Day 3: Los Pipitos - The School

Another hot and humid day in Granada! We started early today, meeting at 8:45 a.m. and arriving at Los Pipitos School at 9. We were excited to finally meet some of the children! The building is very secure - like most of the buildings here, it has a large wrought-iron gate with a padlock in front and we had to be let in by Elvis, the school's director.

Children from Los Pipitos in the Garden

Elvis and Paloma

The children were all outside when we arrived, and they were helping to tend to the garden. There is a big problem with the grass and the plants during the rainy season - many of the plants die and the children think it's because they don't care for them well enough. They are very proud of their garden!

We met with Elvis, Paloma, and Bill to discuss our plans for our time here in Granada, and came up with some great ideas! Over the next few days, we are planning to turn the unused clinic space into a functioning clinic, where we will assess the health of the children and work on educational materials for the parents. We were able to figure out what was actually in the clinic that we could use and what we still need after going through all of the donated supplies we brought from Seattle. 

Pithaya

We took a break around lunchtime and Paloma took us to the central plaza, where I was able to get a cell phone (at last, I feel connected!) just in case I need to contact someone when I'm not on Skype. My hotel room has no telephone!

Sorbet - YUM!

After Paloma left us, we found a lovely cafe where we just made it inside when it started to pour! It seems we are always eating when it rains! Lily was very adventurous and we all tried her jugo de pithaya (cactus juice). It was delicious and it turned her tongue bright red! For dessert, we found a cafe that had gelato and sorbet and we indulged in pithaya sorbet.

Lily & Christine Move the Furniture

The last couple of hours we spent finishing our inventory of the clinic supplies and moving furniture out of the room to prepare for painting and cleaning tomorrow. Lily and Christine did most of the moving and I supervised!! (ha! ha!)

We were surprised when we disturbed a resident cucaracha, but we were able to do a nice photo study of him!

La Cucaracha de Los Pipitos

We were pretty tired at the end of the day, whether from work or heat, we don't really know. I do know I actually went in the pool at the hotel (a real rarity for me!) and we met again at 7 for dinner. This time we went to a restaurant called "Imagine" (John Lennon) and were shocked that the prices were quite high. We'll stick to local food from now on! 

Tomorrow I put my painter's clothes on and we will transform the room into a medical clinic!