Siete Perritos (Seven Puppies)

Dogs are everywhere in Santiago (and Chile in general).  They do not seem to have animal control.  So a stray dog out on the street stays on the street, has babies, and everything multiplies until there are lots of stray dogs everywhere.  Chileans have a heart for these dogs.  It is not unusual to see a stray dog with a little "doggie sweater" or "doggie jacket" on.  People leave food and water out at night for these dogs too.

When we arrived at Hogar today (girls 18 and under) we were greeted with excited little voices squealing in delight.  "Perritos!  Perritos"! they said.  A perrito is a puppy.  Hogar had a stray dog that was pregnant on its property - not sure how this happened because there is a tall fence with barbed wire all around, but somehow this dog got in (maybe when they opened the gate to let a truck with food come in or something).  Anyway, the "mama" had the puppies - seven of them in all, born about three weeks ago (or at least that's what I think the girls said).

 You would never know the horrible things that happened to these girls.  They LOVE these puppies.  They hug them and carry them around with them wherever they go.  They share them easily, for example handing a puppy over to Griff or Wil without hesitation.

These are going to be tough puppies, though, let me tell you.  One of the things they thought was funny was to send the puppies down the yellow slide in the background, as long as someone was down below to catch the puppy.

This one's name is luna, which I think means moon.

We got to Hogar around 11:00 a.m. today, which was when Daniel had told us the girls usually get up on Saturday.  "It is a rest day," he explained.  I would like Noah, Griff, Wil and Dylan to learn this concept!!  I've never been a morning person, and the day the boys start deciding they want to sleep in again will be a major Facebook post day.  Anyway, I digress.  The walk from the bus stop to Hogar felt a little long.  It's probably only about 10-15 min., but this is a very bad part of town (called La Pintana).  Every building there has 10 ft. walls with barbed wire at the top to keep "bad neighbors" out.  No one at Hogar speaks English.  Daniel told us they were expecting us, and that all we needed to do was ring the door bell or knock loudly on the gate and start speaking in English.  Because of the bad neighbors they do not let someone speaking Spanish come in.  But if someone speaks English they let them in.  We knocked for what felt like a long time, but it was probably only 3-4 min.  The gate slowly opened and we went in.  A woman greeted us and spoke to us in Spanish - we don't know exactly what she said, but we think something about how she knew we came to play with the girls.

It was a sunny day and some girls were already outside hanging out by the playground.  Others came out over the first 30 min. we were there, and over time probably about 20-30 girls in all were there.  Some of the girls at Hogar get to go home for the weekend, but the ones whose parents have lost all rights are at Hogar all weekend.

We kicked the soccer ball around for awhile, and then played SPUD.  The girls all knew this game, but called it "alta" or something like that.  It was so great to see the smiles on their faces and hear their warm laughter.  They were so kind to us and made us feel special to be there.

After awhile some of the girls wanted to go back and play with the puppies again.  I went over to the playground with them.  A beautiful 11 year old girl came up to me and said, "My name is xxx."  (I can't remember her name, darn it!)  I said, "Oh, you speak English."  She said, "How are you?"  It was so fun, she had learned some of the same phrases we have learned in Spanish.  She took me by the hand and had me climb up to the highest point on the playground equipment, where some of the older girls were.  I wasn't sure I should go up there because they it seemed like a "big girl" place, if you know what I mean.  But they brought me up there and started talking to me.  They wanted to call me Tia, which is a very warm and affectionate term, like "auntie."  I just about cried.  They started calling Greg "Tio" too ("uncle").  We sat up on the top of the playground and had fun trying to talk to each other.  They taught me some words in Spanish, and they wanted to learn some English too.  I will always treasure that time!

At 1:00 p.m. the woman that let us in the gate came to tell us it was time for the girls to have lunch.  That also meant, politely, "it's time for you to go."  As we left the girls were yelling "Tia, tia, tia!!" and "Tio, tio, tio!!"  The boys said they all felt so loved to be there.  I think they knew that the girls had fun with them there.  But I also think the boys felt very loved and accepted by them, even though we could barely speak each other's language.

Love speaks louder than words, or so we all learned today.