Nov 19

Today we played charades. My group did Daniel and the lion’s den. First I want to introduce you to Wildmer. He’s maybe thirty years old and he has some problems with his speech and I think there are some other things wrong with him as well. He goes to the Infa and eats and does chores and such with the kids. Anyways, he was in our group. He was given the name Daniel because we had no other guys in our group. The two older girls were going to push him to a group of ferocious lions and then Wildmer (Daniel) was going to put his hands together to pray and then the lions would stop roaring and close their mouths. This is a lot easier said than done. During the first practice, the girls pushed Wildmer into the ferocious group of lions and he just fell flat on his face. He didn’t get up for like 10 seconds. This was a problem because he had to get up and pray eventually. Another problem was the ferocious lions weren’t really ferocious at all. They were more on the giggly side than anything else. When it was time to perform in front of other groups, the lions decided to roar once or twice each and as soon as Wildmer fell on the ground, they decided that it was their time to stop. Wildmer fell face down again and stayed there for maybe 5 seconds (improvement). Then he got up and looked at them and whispered (in a loud whisper) to go. He wanted them to keep growling until he prayed… or at least that’s what I thought he was doing. The lions shuffled a little bit, but not one continued to growl. It was pretty funny. Some people guessed Jesus praying, some guessed Moses, but no one guessed that the gigglies were actually terrifying lions. I really didn’t mind that our skit turned out to look more like Moses parting the waters than anything else. It was worth the laugh.

Nov 18

Today, I got peed on. Lixi decided to do her business while I was carrying her… and of course her diaper from home isn’t one that holds all that stuff in very well. Her diapers are pretty much an old shirt or rag that is held together by safety pins. And so I took Lixi to the bathroom to do the daily cleaning and changing. It was a good thing that I brought a sweatshirt today. I planned to change into the sweatshirt and wash the shirt that I had on. I didn’t get to do this as soon as I hoped to. After I finished cleaning and changing Lixi, I had to wash her clothes. After that, one of the boys scraped his knee really really bad and so I had to go into the office and pull out the gauze, tape, and antibacterial business. I start to put stuff away and another boy comes up to show me his huuuuge cut on his arm. I do the same deed to that cut and then I grab my sweatshirt ready to get changed. Then Laura (she’s the girl who I took to the doctor… she had something growing on her thumb) comes up and asks for more gauze on her thumb. Her poor hand is swollen and there’s puss coming out of the huge hole that the doctor made. Remember how I told you about the doctor that just stuck a syringe in her finger and then cut at it? Remember how I questioned that whole thing? Yeah, well, I know for sure that he didn’t do a good job because now it’s extremely infected. The poor thing hasn’t been smiling or talking much at all. She just sits down and is in tremendous pain. Isa told her that she needs to see another doctor and so she sent Tarynn to take her. Meanwhile, I’m still very stinky with pee on me. After I wrapped Laura’s thumb in more gauze, I was summoned by kids that were yelling and blaming people for hitting other people and saying bad words to people (chaos). I dealt with the problems the best I could. And finally, after cleaning a baby and her clothes, cleaning a few cuts and scrapes, gauzing up an infected thumb, and after timing-out many misbehaved children, I got to clean my shirt. I felt like the rest of the day continued to be chaotic. Also at the end of the day, Isabel’s son took something form Tarynn and me. I confronted him and asked him why he took it and he said that he didn’t take it. I told him that neither of us put his name on it. Isabel scolded him a little bit and then gave it to him afterwards. I was extremely frustrated. It didn’t bother me that he had it, it bothered me that he wasn’t learning that it was not okay to do that. His mother even had him write his name on a paper and it matched the handwriting on our thing. He still refused to accept that he did it. It made me so frustrated that I just turned around, finished cleaning another wound and walked out of the office without saying another word. Let me just say this… I’m tired. Very very tired.

Also, Amanda is really sick. Amanda is the girl that takes care of the younger girls at the Hogar during the week. I am the sub. I really don’t know how she does it. These girls have already made me cry before. They’re not always on the nice side. Even though I’m tired because I have to get up extra early and then go to work all day at the Infa, I think I’m getting to know the girls at the Hogar a little more. I’m closer to some of the Infa kids, but I feel like I should be closer to the Hogar kids because I live there. One night this week there were only two girls to put to bed on time. It was actually really fun. The other girls were out playing soccer with some of the other kids. I brought over a few chocolates and a little Spanish kids book that my dad bought me. We ate chocolate and read some of the book. Then I put on some music off my laptop and the two girls feel asleep to Nat King Cole. I had a lot of fun just reading with them and joking with them. It reminded me that even though I’ve had some really hard days, I love these kids and these memories are memories I’ll want to keep close forever so I need to soak up as much as I can now.

nov 13

Picture this: It’s a warm day and you just ate a full meal and your stomach is feeling very happy. Now you have to take a very boring class or you’re in a very boring meeting where the person talking seems to be saying the same things that seem very irrelevant to you. You know you should listen, but sometimes you forget why. You sit in the warm room with your happy full stomach and what do you do?

