July 10

32 screaming babies. 90+ degrees. No air conditioning...If any of you thought from the previous posts that this trip was too much like an all-inclusive luxury vacation, that part came to an end today.
But no matter how rough we think we had it today, nothing compares to how hard these kids have it. All of them come from the indigenous villages in the mountains around Santiago, and all suffer from moderate to severe malnutrition. Some of them have arms and legs so skinny it seemed they could easily snap in half, big distended bellies, scars from where parasites entered and exited their skin...but almost all of them came to life when one of us scooped them up, tossed them a ball, tickled their cheeks. They laughed and babbled and reached out their arms to be picked up (except for the one little girl I saw that could only half way lift up her arms because she is so weak).
At first, some of the boys were a little awkward handling the babies. For some of our guys, this was really their first time dealing with babies. But by the end of the night, everyone was helping in the massive job of bathing, diapering and putting pajamas on 32 babies.
Enjoy some photos of a good, but exhausting, day!

The new love of Bobby's life.

Bryson helping a young driver.

The little guy in the red shirt was my favorite until he had a massive diarrhea attack all over my leg...Fortunately my host house is only a 2 minute walk from Nutre Hogar, so I could go shower and change.

Jake and Gerard  enjoying playtime.

Adam played non-stop with lots of different babies.

 Ibrahim got pretty attached to this little boy.