Ecuador Day 6

August 18, 2011

Today was a bittersweet day.  It was our last day of treatment and the last day we would spend with the Damien House residents.  There were a lot of smiles and a lot of tears.

I only got to see a few patients today, because I was helping Liz with our gifts that we gave to the residents at the end of the day.  In one of our treatment sessions, Jess (Ackermann) and I made some inserts for a man’s shoe.  We also gave him a new pair of shoes, which he was so grateful for.

Celie & Jess

So happy with his new shoe inserts!

The project for the Damien House residents took most of the time I had left before lunch.  I got to pick out a picture that had been taken sometime throughout the week to give to each of the residents.  I’m so happy that Liz put me in charge of this… there were so many things we did this week and it was great to look back on.  There were a few residents we did not have pictures of, so I got a few of the other girls together and we got some pictures with them.  We did such a great job of capturing some of the most beautiful moments of this experience.  I knew this would be a great gift for the residents, because they really don’t have any pictures up in their rooms.  However, I did not know how much they would love it until we had a chance to give the gifts to them.

This afternoon, the residents had a party for us.  We got to sit up front as the guests of honor, and Sr. Annie gave each of the residents a chance to say a few words to our group.  As they finished saying what they had to say, we presented them with their picture and they had gifts for us as well.  These residents are such beautiful souls.  They spoke of how thankful they were that God had sent us there and how much they would miss us.  At the end, we also had a chance to get up and say something to them.  We were all very emotional throughout the entire thing.  

Me with Panchita

At the end of it all, Abel got up to say a few words as well.  He was one of our translators… and he was only 14 years old!  I think this is what pushed most of us into tears.  He said how thankful he was to have the opportunity to translate for us, and that we had helped him so much this week with his English.  The school system in Ecuador is so silly to me (as it is in many other places in the world).  However, I feel like Abel is really beating the system.  The “rich” kids get to go to school in the morning, and the “poor” kids go to school in the afternoon.  If someone is doing a very good job of learning the English language, they can take a series of tests and may end up getting a scholarship to go to school in the morning.  As Abel told of us how we had opened many doors for him, he began to get very emotional.  We all realized at this point just how much he appreciated the week we had just spent with him. After this was all over we made our rounds, gave our hugs and said our goodbyes. 

Abel & myself

Celie, Jonathon (our other translator) and Allison