Juan, Croissants, and El Capitán

Summary:
Today our group visited Hogar El Alba, an orphanage for Argentine children aged three to sixteen. We brought donations of soccer balls and laptops and helped them to paint many buildings before playing with them for several hours.

A group photo with the children in front of Hogar El Alba

“Juan ven aca!”

When I woke up this morning, I didn’t expect to have several children boss me around in a foreign language, but I suppose I should have guessed it. From the moment I put down my paintbrush after refurbishing the doors, walls, and ceilings of several buildings, I was pulled in many different directions. It was all part of what I am almost certain will go down as the best day of the trip.

Today, the group visited Hogar El Alba, an orphanage located about an hour outside of Buenos Aires. In the middle of an obviously poor and rural area, we found the home of several stray dogs, honey bees, a few great chefs, and some of the world's most incredible children. The kids ranged in age from 3 to 16 and were all in the orphanage for a variety of different reasons. Some lost their parents, some were victims of violence or sexual assault, and others had incarcerated parents. We came to offer whatever we could to help these children. We brought soccer balls and laptops from Bryant to donate and we spent the first several hours of our trip painting. I could expand on this more, but I have more important things to discuss in this post so instead I have included some pictures and will skip ahead to the good stuff.

Photos of Bryant students hard at work
painting various parts of the orphanage.

The good stuff included the best croissants I've ever eaten, changing my name from Jon to Juan, scoring my first headed goal in soccer, and meeting a real life superhero. Don't worry, I'll explain.

The first thing we did after cleaning up our painting supplies was have a snack prepared by some orphanage workers for the kids and us. I don’t know what they put in the croissants, but I think I had four by the end of the day. Anyways, we were able to meet all of the kids and despite a language barrier, we quickly became friends. I met a group of three sisters named Abril, Maya, and Abby. I still can't tell you which one is which because they thought it was fun to try and confuse us. Despite this, they quickly learned our names and decided to change them. Rich became Ricardo, Phil was now Felipe, Safeen was dubbed Sofia, Tommy became Tomate, and of course my new name was Juan. Later, I learned these three sisters had three more siblings with them in the orphanage and I got a chance to meet two of them as the day continued.

I take a selfie with Peter, Jill, Tomate, Felipe, Ricardo,
and the four sisters (One is hiding behind Felipe).

After our snack, the fiesta moved to the fútbol fields where I immediately realized I was over matched. Seven-year-olds breezed by me as I struggled to stay on my feet. I did score once out of who knows how many attempts, but I am very proud of that one header. It didn't take long for me to realize that I was correct in choosing baseball as my sport and decided to meet some of the other children.

I once again found Abril, Maya, and Abby before Jill introduced me to the fourth sister, Angi. We played keep-away for awhile before I met their youngest brother, Elicio. He was the aforementioned superhero. I never called him by his name, I preferred El Capitán after his Captain America shirt. With my help, he loved climbing through the trees like a mono (monkey), playing Angry Birds on my phone, and flying like an airplane on my shoulders. For the rest of the day he never left my side. You can see him on my shoulder in the group photo.

We pose for our own picture before the group
picture seen above

I get a goodbye hug from El Capitán

Saying goodbye to El Capitán was one of the hardest things I've had to do. I wish I could have given him more than just a few hours of my time. I completely understand why Srdan decided to give a child the hat right off of his head. I cannot imagine what these children have been through in their lives yet they had more joy and excitement in their eyes than virtually any other person I have met. So the next time you have a bad hair day, or a fight with your mother or your daughter, please remember the children from Hogar el Alba and see if your problems are as big as theirs. Chances are that will end with hug and a smile.