Thursday began much like wednesday.  We had a second group of kids come to the recyling robots exibit and make their robots (or draw-bots as I discovered they are called.)   Again the kids loved it.  We also had a few visiters from the United States.  One of them was on a world-wide trip.  She´s studying poverty in twelve different countries trying to figure out what there is to do in the world and what she, and other people like her (just graduated college, international studies, ex-student activists) should be doing in the world.  I´m glad she came to La Casa de Panchita.  From this organization one really learns about the important of the community in change - la casa de panchita has managed to work from the ground at the root of problems and cause significant change with they people who attend.

After lunch we went to visit Beatriz, an ex-domestic worker who was fired without pension when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  She´s now living in a nursing home on the charity of the workers and volunteers in La Casa de Panchita.  Beatriz herself does not look like a cancer patient - she´s healthy and relatively active, walking around the grounds with her friends and going to church regularly.  She took us around to meet several of her friends.  The first one we met was 96 years old and shockingly lively.  She sat on the bed during our visit but cracked several witty jokes and was generally healthy.  After visiting a second friend, who we left to take a nap, I was stopped by a woman in the hall.  We had been saying "buenas tardes" to everyone we met because it is clear that so many of the people in the home have stopped receiving visiters and as we left the room of the second friend I said it to an old woman passing by.  She stopped me, pointing at her door and I opened it for her.  She took the opportunity to tell me that people were talking about her and it was making her sicker.  She seemed so genuinely upset that I didn´t know what to do.  She started listing her ailments, even having me feel her back where there was pain.  She was blind in one eye and couldn´t hear very well at all.  She said she didn´t know why she was still here.  There was nothing I could say to her and nothing I could give, but I just listened for a few minutes.  When she stopped talking I told her I needed to go, but that I was really sorry.  I had nothing better to say, but it seems like she appreciated the chance to talk. 
The rest of our trip was relatively uneventful.  We met a third friend of Beatriz´s who, at 84, seems incredibly healthy in body and mind with the exception of her arthritic hands.  She had already been there 11 years.  We then walked with Beatriz in the park right outside the complex.  She and I talked a bit - she wanted to know if I was going to get married soon but then agreeing that I should wait until I had finished my studies.  She talked only a little bit about her life, telling me she hadn´t had the time to have a family.  According to one of the women at La Casa Beatriz had worked for the family that fired her for a long time, devoting herself to them.  She seems to healthy now and I hope she keeps it up.  I think it´s amazing what La Casa de Panchita is doing for her.  They visit her weekly at least and provide her with as much as they can, all on the money given freely by those who work there, because as an organization they can´t legally give her money.  She´s living comfortably and seems content enough, though she said she´s not used to living at that complex and would leave if her health would allow it.  With cancer I think sickness can happen quickly, but she seems healthy enough now and I hope she lasts a while longer.