Downtime

This job is interesting in that it has two extremes – having tons of stuff to do, and having next to nothing to do. When the groups are down, we pull 12-hour days and are constantly busy. When they aren't, though, there's really not that much going on.

Right now, there aren't any groups here. That's basically because it's September – school has just started, so not as many groups are going to come down. That leaves me with a lot of downtime.

When I have all this free time, what do I do with it? Sometimes (like this week), I actually have Los Niños-related work to do. I've been contacting schools, writing up site descriptions, etc. – mainly administrative stuff. When I don't have Los Niños-related work to do, though, I like to spend some time at the orphanage.

Most people wouldn't think of an orphanage as a fun place to go. But really, it can be. This particular orphanage is named "Refugio del Niño Jesus", and there are some really great kids there. A lot of them actually are orphans, but some of them still do have parents – they just can't live with them for one reason or another. Usually in those cases, there's been a history of abuse, drug use or alcoholism in the family, neglect, or just plain not being able to take care of the kids.

The kids themselves, though, are really great. We spend our time playing games – I just taught them paper football the other day – or just hanging out. I try to help out there when I can; last Saturday their soccer teams had a couple of games, so I went around to the games with them and watched some of the kids. It really was a lot of fun. Not to mention that these kids can really play.

So I've been spending a good deal of time there. Next week I'll have some other things to keep me busy, but hopefully I'll still be able to work in a visit there