Day 7

Day 7

Today was the official opening of the new Mama Cocha center. The entire staff of the old center attended along with some of the more supporting town people, a local priest and obviously Suzie. Upon listening to some speeches from both Suzie and the Priest which included the thanks given to everyone on the team as well as the staff for making this entire project possible the children were able to enter their soon to be home and see all that had been done for them by TPDK. All though unfortunately we were unable to see their reactions to seeing the new rooms, the sentiment was definitely overwhelming and I finally understood what this entire thing is about. Seeing the children so happy truly does make you understand how much good our effort in the last year has accomplished. For myself, personally, the most touching experience however, was meeting Alicia in person and being able to watch her smile and play. After seeing the video in which she is abused by her older sisters, it would be hard to imagine that a child living in those awful conditions could in fact come out and be so genuinely “normal” and be a child in the full sense of the word. Even though there were many more children there I found myself being far more observant of what happened with Alicia and focused far more on what she was doing. I noticed the same thing in several other members of the team and I’m positive this was due to actually seeing this child’s condition in a video and how she was treated. When you see something so tragic first hand and know that you are a part of something that puts a smile on their face, it makes every second of the effort put in worth it.

-Paul. C

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