Volunteering

Hola! Today I had volunteering at Abuelitos de la Calle. Which is a center in Quito that provides breakfast, lunch and activities for elderly people. I get there around 10:00am and help serve breakfast; coffee and bread. All the volunteers then pass out puzzles, games, and pictures to color. Some days we have people come in and facilitate activities for the abuelitos, for example today they had dance therapy. Around 12:30 we start to get lunch ready, which is soup, rice, meat, and vegetables. All the food is donated from local supermarkets. The abuelitos are all so grateful and friendly. They speak really fast and sometimes it is hard to understand them, but there is another volunteer Jacob from Florida who speaks Spanish very well, so he translates for me sometimes. Overall, I really enjoy volunteering! It is rewarding to see how grateful the abuelitos are and how much they appreciate the meals.

The center.

Jacob and I playing jenga with some of the abuelitos.

After volunteering yesterday I went to the Basilica Del Voto Nacional. It was huge and so pretty!!!

Side view

Front view

I paid $2.00 to climb it! This is a pretty stain glass window on the second level.

To climb to one of the towers you had to cross this bridge (it was a little scary)

And then you had to climb this ladder (also a little scary)

But the view from the tower was beautiful! 

After the Basilica I went back to the school for salsa lessons! The boy to girl ratio was a little off, there was only one other girl besides me. But, it was still fun to get to know more people and learn some basic salsa moves. 

Today after volunteering, I went to Mercado Santa Clara, a huge market with tons of food. 

I played it safe and got chicken and rice. My friends Eric and Tori got goat and I tried a bite, it was pretty good!

Lots of fruit!

After our lunch we got fruit milkshakes. It was fruit, milk, and sugar put into a blender. I got mango, it was delicious! 

I'm so happy to be back in the swing of things!!! Tomorrow (Saturday) there is a big group of us from the school going to Papallacta, which are hot springs about an hour away from Quito. 

Thank you for reading!!!

Love,

Molly