A Day in the Life
We asked volunteers to provide a profile on their volunteer placements, encompassing what a typical day entails. Below are their unedited responses about their daily responsibility and challenges, along with recommendations about how to work effectively.
Click the name of each institution to jump to that specific commentary.
Hogar Esperanza - Casa de Lactantes
We arrive at Domingo Savio almost every day at 1 pm. Once we get there we set the table for lunch and help usually tía Magali (the cook) with anything she needs done around the club. This can be anything from cleaning up dog poop, sweeping the floors, helping prepare lunch, or projects that the other tios are working on. After a big lunch with all the tios and usually some kids, we help Magali with the dishes and start preparing once. The kids start arriving around 3:30 pm and go outside for recess. We rarely have problems with the kids; they are generally very energetic. All of the kids are split up into 3 groups organized by age/grade. Because all of the kids are coming from school, the younger kids arrive first and start their homework session usually around 4. The rest of the groups start around 4:15 or 4:30. When the kids don´t have homework, a lot of time we do math or English exercises with a few of them. The English taller is usually run by one volunteer at 4:30 with a rotating group of 5 kids each day. The kids sign up for English ahead of time and almost always come to the workshops. The English workshop can be a big responsibility, more than at some of the other institutions because it is everyday and all of the activities are up to the volunteer who is running it. Most of the kids don`t know much English and just want to play games using simple words that they already know. It can be a difficult task finding activities that will get them to retain the information but keep their attention at the same time. The homework sessions and English taller end around 5:30 which is when every eats once. Once is usually bread with either pate of ham or cheese served with milk but it can differ depending on what Domingo Savio has in stock. After once the kids have recess until about 6 when their extracurricular workshops begin. These workshops can range from sewing, cooking, painting small wood pieces, cardio-kickboxing, futbol, sexual/personal self-care sessions, dancing, etc. Depending on the activity or which tios are available, we work together or with one person in each group during this time block. Workshops end at 7 or 7:15 when the kids gather their things and go outside to play until they get picked by family or a bus. At this time, we close all the doors and windows and shut everything off to get ready to leave. After kissing everyone goodbye we leave the club at around 7:30 or 7:45.
The typical day varies from classroom to classroom. My class was a kindergarden class, the children were 5 year olds with speech and reading problems. Every day I walked in and greeted the tias at the gate with a salutation and a kiss on the cheek. Then I went to my classroom and helped the kids take out their notebooks and put away their backpacks while my Tia waited at the gate for the kids to arrive. We had a routine that we kept to almost every day. Every morning we began with an opening song about who came and who did not come, and the child of the week counted how many kids came to class. After this, we would learn something new or continue with the lesson from the day before. Knowing numbers and letters in Spanish was helpful because this is typical of what we went over every day. Sometimes my tia would break the classroom into two groups and I would work with one group while she worked with the other on the lesson. Also sometimes my tia would have a meeting and would leave me alone with the kids. We always had recreo at 11 and snack time immediately after. Each is 15 minutes long. After learning another lesson after snack time, we winded down the day with an activity that is less learning intensive, like story time or art time. Homework (tarea) is usually an activity that my Tia draws in a notebook with marker and then asks me to copy in all of the notebooks. This happens almost every other day and it does not take long to do. I had the pleasure of teaching English once a week and that was great as well. At the end of the day the kids wait on the playground for their parents or bus driver to come and I wait by the gate with the key. I give every one of them a hug and kiss goodbye and after the last one is picked up, I am free to go home. I usually go back to the classroom to see if the Tia has anything else she needs me to help her with, and then I walk to the metro.
Catch the bus at a nearby bus station at around 2:30. After a 20 minute trip and then a 10 minute walk, arrive at the hogar at 3pm. Depending on the day, there might be a few girls at the home, or a majority of the children. The first couple hours are typically spent with fewer children (as some are still in school). This is a good time to draw, paint, and color with the children (the fewer, the more manageable). Quickly enough, 4pm rolls around and it’s snack time. Sit with the kids and have a glass of milk and some bread. I then spend the next couple hours with the kids, either playing tag or hide and seek outside, or doing some sort of art activity inside. No day is the same, as the children’s schedules change. For this reason, it is important to be able to be flexible, and invent games on the spot that appeal to the children that happen to be there. Before you know it, the Tias have dinner ready and everyone sits together at the dinner table to eat. Leave the hogar at around 8:30, get home at 9 ready for some rest and relaxation.
Hogar Esperanza - Casa de Lactantes:
1. If you don't drive
- 8:00-11:00: Watching and playing with the "medianos" (kids from 1-2 years old) or helping out with giving milk to the "guaguas" (babies up to 1 year).
- 11:00-12:30: Support the tias with feeding all the kids before they take a nap
- 12:30-1:30: Playing with the older kids until they go to bed
- 1:30-2:30: Lunchtime with the tias.