You doze off!! Of course. This is what happens on the bus ride home. I know, it’s a problem, but I can’t help myself. I try so hard to keep my eyes wide open, but I find myself catching my head from falling. It’s really bad. I’m just so tired… and my stomach is really full… and we take the same old route home everyday. It’s no excuse. Well anyways, today, there was this old man sitting a few rows ahead of me. He looked like he hadn’t showered in a week and he was carrying a broom stick. Yes. There was nothing on the end. It was just a broom stick. Anyways, his clothes were dirty and his face was worn from both age and sun. He turned around and saw me fighting so hard to stay awake. He gave me a small smile. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I wasn’t fully convinced that he saw me dozing off. I thought he was being nice. The next time he looked back and saw me do it again, he gave me the full smile. I could see into his mouth where some of his teeth should have been. I gave him an embarrassed face and looked away. Unfortunately we had the same stop. He got off the bus and when we met up with him, he started laughing at me and I couldn’t help but laugh with him. Then he started to imitate me. This toothless old man didn’t stop there. Tarynn had to buy something at the little stand by the Hogar and so we stopped there. I figured he had already left toward his house. To my surprise, he was on the other side of the street. He saw us and he seriously took his finger, pointed at me, and laughed. Some random Honduran man was across the street pointing and laughing at me. I always thought it would feel ten times worse if someone pointed and laughed at me… but now I know how it feels. Haha, that taught me never to sleep on the bus ever again.

nov 11

Happy birthday mom!!

The thing about being here is that I can’t see my family very often and I miss celebrating birthdays and other things with my family. Thanksgiving is going to be very sad over here! Tarynn and I talked about going home today. It’s only been about two and a half months and we miss it all very much. It really feels like I’ve been here for a lot longer than 2 months. It’s not like I don’t like it here. I love these kids, but it’s just hard to be away from everything I know so well.

Anyways, I talked to my brother today. He’s in the doctoral program for psychology in Loma Linda. Good thing about that is that he’s going to be specializing in children psychology. Horray for me! His advice to me: positive reinforcement. So last week I had the girls and I gave them little treats if they did well, but today I talked to him and he said that even if I just tell them that they’re doing a good job throughout the day, it’ll help. So that is my plan. Positive reinforcement. I really wish someone was here to give me positive reinforcement… preferably with ice cream. (:

nov 10

Today I took one of the girls, Laura, to the doctor. She had a weird thing growing on her thumb. She said that it hurt a lot and that she was crying all night. So after waiting for 2 hours, we went into the doctors office and he asked her a few questions about it. Then he had her lay down on a little bed thing and he put some stuff into her thumb with a syringe. She was shutting her eyes and holding her nose trying not to cry. Then the doctor left the room for like 2 minutes and blood was just trickling down her thumb. I didn’t feel like the process was completely sanitary. Then he came back and took out some pliers to hold the thing in place and then cut it off. Laura started crying and I wanted to cry for her too. Whether or not the doctor gave her a lollipop (he had them, but he didn’t), I decided it was imperative that she had ice cream. Oh the power of ice cream….

nov 8

It’s raining ants.

Well actually, it’s more of a light drizzle, but nonetheless, I’d rather them stay grounded. Apparently it’s normal to have the mutant ants everywhere for a few days during the rainy season. Okay, so it’s not actually raining ants… but they climb up the walls and the ceiling and wait for the opportune moment to drop to the ground and terrorize not only with bites, but with their numbers. I found one on my arm and I freaked out. They started dropping on us when Tarynn was helping Lily (one of the Seniors) get ready for a banquet. Tarynn was extremely excited to do her hair, makeup, and nails. I’d like to say that I helped, but that’s really not my thing. I get confused when it comes to makeup. So I did what I could do… I took pictures and held the mirror up. There were lots of people in our room watching her get ready and we started to notice the mutant ants crawling around. After everyone left, we were trying to find out where they were all coming from. Tarynn found quite a few on her bed and there were some on the floor and the walls and shelves. I felt sorry for our bad luck until I saw Dario’s bed. He’s one of the boys that lives in the same room. His bed was covered in ants. We didn’t have it that bad after all. Tarynn is going to run tomorrow, but she’s still up because she’s afraid the ants are going to swarm her. She has the raid and is spraying all the mutants that she sees. I don’t blame her. I’m not a big fan of them either. One of the past volunteers told us a story about how one of them fell asleep and when he woke up there were a bunch of ants crawling into his mouth. Yeah. Bad story. We don’t like ants. It’s funny though because whenever I tell Dario (boy with the ants on his bed) that I hate ants (hormigas), he jokes and says that they’re not hormigas, but that they’re my amigas (friends). Hardly. I’m pretty sure he won’t want to be friends with them anymore.

