Playing

Today I saw different kids. Brenda explained us that each kid comes to Solca one time in the week or in the month (it depends of the treatment). So every week, we will know new mothers, fathers and kids.

I saw kids more sad, than the other days. They played slowly and alone. My friend and I started to talk with them (one by one). Asking names, age and if they want to play with the others. They all accepted. So, we made a circle and we play “al pon pin Colorado”.

They laugh and talked with the other kids and started to play other games together again and again by themselves.

Social work

Today we serve the breakfast for the kids. It was milk chocolate and cookies. When we give the breakfast, people in the room look at you smiling and saying “thank you so much”. They really appreciate little things that you do for them.

Brenda (the responsible of this area) presented us some mothers, so we started to talk with them about their sons.

I realized that the mothers and fathers who go to the chemotherapy come from Quevedo, Manabí, Santo Domingo and other provinces. And they don’t have enough money to stay in Guayaquil, so their just come for the chemotherapy and then, leave on buses.

They also, tell us how their sons are changing because of the chemotherapy. Is not just hair loss, is a lot of alterations, like change of humor, tiredness, depression, sadness, loneliness, fear, feeling of abandonment and they also can have learning problems.

Of course that these symptoms are present in some children, in others not too much. It depends of the kid. Every kid is a particular case.

Then, we danced a bit with kids. At first they didn’t want to, but slowly, they started to stand up and move. They had a lot of fun.

Solca

I started my social work a month ago in Solca. I am in the area where the children’s are going to do chemotherapy. At first I observed the place, because is new. Is a room with small tables and chairs for kids, and have a lot of legos, puzzles, cars and others toys with which kids can play and have fun for a while.

That room is like the waiting room for kids. Because they come there, play, and then, they go to the room of chemotherapy.

I talked with the kids, I learned their names and I play with them. I saw that sometimes they play alone, so my friend and I decide to make them play in groups games like tingo tango in a circle, so they can all interact and make friends.

Most of the kids have between 4 and 10 years. They all have cancer and assist with their mothers (and with brothers and sisters) to the chemotherapy.

Was very nice go to Solca, because they need a lot of support, sometimes they don’t have hope, they don’t care anything, but if you help them with simple things like: talk, play, laugh. You can transmit that small things and change their way to see the life.

unplug tv

At first I unplug my tv because the cable was damage. But that was the perfect excuse to stop watching it. I have a new cable but the tv still unplug. I realized that I watched too much tv and my mother always gets angry because I never want to go out because I didn’t want to lose any chapter of any tv show.

I learned that I was a big consumer for a long time. I stopped watching tv because I was very addicted, but I never thought that I was a net consumer.

And I also learned that we all must produce something, even just a little bit and in that way we are not going to waste our cognitive surplus in things without importance.

Cognitive surplus

When I saw the video of Mr. Shirky talking about the cognitive surplus, I start thinking about when I was 15 or 16 years. I remember that I was the fan number one of tv. I used to watch all tv shows, that could exist. If I had seen this video before, I would thought twice about watching too much tv (I only talk about tv because I don’t read the newspaper or listen the radio). So I used a lot of my cognitive surplus, watching tv, like Americans. But nowadays I feel great because I never watch tv (actually, my tv is disconnect) :D although anyway I waste my time, sleeping A LOT, or doing things without importance.

I am a consumer that is becomes a producer. I have a blog that everybody can read and enrich with interesting ideas; I’m doing social action one day on the week and in that way I’m trying to do producing things on my free time. It’s not the big deal, but at least I’M DOING SOMETHING, as Shirky said.

More about the TRUTH

Is true that is not necessary become a vegetarian, because there's a lot of small farms that sell they're products cheaper and better.

And when I say small farms, means that, those farms don’t have agglomeration of animals, so they don’t pollute the environment and they don’t kill them in a cruel way (like the male calf).

Those farms, exist in almost all the “Cantones” of Guayaquil, so is not hard to find them.

The truth

Weeks ago, we saw a video “Diet for a new america”, that is related with the text “Investigation of truth”.

Each person has a different lifestyle and depends of they’re customs and habits. That customs or habits have to be consistent. That means that you have to investigate the things before do something, even buy a product.

For example, if you are not agreeing with kill massive and in a cruel way animals of farms, you won’t eat them. So you’ll become a vegetarian. Decision that I think is so hard to choose when you are used to eat lot of meat. And I also think that is harder actually, because we live with a hedonist society, that acts just for pleasure and always try to avoid situations that aren’t pleasant. This society is not able to sacrifice themselves.

I’m part of that group. I love animals, but I also love to eat them (basically the cow) and I’m not able to stop eating them for the moment. But off course that I felt so bad when I saw how the farms treat the animals.

Our society has to be more consistent about they think and they do. And to accomplish that, they have to investigate the truth about all they’re beliefs.