At 9:30AM, we met up in front of the church to start a tour of some of the projects that the Mission oversees. Our first location was the school which houses the montessori (Pre-K) to 6th grade students. As soon as we walked in, a majority of the kids started waving at us and saying hi, and we even got some high fives from them. After we loaded into the back of a pick-up truck, we headed to the next location and surprisingly it was a lot of fun. We then arrived at the women’s center, where women and even sometimes their children are taught sewing, weaving and music classes. It was amazing to learn that it sometimes takes up to six months to create a product. We then left the women’s center for the hospital. The hospital first started as a small clinic near the church and as of today is a full hospital that contains 33 beds. In 2016, the hospital served over 22,000 people. After the hospital, we went to our last stop which was the coffee processing plant. There we learned that the plant only makes medium and dark-roast coffee, and for every 100 pounds of coffee seeds harvested it creates 64 pounds of coffee.
We returned to the mission for 12:30PM lunch. Today’s lunch consisted of bread, beef & vegetable soup and rice. After lunch, we broke up into two groups. One group went to the school to help in assisting with prepping for the construction of the expansion. My group went to a construction site near the women’s center to help build wooden structures that will serve as a home extension. After completing three sides of the expansion, we decided to break for the day. Four of us (Dr. Northrup, Alexis V., Jess, and I) decided to walk back to the Mission from our location, which was over 2 miles away. Along the way, we found one of the women that attends the women’s center and she was walking back to her home. She told us that she was only 18 years old and she has been visiting the center for almost two years. She said her favorite part of the women’s center was the music classes because she learned to play the marimba. When arriving into town, we decided to go to the local bakery, but along the way we stopped at one of the stores. The owner immediately recognized Dr. Northrup and told us that he and his wife were thinking of him last week. At the shop we learned that Miguel (the owner) is working with recovering drug addicts and alcoholics to teach them to make handmade materials to sell at his shop. He believes that it will help them stay off the streets. After leaving Miguel’s shop, we headed to the bakery and bought a lot of bread. We then sat down on curb of the street and to eat the bread with a good view of the lake.
Dinner was at 6PM, it consisted of warm fresh bread, pasta, rice, and left over beef & broccoli soup. After dinner we headed to the office to watch a video on the history of Father Gregorio Schaffer and the Mission. We ended our night be stopping at an ice cream shop in town.
-Francisco
No comments:
Post a Comment