“Buenos dias! Como

durmiste?” It was 7:10 a.m., and

I awake to the voice of Luisa

Pallares, my Ecuadorian housemother.

Still half-asleep, I turned

off my alarm and opened the

window to the sound of salsa

music from the street wafting

through to my room. By the time

I sat down at the table, my usual

breakfast of pan con mantequilla

(bread and butter) and a yogurt

drink was at my place. After eating,

I gave my house mom a

besito and ran out the door to

catch the Trole for the 45-minute

ride to my job.To many, nothing about the

description I just gave is “usual”

but this was how I spent many

of my mornings in Quito, Ecuador

last semester.

Combining volunteering with school

There were five other students

in the International Partnership

for Service Learning. Although

we went to the same

school (the Universidad San

Francisco de Quito), and took

many of the same classes –

among them, Anthropologia

Andina and Ethnografia – we

each volunteered at different

community organizations (or

agencies).

Two people in the program

worked at Chicos de la Calle

(Street Kids), a local organization

in a local school; another worked

at Colegio Amauta, a school for

Otovalenos, which is the largest

Native American tribe in the

country. I worked with Christie

Brawner, another student from

my program, at Orfonato San

Vicente de Paul (one of the most

well-known orphanages in Ecuador),

which was established in

1871 when one of the nuns came

home to find an abandoned girl

left in her house. All six of us discussed

our experiences at our

respective jobs every week, during

a three-hour seminar.

Work at the orphanage

The day I signed up to begin

work at the orphanage was

Sept. 11. I did not hear the news

of the World Trade Center bombings

until the evening after they

happened. From the beginning,

my work at the orphanage was

made even more meaningful by

the knowledge that at least

10,000 children in the United

States lost a parent in the attacks.

My work day at the orphanage,

which was run by the

Hermanas de la Calidad, Catholic

nuns, started at 9:30 a.m.

with work in the Pabulario, or

preschool. Most of the children

in the Pabulario ranged from one

and a half to five years in age.

There were three other volunteers

outside of my program – an

Ecuadorian student and two

young women from England.

Volunteers in other units of the

orphanage came from Denmark,

Canada, and Germany. We often

led the children in arts and

crafts, painting, or singing songs.

We also pushed them on the

swings and play equipment outside.

At 12:30 p.m., following the

good old “look both ways before

you cross the street” rule, we led

the children by the hand to their

respective Casas (houses). There

were about five or six houses,

along with an office of social

work and a nurse’s office. Each

house had eight or nine kids in

it. I worked along with Sister

Maria Teresa (who was in charge

of the casa), an Ecuadorian girl

named Miriam and Yves, a boy

from England, in Casa 3. My

afternoon job included not only

caring for the younger kids and

changing their clothes after helping

to serve lunch, but also tutoring

the older kids and/or

helping them with homework.

First experiences

At first, I was unsure as to

whether or not I would be able

to handle the demands of my job

at the orphanage. Although I already

had experience working

with children (I volunteer on a

weekly basis at the Montagnard

Dega Association in Greensboro

and also volunteered for five

years as a Teacher’s Assistant at

my temple’s religious school), I

had never before worked with

children this young. I had not

worked for such long stretches

of time either (an average of six

hours a day, with no break for

lunch). And I had never pictured

myself trying to toilet-train twoyear-

olds!

It’s not so bad after all!

I soon became very attached

to the kids in my Casa, as well

as to the nun in Casa 3, Sister

Maria Teresa Loor Vergara. It was

difficult not to love a group of

kids who welcomed you every

work morning with hugs and

chants of “Rebecca, Rebecca,

Rebecca!” One of the things I

came to enjoy the most was taking

them to Musica – playing the

piano while they sang in the

background, although I also enjoyed

pushing them on the swing

sets and even feeding them at

lunch time.

Bittersweet childhoods

Although many of the kids

at the orphanage often had

smiles on their faces, their lives

until the orphanage had not always

been so easy. At first, I incorrectly

thought that most of

their parents had either died or

were not able to afford to take

care of them. This is what I had

explained to one American visitor

to the orphanage when she

remarked, “It’s so horrible that

these kids’ parents don’t want

them.” This was certainly the

case for somechildren, but not

for all.

One day soon after,

Caterina, a girl who I tutored in

the afternoon, showed me burn

marks all across her back. Her