A Field Trip to Remember

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that we are currently in Santa Marta, Colombia. We flew here yesterday from Bogota. We're staying at a beautiful resort, but we will let you know more about Santa Marta on a different day. We're a little behind on our blogging and want to fill you in on a few things we did before we left Bogota.

Cecelia, our representative from LSS, invited us over for dinner at her house on Sunday. She and her husband have a beautiful home located in a nice neighborhood in Bogota. For dinner we had tamales (pretty good), bread, and to drink, hot chocolate with cheese in it (a typical Colombian beverage). Cecelia brought out a bunch of her son's dinosaurs for Andy to play with. Her son, Hernando, is grown and currently studying in Spain. Dana was pretty fussy so we ate and ran.

This is a picture taken at Cecelia's house. Her mother, Cecelia also, is holding Dana. Cecelia is holding Andy, and her husband, Hernando is in the back. It was really nice of them to invite us over.

On Monday morning the Representative for the Danish families who are adopting, Helena, invited us to join them to visit a poor area of Bogota. Andy was not feeling well, so Mark offered to stay back with the kids so that I could go on the field trip. I was glad I didn't miss it.

This is Christian. He joined us on the field trip. He and his brother were adopted by a Danish couple 25 years ago. Christian was in Colombia as part of a project where he will learn and then share his experience when he returns to Denmark. Very nice guy who speaks Danish, Spanish, and English. It was cool to meet an adult who was adopted from Colombia years ago.

Our first stop on our trip was to a bakery where we purchased bread and milk that we would give to the people that we would meet.

We arrived at a community center in this poor area of Bogota. They were offering a class to these people (mostly women) who were learning about how to start their own businesses. The businesses would be little booths where they would sell some kind of food (for example: empanadas which are a common food in Bogota). They were specifically learning how to keep their cooking supplies clean.

This is a picture taken down a street in the area we were visiting.

This is the ICBF (equivalent to our family social services) sponsored kindergarten. It is government funded and they take care of 15 kids while their parents are at work.

The kids were eating their lunches when we arrived. They were very well-behaved and were sitting so nicely at their tables. ICBF makes sure that they have a good well-balanced meal.

This is the kitchen at the ICBF Kindergarten. They didn't have much but what they did have was kept tidy and the place was spotless.

This is a typical house in this neighborhood. We were invited to go into it. There are 20 people who live here. It is a father and mother who have 12 kids and 2 of their young daughters also have kids.

This was one of the daughters. She is 15 years old and the two kids in the bed are hers and she is pregnant with another. I felt so sad for her.

These are her two children.

This is the kitchen at their house.

This is the bathroom. People should not have to live like this. It broke my heart to see the conditions they live in. How fortunate we are.

This was an eye-opening day for all of us who went on this trip. I had to fight back my tears as I walked along.

As we were leaving I saw this young boy sitting in front of his house. He was so smiley. I was feeling overwhelmed with what I had just seen. This boys smile was fantastic so I asked him if I could take his picture. I'm glad I did. Despite his situation this boy still smiles.