Let me back up to the beginning of the day…

We had planned to go to the City Mall in San Pedro Sula today. We talked to Nelson and asked him if we could use his little mini van because we were going to go with another volunteer and the two ladies at the infa (plus their families of course). He talked to us the week before and asked us if we really wanted to go because he didn’t want to lend the van if it was just the two ladies that wanted to go. We assured them that we did and then to our surprise, we were greeted by a pick up truck on Sunday morning. Nelson decided last minute that he had to use his van and told someone else to let us use their pick up truck. This would’ve been fine, but rain clouds were covering us. He knew it was a long trip to San Pedro Sula and there’s always the possibility of rain… it is the rainy season. The poor kids were all wrapped up in the back of the truck when we met them. I’m not going to go into detail, but we were all very unhappy with Nelson. Anyways, when we got there, we all forgot about the troubles back at the Hogar. I did not buy a single thing other than food. I was very happy.

Also, Marta and her little brother Manuel are gone. Their mom took them back home. I don’t know how I feel about this. They weren’t living with her for a reason. It’s dangerous. I want to pull an Anne Sullivan and take her to a place where she can’t see anyone and have an extreme time of discipline. She and one of the other girls got in a knife fight maybe two weeks ago. Mirna (the lady who takes care of the few kids living at the infa) was telling me that one of her girls, Lendi, used to be worse than Marta. She threatened Isabelle with a knife and she was out of control. She said that she prayed every night and would sleep with one eye open. I would have never guessed because Lendi is such a sweet girl now. She listens when I tell her things and she always gives us hugs. I just feel like Marta could be the same way. But thing is… Maria Jose has tried, Txus has tried, I’m sure all the volunteers have tried. I’ve tried. I really have.

nov 7

Those of you that know me, I’m on the shy side of things. I truly despise talking in front of people. Whether or not I have to talk in front of 200 people or only 2, I start to shake. I can’t control it. I become Miss Awkward. I never know what to say and I just start giggling or I start to jumble my words together or sometimes my voice even trembles. Small talk is more like no talk when I attempt it. When I was in 1st or 2nd grade, I was in this shy program. They would take me out for a portion of class time and I would have to go into this room with some lady and just play for thirty minutes or so. I remember it being torture. Although she was nice, I felt so very uncomfortable. This past year I worked as a Resident’s Assistant. I tried my best to start talking to people. I absolutely loved it, but it was really hard for me sometimes. I think being an RA helped me a lot, but I still have got a lot of shy problems. The volunteers all have Sabbath school together every week and we all were going to take a turn leading it. I declined. I cant describe it, but every time I start to want to say something, I suddenly don’t know what it is I want to say. I can’t put the words together and my heart starts to flutter like I’m in mid-sprint. Everything gets jumbled together and I forget why I was thinking about saying something in the first place. I look back and try to figure out if I’m doing the right thing, but I’m torn. I keep thinking that Moses was someone who didn’t speak well. He declined when God told him to go to Pharaoh because he didn’t think he could speak. He could’ve been a great speaker if he would’ve let God do his thing. But I also keep thinking that God has given me music to express myself. He’s given us each different talents and I can express myself through song and lyric. Not everyone has the same gifts, right? Anyways, let me know what you think.

Other than that, today has been pretty relaxed. Oh wait… Marta. You know all of the troubles she’s been having this week. I know I need more patience. I know that I need to be better, but it’s extremely hard with her. Today she came back to the Hogar. She eats at my table and I was already dreading it because she always has problems. One time I told her that she needed to eat her salad and she threw something across the table, knocked a chair down, slammed on the table, and walked out of the cafeteria (almost everyone was staring). It was embarrassing, but what was I supposed to do? So there she was again… not eating anything. I seriously did not want to deal with it today. I was already frustrated with her and she refused to eat it because she said I was sitting at the table. I told her that it didn’t matter whether or not I was there. She had to eat it. It makes me angry because these kids don’t remember what it’s like to have nothing. They’re so spoiled with food everyday while there are kids at the Infa who aren’t so fortunate. These kids at the Hogar always complain and act like they deserve to have anything they want. It really frustrates me sometimes.

