Volunteering...Tough Stuff

Yesterday marked my first day volunteering here in Buenos Aires. For the next 6 weeks I'll be spending approximately 12 hrs./week working at a children's home in the neighborhood of Baccar. The house is home to 15 children, aged 1 to 15. They all come from tough family situations (usually one or both parents are in jail and/or drug/alcohol addicts) or have been removed from abusive homes. It can be really tough to hear about their histories- the baby, who is 18 months old, was abused by his mother since he was 2 months old and is now mentally handicapped, nearly deaf and blind; he also can't yet walk or talk. Nonetheless, he is now a happy little baby. I got to hold him for an hour today; he was kind of fussy and left a ton of spit on my shoulder, but his little blue eyes and small, grasping hands were so adorable...it was a really special time. Aside from that hour of calmness, my time at the home has been pretty chaotic. All the kids are very active and love to run, jump, and yell. We've taken them to the park twice, which is a great way to run off some energy. We play on the swings, see-saw, and slides, bake 'tortas con dulce de leche' (sweet cakes) in the sandbox, and play catch, futbol, or just run around on the grass. Today 3 of the older girls (ages 11-13) decided to 'run away' from the park, so I had to follow them around the block. They were essentially just 'testing the limits' of the new volunteers, which is to be expected. Once they discovered I could out-sprint them a few times, the chase was no longer fun, and they returned with me to the park. I guess that frisbee/track training really is useful outside of sports :) I'm really looking forward to getting to know all the kids more, and also I'm hoping to implement some sort of arts programming, since their time right now is pretty unstructured. Should be fun :)