Day 6: Nutre Hogar and Smithsonian

Posted by Natassia

Today we all went to Nutre Hogar with the expectation that some of us would go to Casa Esperanza afterwards. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Casa Esperanza the children had already left. It was a disappointment for both for those who had never been there and for those who had been there on previous days but wishing to say their goodbyes. On an up note we spent the rest of the morning at Nutre Hogar and got to bond with the babies even more.
Having spent the last two days of service at Casa Esperanza and getting to know the children there, I felt that nothing could compare to that and I wasn't expecting to have such a good connection, but we were all pleasantly suprised.



Today when we played with the children it was obvious how happy it made them, at the same time everyone of us were also really happy to be playing with them and we all sort of brought out our parental insticts; somehow we just knew what the right thing to do to make the babies feel better. This was especially true of Hugo and Edilio, we had all heard about Edilio and how close Hugo had gotten to him in March but it was just so amazing to finally see them together and how they made eachother light up. We fed, bathed, put them to baed and played with them some more. When it came time to leave it was as if the babies sensed that we were coming back and they cryed hysterically.

The Smithsonian turned out to be alot more interesting that we expected. When we got there we browsed the bookstore, then we were given a tour of the library. One of the chemists there later gave a Powerpoint presentation, she told us about some the research that is currently taking at various places in Panama and that it is even possible for us to do reasearch there if it interested us. This had really sparked my interest because I have been wanting to spend some time in a Spanish speaking country but if I can also do research at the same time them it would be an even bigger advantage. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings, im sure it will be very exciting.