- 2:30-6:00: Playing and watching the kids. Assisting with different activities (painting, going to the park,...)
- 6:00-6:30: Feeding the kids and the babies
- 6:30-7:00: Helping out with doing the dishes
- 6:30-8:00: Helping the tia watch the kids while she's bathing them and maybe helping to put them to bed.
Some days you may accompany a tia to the hospital with sick babies and help her watching the kids while they are waiting/being examined.
2. If you drive
- 8:00-9:00: Driving the kids to kindergarten
- 9:00-12:00: Driving to the hospital with a tia when needed and usually waiting there with her. If you don't have to drive you stay at the hogar and play/watch the kids.
- 12:00-12:30: Picking up the kids from kindergarten
- 12:45- 1:15: Picking up the older kids from the other house from school
- 1:15 - 1:45: Lunch time with the tias if you work morning shift
- 1:45 - 2:15: Driving the older kids to school
- 1:30 - 2:30: Lunch time with the tias if you work evening shift
- 2:30 - 8:00: Same tasks as for non-driving volunteers but you have to pick up some kids from school/kindergarten and occasionally drive to the hospital
As a volunteer you will either work morning shift (8 am - 2 pm) or evening shift (2 pm - 8 pm). Just keep in mind that there is no "typical day" at the hogar. This schedule is roughly how it works but you never know what exactly to expect for the day.
I get there in the morning at 9 and there are only a few children there. The Tias and I all eat breakfast, bread and tea and coffee, in the kitchen and we just hang out and talk for about a half hour while the kids arrive and drink their milk and eat their bread.
Then, on most days, we have circle time where we sing songs, and sometimes I bring in books that I read to the children at this time.
Circle time sort of peters out once we've sung all the kids favorite songs and they can't sit still anymore and the Tias let them outside to the patio to play.
Some of us Tias will clean up the sala and others will go out to the patio to watch the children, mediate when necessary, hold kids when they cry, put on shoes that are taken off, etc.
Some days there is a pre-lunch art activity, some days there isn't. These would be simple painting and drawing activities.
Lunch is usually at 12:30 or 1 and lasts for about an hour. Then, depending on the weather and what kind of mood the Tias are in, we will sit inside or outside and sort of ignore the kids running around like crazy, while we drink tea or coffee and chat.
Eventually the kids will be back out on the patio playing until about 3:30 or 4 when we'll usually do an art activity, then they drink more milk and eat more bread and parents start coming to get their kids and the last child is gone usually by 4:45.
Some days in the morning or afternoon the children will watch parts of movies, some afternoons we go to the park, every once in a while we have paseos, and other random things come up. And that's the Jardín in a nutshell!
We turn up at 10am and wait with the older girls for the Tia in charge of their educational needs to arrive. Once she has arrived we all head upstairs to the study rooms where we help the girls complete their homework whilst chatting and having a laugh. Sometimes they don't need our help at all but we make sure that we keep on chatting in Spanish so they can join in. Monday mornings, and sometimes other days, we end up going to the dentist's where the girls go every week. There we have to try and stop girls who've been waiting for hours from going mad and wreaking havoc, then pick them up off the floor where they're having a tantrum, or hold their hand as they have a tooth extracted. Post-dentist we have to drop the girls back at the hogar or at school.
Around lunch time we get a moment to have a cup of tea and chat with the kitchen staff before going to collect some girls from one school and escort them back to the hogar. We eat lunch with the tias as the younger girls (11 and under) arrive and then spend time with them playing or hanging out until Tia Lily arrives to start homework time. There's pretty much always something to help out with here, because a lot of the girls have difficulty with school work, and it can also be the most rewarding because you may be the only one who's ever told them they're intelligent and show them that they can do their work for themselves - and then see how proud they are when it turns out well, or they suddenly understand something! It can also be frustrating because the room gets noisy and hectic, and when the girls don't have homework they like to play endless Mario Bros games on the computer.
Once is at 5pm and then they wolf down some bread and a drink and either go back to finishing work (or starting it for the girls in middle school who haven't long been back). At this point things tend to be craziest because it's the end of the day, they're putting their work behind them, and all the girls are hanging out together whatever their age and fondness for each other (or lack thereof...).
At 6pm we stumble out of the hogar tired and dazed, grab a sopaipilla and discuss what went on, have a laugh about things and go home to scrub off the paint/snot/dirt stains, check for head lice and have a cold beer.
(Also some days, which are never told to you in advance, other women volunteers come in and throw birthday parties for the girls during Once. This normally means lots of sweets and cake and the girls normally go a little crazy. It´s fun to play, eat cake and sing along with them. However, if you had any activities planned for after Once and a party happens to crop up, you might as well move the taller till the next day or week. The girls are normally too hyped up on sugar to actually want to work at this point, so to ease your frustration, just go ahead and make it for another day.)