Kichwa Village Day Care Center

On Thursday I went to several different places with the tour group I talked about on Sunday's blog post.  We started at Cuicocha Lake and then moved on to  Agualongo de Paredes, a fabulous day care center.  The government is sponsoring it and the children get two meals and two snacks during the day which helps deter malnutrition.  This center is the pilot program for the rest of the country.  I think it's pretty fabulous and wait until you see the kids!  They're too adorable for words!

The woman in black and white is Suss Alvarez, the Director of the center.  She's telling us about the work they do there and it's lovely to see how much she loves the kids and the work she does.

The kids spend there time in the upstairs area.  The space below is a community room that is there for the use of any of the residents of the area.  The day after we were there, the day care center used it for a Dia de Ninos (Children's Day) program.

This is the resting room for the kids.  There are more mattresses against the wall behind me.  Those are spread out to cover the floor.

 

And here are the kids.  I could have taken pictures of them for days.  These first few are fabulous but wait until you see the ones where the kids discovered they could see themselves on the back of the camera when I finished taking the picture.  They couldn't wait to get theirs taken so they could run over and see how they looked on the camera.  They were fabulous!

These two little girls were sitting at the bottom of the steps as we were leaving.  I just loved the little girl on the left.  She has such an amazing expression on her face.

The kids wished us a fond farewell.  I can't remember the last time I was greeted and seen off with such enthusiasm.  I look forward to going back there just so I can spend some time playing with the kids.

Tomorrow I'll finish up with our tour of a herbal farm and our lunch there.