Mantay provides a place for young abandoned mothers (ยบ12 to 18) to live with their child. The organization teaches them how to take care of their child, teaches them a trade, and allows them to continue schooling. When they turn 18, Mantay assists the mothers in finding a job, apartment, and furniture to get them started.
Well, we were extremely impressed with the organization, so we decided to volunteer there as well. It is run by a husband and wife from Spain who live there with their two children.
Its a long commute - about 45 minutes by collectivo and an hour by taxi. Collectivos (vans that pack people in) are far more fun and the drivers attempt to get as many runs in as they can in a shift so its often faster. The other day we arrived early and waited outside. Apparently, Mantay is in the middle of a main thoroughfare for cattle. We saw two herds of cattle merging at the sametime. It caused a bit of chaos and we thought we were getting ready for the running of the bulls.
Starting Monday, we are now working two mornings a week at Mantay followed by afternoons at Inti. Our first day, we learned how to change babies diapers (they use cloth diapers here, not huggies - which is definitely a challenge). All the children are under 3 years old (youngest is 2 months old) and apparently always travel by train outside of the nursery.
We are planning on helping them build a website so that they can sell their stuff online and hopefully help them find stores in the US that can sell their bags and bookmarks as they are of high quality.
The other 3 days a week we are volunteering at Inti. Here's a few of the children holding up the books that we were able to buy with the money raised from Scholastic Books (they gave us an incredible discount).
We've stopped taking Spanish classes - Jackie is close to fluent and I'm crossing my fingers that my Spanish will improve as I work with the children.
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