Today was another beautiful day in Santiago. The sun rises over the mountains, and to the north. We still can't tell which direction is which given everything is so turned around from Denver (where the mountains are to the west, the sun rises over the prairie and in the winter to the south).More than 50% of foster kids in the US end up homeless according to some of the statistics I've seen. Some 30% of the homeless population in the US were foster kids. This is what Hogar and Casa Esperanza in Chile are all about. A few of you have asked for us to explain the difference between Hogar and Casa in a little more detail.
Hogar is essentially an orphanage that is run by the government for girls 18 years old and under. These girls have been removed from their homes by the government due to abuse of all different kinds. The abuse the girls suffer here is generally more severe and repeated more frequently before girls are removed from their homes compared to the US. Some of these girls' parents still have visitation rights, and some don't. Hogar currently has about 74 girls. This is not the only girls' orphanage in Santiago, but it is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Santiago - La Pintana. Unemployment is high, and so is drug use. The conditions are more horrible than we can describe. But this probably gives you some idea. When we walk from the bus stop to Hogar, we are walking down a street where all you can see are 10 ft. high very thick cement walls with barbed wire over the top. Here is a picture of the wall from inside Casa Esperanza - the one at Hogar is not as secure, sturdy or nice looking.
When the girls at Hogar turn 18 years old they are no longer allowed to live at Hogar. At this point many of them end up on the street with no job and no education. The girls often end up on drugs and in prostitution. This is how Casa Esperanza came about.
Casa Esperanza is about two blocks closer to the bus stop than Hogar (just down the street from each other), and is for girls 18 years old to about 21 years old. When girls at Hogar turn 18 years old, they can go into Casa Esperanza and get a college or at least professional school education. Casa Esperanza is a safe place to live, and they get an education that will help them become a professional - rather than fall into the hard street life of La Pintana. Unlike Hogar, Casa Esperanza is run by Vision for Chile - which is part of the Christian Missionary Alliance (CMA).
We have spent most of our time so far at Casa Esperanza, helping build a guest house, prepare food for lunch (their main meal of the day), pick up rocks, plant tress and other fun things like that. We'd really like to get to spend more time in Hogar too, where the younger girls are. Hopefully that will start to happen more this week. We still have three weeks left!
This is Griff, I'm writing the rest of this blog with my mom. This morning we went to church and got to play with some of our new friends that we've met while here on Sundays. The kids are nice to us even though we don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English. We still have lots of fun.
After church we went to the bakery and got some empanadas for the lunch. Empanadas are a very common food here in Chile. They are kind of like calzones, only much better. Sometimes they are fried, but we like the ones that are baked the best.
After lunch we went to a park that we just found this morning while walking home from church to get empanadas. We played on the playground and then played some card games. We also found out that my brothers and I can almost keep our dad up in the air on a seesaw.
We hope to get to go to Hogar tomorrow. For this week, please pray that we get to go to Hogar. Please also pray that my mom has safe travels to Argentina and Uruguay. The volcano is causing some flight disruptions. We especially want to make sure my mom gets back from Uruguay on Thursday, when she's scheduled to come home.
Love to you all! Tenga buen semana (have a good week)!
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