On a lighter note… some of the kids put a little snake in our room. Thankfully they came in and got it out, but there was one boy who kept pretending to put it on my bed or in my face. He kept asking me where he should put it. I wanted to scream. You should all be proud because instead of doing what my insides wanted me to do (scream and run away), I thought clearly. It was a small snake and if I flinched and showed him that I was really scared, he was just going to make things worse. And so I held my ground and told him to stop. I’m getting better at this not screaming thing! It’s a very good sign.

nov 6

I love Fridays. It means tomorrow is Sabbath and Sabbaths are always greatly appreciated by my tired self.

Today, Marta was giving us trouble. Did I tell you what happened with her? Well, if not, I’m going to tell you and if so, then I’m sorry. Last week Marta was at the Hogar and she was eating breakfast… well not entirely. She was bothering Letty and throwing food at her. Tarynn grabbed her orange away from her and told her that she needed to eat her food and then she can have her orange. Marta freaked out. She got so angry that she got up, pushed her plate, and stormed off into the kitchen. Tarynn followed her into the kitchen to make sure she obeyed. And who would’ve guessed…Marta had another orange in her hand. Tarynn told her to give the orange to her, but she refused. Tarynn grabbed her arm and said to give it to her and Marta refused again. Tarynn held her arm harder so she could take the orange from her hand and that’s when Marta took her other arm and hit Tarynn really hard. This girl is pretty strong. She’s been having a lot of problems at the Hogar. Maria Jose, the lady in charge, has brought her to the Infa in San Pedro Sula and was thinking of letting her stay there instead of the Hogar because she wasn’t listening to anyone and she thought that it would be better for her there. She needs to learn how to behave and how to obey and no matter what they do at the Hogar, it hasn’t been working. Marta begged and said that she would behave and so they brought her back. It also wasn’t very safe over there. Apparently Marta didn’t mean what she said. Hitting Tarynn put it over the edge. They brought her to the Infa in Santa Barbara (the one where we work at) and Isabelle said that she would take her in her own home to try and help her. Thing was, Marta hasn’t been listening to Isabelle either. Isabelle opened her home to Marta and gave her time to help Marta and Marta couldn’t even mop the porch for Isabelle. She lied to her about Tarynn and about Maria Jose saying things like Maria Jose hits her and the kids all the time. No one knows what to do with Marta. She doesn’t listen to anyone and it’s really getting out of hand.

Anyways, today she left without telling anyone anything. She was walking somewhere alone with another girl who is around 14 years old. Apparently this “cousin” of hers lives somewhere with her “husband” and is trying to convince Marta to come live with her. She’s telling Marta that she needs to get a guy and is making things ten times worse. Mirna (the lady who takes care of the kids living at the Infa) told me that they went somewhere really dangerous especially for two young girls. When she got back, no one did anything. I was angry because what am I supposed to say? I can’t speak Spanish well. I can’t talk to her like I want to. Mirna told me to get Marta to do the dishes (I’m still very bitter that they wouldn’t talk to her). I told Marta to come and to my surprise, she came to do it. I told her I would help her and I tried my best to talk to her. I pretty much poured out all that I could to her. I told her that what she was doing was unacceptable and that she’s smart and that she knows better. I told her how important it was to listen to Maria Jose and Isabelle and the volunteers because we’re here to help her. I told her that she doesn’t realize how much she has here and she may not realize it until it’s all gone. I told her how much people love her and how much they want to help her. I told her how much it hurt us to see her act like this. I told her that I loved her so much and that I wanted her to have a great future. She laughed at me and with a faint smile she said that it’s better for her to be dead. I wanted to cry. Here I am trying to tell this girl that she means something and that she is so much better than how she’s acting and that I don’t want to give up on her, but nothing goes through. I kept telling her no no no and saying how important she was, but she just left the kitchen. The rest of the day, she continued being Marta. She started writing on a table and I tried to get the crayon from her, but she refused to give it to me and I had to break the crayon out of her hand. She also started making one of the girls cry. And instead of saying sorry like we told her to do, she laughed and ran away trying to imitate the girl’s cry. Tarynn was telling her to stop and finally she talked to Isabelle and Nelson who weren’t doing much and told them that they needed to talk to her right now. We all went into the office and they started talking. Tarynn and I were already extremely frustrated with her. She didn’t have any respect and it seemed like Isabelle and Nelson weren’t taking it seriously. We obviously couldn’t talk to her the way we wanted to talk to her so we wanted them to talk to her. And instead, they got off topic, they started laughing at things, and they asked her ridiculous questions. Let me just tell you… we left extremely angry at the way they handled it and so we comforted ourselves with what we know best… food.

