This morning started at 8:00. We drove to Benjamin Bloom’s Children’s Hospital for a full day of painting. Our mission was to paint the neo-natal ward. We divided work in a random order with new team members. There were four teams, which were assigned to different parts of the hallways. Both nurseries and the intensive care unit were very busy so we had to stick to the hallways today. Our first hectic task was taping. Tape flew on the walls to our delight.

We then sanded and wiped the walls. Injuries were a seldom event, although our fingers became yellow, red and blue from the task of sanding the walls. Ron’s task was to fill the craters left from a recent earthquake. The amateur members used the rollers to paint the greater part of the wall. The expert painters felt they were Van Gogh’s as they touched up the trim with brushes. Judy distributed the paint as if it were gold. The hallways were transformed into a world of colour including Barb’s back when Chris spilled a tray of paint. In one part of the hall we had to endure the gusting wind that tore apart the plastic on the floor and sent it into the breeze.

The hallways were filled with the admiring glances of the Latin American staff. In our experience we were able to view some premature babies in incubators. One if which was born on March 11, 2005 that appeared to be less than two pounds. Amanda also identified herself as a premature baby. The whole group was captivated by the image of these little babies. We completed a large part of our goal and tomorrow we will resume.

After a long day of hard work we drove to Los Bambúes restaurant for a delicious meal to finish off our day. Most of us took a refreshing dip in the restaurant’s pool. Our meal consisted of lasagna and vegetables with a delicious cake for dessert. This get together at the restaurant was a perfect ending to a long day.

By: Ben, Bojan, Ron and Art (with some help from Chris)