Visiting Asila San Jose for mass and lunch

Update: I learned the names of the other sisters and residents and corrected them below.


The sisters have their daily masses at 5:30am and thankfully I do not have to wake up for that. My day starts around 8am with breakfast. So far it's been bread, cheese, eggs if I want them, and potato soup with tea; Sister Barbarita has bread, cheese, soft-poached egg, and hot chocolate.


The last two mornings, we went to a nearby "house" as they call it, although asilo is translated to asylum. We would think of it more like a nursing home for mentally and physically disabled or older women that do not have family to help take care of them. This place is called Asila San Jose (more pictures from blog post from other volunteers). The buildings are over 100 years old from when it was a convent, but it's been a nursing home for maybe over 10 years (amount of years was lost in translation) and there are around five nuns that live there as well as staff to help run the place. When we arrive, we help get the women into the chapel for the 10am mass. After mass, we help get them situated into the dining room for lunch. Although I can't communicate with them much, they are really wonderful about pointing out directions to me or demonstrating to me what to do and then letting me continue it. Here are some pictures of the place and women that live there:

"Father God Bless Our Benefactors"

Sister Eutimia

I asked for permission to take photos by taking one of the sisters, Sister Edilma, and me to show what I wanted:

Here is the inner courtyard:

Josefina was just wonderful and a HUGE help to me. We laughed so much at not being able to talk or understand.

Some other residents, Flor and then Patricia, that were most helpful and a lot of fun:

After lunch Sister took me on a tour of the place showing me the cow (pictured below if you can find it), garden, and pigs which I didn't get a picture of but they were not what I expected to see when she opened the door!

After the tour, I had lunch with the sisters and caught a short nap watching TV while waiting for Sister Barbarita to pick me up with a surprise which will be the next post. :)