Giving Back and Having Fun

On Thursday Lance and I attended the Hearts of Gold Christmas Party.  The Hearts of Gold is a charitable organization that raises money to help assist existing non-profit organizations in the Azuay Province.  More than 300 people attended this event.  They had a sit down dinner, live music, and an auction and raffle for all the participants.  Even Santa Claus made an appearance!

This photo shows a group of children that performed at the event...

and this picture gives you an idea of what the venue looked like.  As you can see, people really dress up for this affair.  We sat at a table with David and Kathy, who attend Spanish class with us.  David's wife, Claudia was also there, along with several other people.   We had a good time visiting with each other and watching the festivities.  

Friday evening, we attended First Friday Art.  It was held at the Medal Museum and several artists exhibited their work.  We were really impressed with what we saw.  The work below is by an artist named Michael Pinchera and he is from the United States.  All his paintings have bold colors and interesting shapes.  We really liked them.     

Michael sold the picture above 30 minutes before we arrived that night.  He told us that the buyer plans to eventually give the piece to the art museum here in Cuenca. 

 The two sculptures below were done by a different artist.  He had many other pieces on exhibit.

This is just a small sample of what was shown that night.  Along with the art, there was food, wine, and music.  Below are pictures of the band that played.  They were really good.

We happened to meet and talk with the woman who owned the building where this event took place.  She told us that the building was an old colonial home owned by a prominent Spanish family that had a brewery in Cuenca.  The brewery was housed next door to their home and was torn down to build new condos.  She bought the home to save it from a similar fate.  The architect she hired to rehab the building did a great job preserving some of the more interesting features of the old colonial home.

On Saturday, I finally had an opportunity to work at the orphanage.  Bettina, the woman who coordinated this event, and I helped the children make Christmas cards.  We were lucky enough to receive many generous donations from the ex-pat community to make this activity possible.  People gave all kinds of craft items, including fun foam, colored paper, scissors, glue, glitter, sequins, paint, etc.  

I was amazed at how well behaved the children were.  They were also very good at tracing, cutting, and decorating their cards.  I think they really enjoyed the activity.  When they were done, we had a delicious pizza lunch.  I took pictures, but due to privacy rules at the orphanage, I am not allowed to post them online.  Instead, we will print them, and give them to the children as a nice remembrance of the fun day that we had.  Hopefully, we will be able to schedule another craft day soon.

In other news, we had a visit from Tony Bishop, a very talented tech guy, who helped me straighten out some of the problems I was having with my email.  He comes highly recommended and seems to be the "geek squad" of Cuenca if you are having trouble with your computer or other devices.

We attended the Programa de Navidad Divino Nino at Plazoleta San Francisco on Tuesday evening.  Once again, we seemed to be the only ex-pats in attendance.  The program was similar to a church service, with a spirited sing along led by a man who played a guitar.  The crowd really got into the music and it was fun to watch everyone do actions with the words to the songs.

Thursday was our final session of Coffee Club Spanish.  We had a great teacher and met many friendly and interesting people in our class.  Lance will be taking a short break, but I will continue with a tutor starting next week Tuesday.

I think it's safe to say you could easily find something to do every day of the week here in Cuenca.  We love being here.