The First Days of Work
Over the next couple of days, we started construction on what was to be the new computer room. With hammer and chisel, Jimmie and I started breaking away a space for the electricity and internet wires. As Dirson wanted to have the computer room door facing his office for security purposes, we also hammered a giant hole in the wall. In all, it felt as though we spent more time breaking down their orphanage than building new things for them. Meanwhile, Claire and Casey were getting to know all the kids and hearing their thoughts on our project.
As construction on the computer room continued, we became increasingly frustrated. 
We really wanted to make ourselves useful, but we had to pay a construction worker to come and do the more technical aspects of the room. In the afternoons, Jimmie and I tried to organize soccer games, but the enthusiasm was mild.
Many of the boys seemed bored, but often they were not interested in any sports activity. It was hard to even find a soccer ball in the orphanage. 
We finally got one from a locked storage room and wondered why the staff would keep a simple toy as a soccer ball away from the children. One day, however, we arrived at the orphanage to find the remains of our ball, and dozens of pieces all over the playground that had been ripped off. Dirson would later tell us that in the past half year dozens of soccer balls that had been given to the children had been either stolen or destroyed.
As the computer room was making progress, we headed to the airport to pick up the box with three laptops that Casey had sent to Brazil. We had received seven second-hand processors from the IT Department at Lewis & Clark College. Casey had driven these home to Texas, where she wanted to buy monitors and ship them. However, freight shipping to Brazil had recently been cancelled and air shipping was very expensive, so Casey had ended up trading the seven processors for six laptops at an organization that recycles computers. Claire, Jimmie, and she each took one to Brazil in their luggage, and then Casey shipped the other three in one box. 
Gradually making his way through the red tape, Jimmie had found a tax-free number for Criamar, so the computers could be labeled as a donation and we would not have to pay the regular sixty—which later became seventy—percent Brazilian import tax on electronics. Eager to finally get the computers to Criamar, Dirson took us to the post office at the airport. But the last stretch would prove to be the hardest…
