From: USA
Dates: January 2006 – for 5 months
Community service: Centro Comunitario Nuestra Señora de Lujan in Mar del Plata, province of Buenos Aires.

Julie arrived in Mar del Plata in early February and was welcomed by her
host organization, Comedor Hermana Marta, where she has spent the last three
months! The Comedor serves up to 150 children in one of the poorest
neighborhood in Mar del Plata, serving as a community center and soup
kitchen.

The neighborhood itself has dirt roads, no street signs or lights and the
homes are most frequently made of scraps of different materials. The
Comedor not only provides essential food, but equally important, it provides
a place for the kids to play and just hangout.

Originally here on a 6-month program, Julie´s project in the Comedor is
going so well that she has decided to stay on after finishing the time
sponsored by VIP to complete a full year working in Comedor Marta. Her
efforts, along with those of German volunteer Carolin Polewka who has
recently joined Julie, seem to be adding real spirit the community
surrounding the comedor.

“….All the kids who come to the Comedor are from the neighborhood. There are close to 100 every day...in two shifts and my job is to play with them! That’s it. I spend everyday playing with approximately 100 children, teaching them English words, talking about the US or music or dancing, playing hide and seek...everything. These kids whole world is their neighborhood, so anything that I say or do is new to them. I have the ability to teach them so much, which is a really incredible feeling.”

“There are usually no less than 5 kids pulling on me at one time...wanting a hug or wanting to play a new game or just wanting my attention. It’s absolutely exhausting, but the feeling I get every morning when I walk into the Comedor and hear 50 little voices excitedly screaming my name is unlike any satisfaction I’ve ever felt before.”

“But, for all the excitement, it’s so sad. The kids are lucky to have shoes. They are even luckier to have two parents or even one parent to sufficiently love them (fathers abandoning their families is extraordinarily common in the barrio) . Families are usually enormous - 8 or 10 siblings is normal. And, so, of course, the kids are in desperate need of love and affection. So, I wake up every morning and tell myself that these children need to be reminded that someone loves them and that it’s my job to do that. I’ve decided that every non-material problem can be fixed with just a bit of love. So, I give them a little more attention, a little longer hug, and 100 extra kisses.”

And it’s just amazing. I love everything so much...the kids, the women who work at the Comedor, the people in the neighborhood...everything!

Last Saturday (the day before my birthday), I went to church with a bunch of the kids from the Comedor and some of their families. After church, one of the kids grabbed my arm and pulled me around to a little house on the side of the church. I opened the door and the whole house was decorated for my birthday. The kids had planned a HUGE party! With food, drawings, desserts, including 4 little cakes that spelled Juli (because that’s how they spell my name here)!

I walked into the house and 20 of the kids started playing Happy Birthday on the recorder! And, then, they sang it in English! (which I learned they had been practicing for a week!) I actually scared some of the kids I was crying so hard by the end of the song. It was unreal. Throughout the party, we danced, we sang, we ate a lot of cake. But, the best, was the number of complete strangers from the neighborhood who had come to celebrate my birthday because even though I’d never met them, they knew me as the U.S. girl who works in the Comedor. And I can’t count the number of those people who told me how much they love me and how glad they are that I am a part of their community. It was, without doubt, one of the greatest moments I’ve ever had.

To know that even though I am one small person in a country, in a world of poverty, I’ve made some kind of an impact on a few people, makes me happier than I’ve been.”