Antonia (Shelisa at the Aldea)

Antonia is one of the mothers at the orphanage and is very mature for her age. I love seeing her with her baby, which she takes care of very well. I have never seen such a child so loved by a mother and at the age of 17, that is quite exceptional.

She is striving to learn more every day and is always asking what some words mean in English. The other day during computer class, Antonia came up and asked if she could learn some more. So the other intern and I allowed her to come in and learn how to turn on and off the computer and how to use some programins including Word.

In the process, we found out that even though she has the dream of being a schooltecher and going to college some day, she does not know how to read or write. She is very outgoing and a strong woman when you talk with her, but when we got her in front of the computer and asked her to click on a "file" in Spanish, she did not know where to click and she became very shy and told us she did not know how to read or write. She has a great deal of potential and I think after a lot of education, she will become a great teacher. She just needs the assistance to get her up to the educational level she needs to be at at her age.