' It's one of my absolutely favorite card games that I learned in Math Club in middle school (it has its own set of strange cards). Some of the kids were really quick learners too! I hope we get a chance to go back because we would both love to do it again, especially now that we know what to expect. Also, I must say I was really impressed by the leadership capabilities the students showed during the whole day. Things were well organized, and no teachers were directly involved!