On January the 9th, António came back from Europe. It was nice for us to be able to spend time once again with a familiar friendly face. Since then, we’ve been to the orphan’s houses every weekend. We have become quite acquainted with them and very fond of three of the kids: So-Jun (6), Teakyoung (18) and Sunghyun (18). There, we play board games (Uno is one of the all-time favorites), we play football and basketball, cook (French crepes and chocolate fondant), go to playgrounds, even a zoo and a fair…
We’ve been to a science museum where we’ve learnt a lot about Korean history, planes and space shuttles, the history of our planet… We’ve even seen dinosaure bones and done some scientific experiments…
We’ve been to the war museum…
And we’ve travelled far from the city to walk on scary suspended bridges…
We were also here to celebrate the Korean lunar New Year, “seollal” at the end of January. For the occasion, a ceremony takes place in which it is tradition for youngsters to pay respect to their parents. They kneel in front of them and bow with their hands and forehead to the ground. Then the parents offer a present to their kids (usually an envelope with money and a little something). Thanks to Father Philippe, we were able to witness this ceremony. Here, the children from the houses were bowing to him. The Father is often the only family they’ve got. The youngsters all left with an envelope and a plush bunny to celebrate the year 2023 (year of the rabbit).
And Claudia, one of the educators, took on her day off to bring us to the beach.
We have met great people in these houses, the kids of course, but also Father Philippe and the educators. They have shown us nothing but kindness and generosity and we will never forget the warmhearted moments and the laughters we shared with all of them. We can’t thank them enough for everthing they’ve done for us and for making the weekends of our recovery a very special moment.
We will also ever be so grateful to António who welcomed us in his life and opened his house for more than 2 months, for sharing these moments with him, for introducing us to the kids and the miracle doctor and for enabling us to continue our dream, to continue the world trip. Thank you, thank you, thank you António!!! God bless!!!