Free Friday

Yesterday was kind of bittersweet. I dropped the title of being a new girl and officially became a member of the old group. That´s right, I have been here for five weeks now which means the old group is leaving and another group of fresh, nervous, and excited girls came in. The old group left for the Amazon yesterday morning. It was really sad saying goodbye to them, even though I will see them one last time on Monday. I mean, we did everything together. I saw these people every day. When you work with, eat with, and hang out with the same people every single day for five weeks, it´s sad to see them go. Now that half of my Quito family is gone, it´s like part of me has left as well.

That being said, I´m excited to be part of the old group now. The new group came late Thursday night. They all are really nice girls and so far we all get along great.

Yesterday, the new girls had orientation. That meant that the old group had a free Friday. And apparently, holding to the tradition that we didn´t know existed, we went shopping. First, we went to the mall in Old Town Quito. We didn´t stay very long because there was four floors of pretty much the same stuff. After the mall, we went to the Artesian again. (I can never get enough of that place!) We went through every aisle. It seems like it doesn´t matter how many times I go, something awesome just pops out at me even though I don´t think much changes each time we go.

After a few hours of shopping, we came back and chilled in Megan and Caitlin´s room (Caitlin is a new girl, Megan is in my group.) The new girls were still doing orientation so all of us old girls just watched a movie. Afterwards, Angel took us out to eat at Los Hot Dogs, which is the same place that we went for our orientation dinner.

I did have night shift last night as well so a busy day continued with an almost sleepless night. It was alright though. After night shift, it just kept going this morning. I had a few hours to come home and eat but I had to go back to the orphanage to cover for the site coordinator while she was on the orphanage tour with the new girls. It was alright by me though because I was so excited to see the kids. On Friday´s, we go to night shift later so the older kids were already in bed so I didn´t get to see them. So I was so excited to see the kids after not seeing them at all the day before that only getting two hours of sleep didn´t bother me in the slightest. What can I say, I love my kids!