Day 3 (Stacy)

    We started today by going on a tamale run with one of our leaders, Juan. It's a tradition at Ninos to take the groups to get tamales every Tuesday. We walked about 20 minutes from Ninos to a place that you would never know was a tamale place. The streets are lined with large, solid gates leading into the individual houses. Juan went up to one, knocked on the door and a man answered and let us inside. The gates led to a very tiny courtyard which had a two-burner cookstove where the tamales were made. Their house was just beyond that and the wife and mom were inside prepping tamales. They had TONS of birds in cages all over the courtyard and four Chihuahuas. One of the dogs were on the roof, apparently it's common to keep dogs on the roof here to ward off/ alert of intruders. The tamales were amazing, as all of the food here has been. We eat four meals a day and I think we should probably adopt this tradition in the States. Seriously, why do we only have three?! And why don't we put EVERYTHING on tortillas?!

    After breakfast, we went back to the Agape house to work on the roof. We switched things around today, so I was scraping instead of painting. It was really hard! The roof has layers of old sealant on it that have dried, cracked, and peeled and we are on our hand and knees scraping it up with putty knives so we can apply a new coat. Again, I will never take a pressure washer and proper tools for granted!! 

    Later in the day, we visited one of the boys' houses, Emanuel. The house parents were SO friendly, and the boys were very helpful and polite. The houses are all mixed ages, they do that on purpose so the older ones can help the house parents and be role models for the younger ones. It's been so cool to see how the kids get along so well and work together, even though there are 10-18 of them in a house together. Even the very littlest make their own beds and are responsible for keeping their clothes and shoes organized. I think I'm going to have to try some of it out on my kids when I get home;). I played Uno with a few of the boys from the house. It's a fun challenge to try to learn rules of a game when you don't speak the same language (their Uno had some different cards). One boy kept trying to cheat when I wasn't looking, but I kept catching him (because I'm competitive like that LOL). We had some good laughs over that. Smiles, love and laughter are sometimes the only form of communication you need. 

    Juan, our group leader, has one of us get out to open/ close the gate for the van whenever we leave Ninos. He always closes and locks the van door and doesn't allow us back in until we do a dance. We love to close the door on him when he gets out, too. He's a good sport and always does a dance. I think he's more talented than any of us! Tonight Calli and I learned the Floss (a dance) via YouTube and we volunteered to open the gate tomorrow so we can show off our new moves. I'm sure you'll see a video of it at some point! lol. Our group has had so much fun together this week, I'm really enjoying getting to know one another better. We work hard, we play hard with the kids, and we laugh together a LOT. This week has filled my heart with joy in so many ways. 

    Tim, give the kids hugs for me. Good luck camping with the kids tonight, you are such a good Daddy<3 I'm grateful to know the kids are in good hands, I haven't had to worry about them once this week.