¡Hola, Abuelitos!

Having now finished my first week at FABC, I want to share a bit about my day-to-day activities at the Fundación. This week, I did a bit of everything so that I could get to know the Foundation and eventually make a more fixed schedule for myself.  I arrive at the Foundation at about 9AM each day and stay until 2 or 3 PM (essentially, the hours that the abuelitos are there, plus a little extra for clean-up or office work).

La Fundación serves breakfast and lunch to the abuelitos Monday through Friday, rain or shine.  It is the only organization in Quito, and perhaps in all of Ecuador, to feed senior citizens so reliably.  Anywhere from 50 to 150 abuelitos come each day to eat.  Given that FABC receives only limited government funding, has modest facilities and only 6 paid employees (most of them part-time), this is no small feat.  Nearly all of the food comes from donations from local supermarkets (one of which is called “Supermaxi,” with a sister store called “Megamaxi”...I think the feminine hygiene connotations are lost on the Ecuadorians).  Much of the food is partially rotten and no longer fit to sell.  Maria, the cook, sorts out the inedible donations and does wonders with the remaining food.   She rules the kitchen with an iron fist to make sure that the food is edible and plentiful, all the while singing along to saucy ballads on the radio. Breakfast tends to consist of bread and a hot cereal.  Lunch is soup, some kind of starch (pasta, rice, or potatoes), vegetables/salad, meat, dessert, and freshly prepared juice. No abuelito leaves hungry.

Aside from feeding the abuelitos, a dentist, physical therapist, doctor, and nurse keep regular hours at La Fundación and medicines are dispensed free of cost.  La Fundación also provides entertainment for the abuelitos: drawing, painting lessons, callisthenic exercises, games, etc.  There’s an allotted period of time for prayer each day, during which the abuelitos sing the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of  “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkle.  Well, in theory.  Mostly they great each other at inappropriate volumes and tell stories while the woman leading prayer time sushes them.  On Wednesday, I got join the abuelitos in playing “pin the cane and fedora on the old man.”  Pretty rich.  My favorite activity BY FAR, though, has been “payasos” – CLOWNS!  But it's not REALLY clowns.  It's just old folks CLOWNIN' AROUND!!!  There was singing, story telling, and (best of all) group dancing.  I think it's supposed to motivate self-expression and provide some exercise and range of motion to the old folks.  Mostly though, it is just a HOOT!   It was a moment of complete bliss for me, and I think abuelitos really got a kick out of my attempts at ethnic dancing (they all were doing some sort of fancy cha-cha-cha step that I really. REALLY could not replicate).

                                                          abuelitos at play