Fundación Shalom y FUTBÓL!!!

So in between all the time spent by the pool and investigating Ecuadorian happy hours, we took a little time out this Saturday and volunteered at a charity foundation called Fundación Shalom. It provides shelter, food, and education to Ecuadorian boys that have been abused or neglected by their families and have no where else to go. Most of the boys are between the ages of 4 and 12 and were taken off the streets of the city of Guayaquil. The foundation is a little outside of Guayaquil. Theres one big center building with a kitchen, living area, and the bedrooms for the boys. Outside they have a courtyard, a soccer field (ofcourse) and then a bunch of fields for crops.



The UEES bus drivers that were helping!


They try to grow most of their own food in order to save money when feeding the boys. The small school they all go to is about a half mile down the road.
When we got there on Saturday the main room was a very strange combination of peeling blue walls and orange rafters... and most of the bedroom were only half painted. We had about 15 or 20 internationals, about the same amount of Ecuadorians, the bus drivers, and a few of the boys that lived there all helping us to repaint the whole place. We left our part of the city at 830 and didnt get back until almost 6, but we finished the whole place. There were only about four of the boys from the foundation there this weekend. During the month of February they usually send the boys back home to safe relatives to try to maintain some type of family connection.


One of the bedrooms that we painted. We tried to add some sort of decoration to each one. Some had handprints, some we spray painted stars, and some we hand painted pictures.


When they come back in March everything will be freshly painted and looking good for them. The few boys that were there ran around stealing paint brushes and wanting to help as much as possible. In between their multiple games of soccer ofcourse. Even the director of the program was out there heading the ball around in a circle while holding his 2 year old in his arms. By the time I got back to my house that night I was sweaty from painting all day (air conditioning doesnt exist here and it was blazing hot) and covered in paint. I walked in the house and Leonor just laughed at me and asked if someone had tried to paint a mural on me instead of the wall. And then my host sister freaked out when she realized that I had walked home covered in paint because the people on the street were going to think bad of me.

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This is the big mural that some of the girls free handed in the main room. It took forever, but it turned out really well.

GOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!! Es el día del futból. This afternoon I am going to my first official South American soccer game. Im a little frightened actuallly.. the games have a reputation for being quite rowdy but it sounds like fun. Tonight is the biggest game of the year for Guayaquil because the city is home to two professional teams, Barceona and Emelec, and tonight is the Clásico, which means they play each other. Most families have one team that their loyal too and people like to The game starts at 730 and were going with a bunch of locals. Cant wait!!!