Service: Visiting Kids After School Area in a Woman's Backyard

Hours: 1

Learning Outcome: Global Engagement

My Mom came with me to this women's house. We brought donations and talked to her. My Mom knew part of her story, but not all of it. We learned that she was deported from the United States about a year ago and moved to Uruguay, living with her mom, leaving her children in the United States. The oldest child, who was 16 had to care for her other two children. Her mom died two months after she moved to Uruguay, and she now lives in a poor neighboorhood in Canelones, about half an hour from my school in Montevideo. When an 11 year old was killed by a teenager who was around 16 or 17, she realized that kids needed a place to go after school instead of staying in the streets, and now she has built a little building/shack outside her house where the kids have their snack after school. They also play outside. I talked to some of the kids and taught a bit of English to them (they learn English in school but their vocabularies were pretty limited to "my name is..." and maybe one or two other words). I played tag with a bunch of the kids, who were actually pretty fast. The kids I talked most with were Camila (eight years old) and Pablo (nine years old). I didn't understand everything they said because they were speaking Spanish, while I did understand a lot of the things they said, but many other comments I couldn't quite get, so there was a bit of nodding and saying, "wow! I don't believe it!" without fully understanding what they said. I plan to go back sometime next week.