Day 8: Last Day of Service

Our Final Day at Los Pinitos

Today was our last day volunteering at the daycare. It was the last time we would commute and take the subway, the train, and the bus. It was the last time we would have a second breakfast at the kindergarten, and it was the last day we would be able to spend with Cecilia, her family, and all the children at the Jardín. We wanted to make sure everything was finished so we could leave Cecilia and Cristian with a nice backyard where the kids could play safely.

After our last second breakfast, we went straight to work. We cleaned the inside of the daycare (which is about the size of a garage and houses 40-50 children everyday), organized the toys, the puzzles, the crayons, the building blocks and the stuffed animals. We finished painting the back wall and the play set and finished mounting any remaining planters onto the walls.

Once we were finished with lunch, Cecilia told us how much she appreciated our help and how lucky she was to have us working at the daycare. We were all very touched, some of us cried, and we certainly all realized how much this experience has changed us.

We are all quite aware of how fortunate we are and how others don't have the same luck. As a token of her gratitude, Cecilia and her mother gave us each the most adorable clown doll that was full of Argentinian candy.

 Our last day of service at Los Pinitos came to an end. There were many hugs and kisses goodbye, and we promised to come back next year to continue working on the daycare. We said goodbye to the little children who hugged us and kept on asking us where we were going. It was heartbreaking to tell them we were leaving and probably would not see them for at least another year.

We will dearly miss Cecilia, Cristian, Liliana, Gonzalo, Samy, Micaela, Jenny and all the little kids at Jardín Los Pinitos. We definitely hope to see them all again next year.

Our Night Out in Buenos Aires 

After we came back from volunteering, we all showered, changed, and got ready to go out. Melisa, our favorite person in Argentina, was going to take us out to a tango show! We were all in the best clothes we brought to Argentina, some of us were even wearing heels. We took a hostel bus to Complejo Tango, which offers dinner, a tango show, and tango classes almost every night of the week. The evening started out with a 3 course dinner and wine. The food was absolutely spectacular.

After dessert, we went to our tango class. We learned all the basic moves and how to lead and follow. We paired up with each other and practiced our new moves. We got quite good very quickly!

Once we were done with our class, we headed back to our table and waited for the tango show to start. We were so excited! The show started out describing the history of tango through dance, and even had a live tango singer that walked around the room and sang to us.

The Tango show was incredible! All the dancers we saw were so talented and graceful. Tango is a beautiful dance that is so full of emotion and raw passion. We loved the show and we wil hopefully not forget what we learned tonight.