Yo tengo un telefono

Anthony hanging out with one of the orphans in the dining hall
Five year old Leslie making quick work of her ice cream
Juan Carlos and I, after clinic

On Friday we held a clinic at a local Catholic orphanage, the home of 40 precious children and their caretakers. In the morning we met with each house parent and their little family of six kids, treating worms and fungal infections and coughs.

Karen and I sat on the floor with the kids while they waited for their turn with Doctor and we taught them some of our favorite songs with all the motions.

Karen asked the kids if they knew a song to teach us in return. The group of half a dozen munchkins from Hogar Ternura was shy at first, but they eventually taught us a song that goes like this:

Yo tengo un telefono, para hablar con Dios;
Yo tengo un telefono, para hablar con Dios.
Ese telefono, no tiene numero, ese telefono es la oracion;
Ese telefono, no tiene numero, ese telefono es la oracion.

The translation is English is roughly, "I have a telephone, for talking with God, this telephone doesn't have a number, this telephone is a prayer!" Several times this week while I led out the evening children's program in Pachacutec and Karen facilitated another in La Molina, we sang this song with the kids. It's our new favorite.

After we finished the clinics we ate lunch with the orphans, complete with ice cream cones for all that were provided by a Heladeria in Tarapoto. In the afternoon the whole big group of us traveled to a country club swimming pool to play. These kids rarely have enough supervisors to leave their home base, so as you can imagine they were pretty excited.

We had so much fun playing with them.