Back from the dead...

Remember our last post that said "because of the fear of H1N1..." WELL...let me say it was not just a fear. It was a reality for the poor kids here at the Hogar. A total of nearly 90 kids were quarantined (meaning locked up in their dormitories so as to not infect the other 40 kids who weren't stuck inside...which is NOT a lot when you're used to 130+ kids running around the place) and about 20 had the actual H1N1 virus. They were quarantined for 8 to 12 days, depending on the severity of their illness, and Andrew and I were bored out of our minds (at first). Many of the kids who weren't inside didn't want to do much with us, so we spent a lot of time working on things in the house, helping the Social Worker sort through THOUSANDS of pictures on her computer, and giving a hand to the HELP volunteers in San Salvador. It was in interesting week, but we ended up enjoying ourselves.

We are happy to say, though, that the majority of the kids are all better. A few are still being treated, but the 80+ quarantined kids were released Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We are glad to have them back! Unfortunately, we can't have our class with them anymore because we aren't allowed to have several kids in an enclosed/close space, so that stinks (not very long-lived either...LAME, but oh well) . We will, however, do fun things with them and update with pictures. For now, I'll show some HELP photos we took.


we went to an orphanage/young mother's home and helped paint a play room. Yes the C is missing, but it's because we had 4 colors to use and 3 painters. So, we had to finish the other letters before we started on the blue letters...make sense? Yeah:)

the HELP team minus a few, working at Habitat for Humanity in Casa de Piedra (RIGHT down the road from the Hogar. Little did we know as we were walking down our road at 5:30 am to go meet up the the HELP kids that we'd be turning right back around to come build a house at 8:00! haha:) Love it)

check out that view. Whoever gets this house is gonna get a million dollar view!