Service Project at Old Folk's Home

This week we had the opportunity to provide some service to some less fortunate elderly people at a rest home. To be honest, this rest home made the rest homes in the United States look like country clubs, it was very sad to see how these people live everyday of their lives. The conditions there were pretty poor, and there were far less workers than sufficient for the number of people that lived there. Most of the residents were sick, with all sorts of illnesses. Many of the people who we visited were lying in their own urine in their beds. All of them asked us when we would be coming back next, and it was sad to tell them that we lived too far away to come back again anytime soon. I enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time with them, I could tell that they were happy to have 20 young people visiting them and conversing with them. We brought some hygiene products to donate, and our teacher brought some chocolates and cookies to hand out as well. They got so excited for these little treats! They all wanted more and more, so it was fun to hand them out to them. It was a good experience to be able to help out and provide some service to these good people who unfortunately are not in the best position.

This was the men's dormitory where they stayed, there were about 25 people laying down in this room. Many of them were sick, some yelling for help.

This is the mush that they were given for lunch while we were there.

This lady was very nice and funny as well. She introduced herself to us every time we walked past her. 

This woman was begging for bread, I don't think she had eaten bread in a while. So my teacher Vanessa went to the bakery near by to buy her a sack of bread, and she was eating it the rest of the time that we were there.

The girls in our group painted the old women's nails and combed their hair for them. This woman was very excited about it.

This is when we handed out the chocolates to the patients there.

I really enjoyed talking with this man. He told us a lot about what we were learning about in class this week, the military dictatorship here in Brazil which lasted for 21 years from the 1960's to the 1980's. He was a part of the military in this era, it was very interesting to hear about what it was like (it was a very sad period in the history of Brazil).

I saw this familiar emblem on the back of one of the patient's wheelchairs. It is actually a familiar sight to run into wheelchairs like this that were donated by the church, I've seen plenty in my time in Brazil.