After dinner at the Hogar, I was talking to Maria (one of the older girls) and I asked her why she had glitter on her face. This was not a good move because that’s when the glitter war began. She smeared glitter all over my face and I wasn’t about to take it so I started fighting back with that same glitter and putting all over hers. Somehow two of the other older girls got into it too and we were all on the floor pouring glitter on each other. It was fun, but very messy and I’m sure I’ll be finding glitter everywhere for the next 2 months.

Oh and I have to mention that I didn’t realize we had visitors during our glitter war. It was a group from the east coast who came to stay at the Hogar for a day or two. One older guy looked at me and asked me what I was doing. I wanted to hide, but there really wasn’t much use to that. He had already seen me. I was extremely embarrassed and I’m sure between the red glitter and my red cheeks, I was quite a sight.

nov 5

I had another problem with some kids at the Infa today. Lixi, as you may recall, is the child whose diapers I change. She does her business and I clean her and her clothes as usual. She likes to say “poo poo, pee pee” when I’m changing her. It’s rather cute (well it is to me because I’ve named her my child). This is nothing new. The new thing was that I had nowhere to hang her clothes because it was raining. So instead of putting it on the clothes line out back, I hung all of her clothes on a chair. The day goes on and I make the kids shower and such, but then the kids start pulling at me and telling me to go see something. I went out to look at what they were pointing at and it was all of Lixi’s clothes that had been scrubbed by my hands… and they were all in a trash can. The trash can was also placed directly under the corner of the roof so that all the water from the roof would go into the trash can. I was pretty angry. I asked who did it and thankfully, the kids didn’t really care about tattling and told me exactly who they were. It was Carlos’s brother Josue and Esau. First I scolded them and then I told them to get the clothes. After they picked up the clothes, I grabbed them by the arms and led them to the laundry hut. Kids were swarming around us laughing and calling others to watch because I was going to make them wash the clothes they put in the trash can. I made them scrub those clothes… and I made them scrub those clothes very hard. While they were scrubbing, I was talking to them and asking them why they did it and telling them why it was wrong. The whole time, they just laughed and were disrespectful. I already took away their dinner, but that’s not what I wanted to do… I wanted them to understand why it was wrong to take her clothes and put it in the trash can with dirty water. They didn’t understand and it killed me. I’m scared that they’re going to grow up not knowing how to treat people well. They’re always fighting and disobeying all of us.

I used to think I had a lot of patience, but the things I have to deal with when it comes to these kids makes me realize how much more patience I need. I constantly need to ask God to supply me with the patience needed to handle these situations because I would not be able to get through it all. I’ve also been trying to remember that every situation can be an opportunity to witness. These kids are looking at every move I make and they need to know that I’m disciplining in love and because I want them to learn how to be kind and good and all that business.

I think I’m also learning how to let things go easier. Some of these kids do some terrible things to us, but then the next day they love us and give us hugs. I envy their lack of grudges. Sometimes I get really angry at the kids because they lie to me or whatever else they do. I end up holding a grudge instead of letting it go. I know. They’re kids. Bear with me people. I’m learning.

november 4

So I never thought I’d actually ever be threatened by a kid before, but today changed that. There’s this one boy named Carlos and he’s always had a big attitude problem. He doesn’t listen very often and gets angry when things don’t go his way. I was playing with one of the girls and then I turned around because kids started tugging at me and yelling. That’s when I see Carlos grabbing Isabelle’s son and slugging him as hard as he could over and over again. I immediately got up and started yelling at him to stop. I told him to stand against the wall and I started scolding him in the Spanish that I know. Isabelle came and yelled at him some more (she can be super scary when she yells. She used to be a radio host and so she talks fast and loud). She made him face the wall and then she went into the office. So there I am outside watching all the kids and the boys around him start playing soccer closer and closer to him. Carlos eventually starts kicking the ball and trying to play along with them. That’s when I put on my angry face and tell him to stop. He then proceeds to laugh and does it again and again. I firmly told him to come sit by me and after a few times of telling him to come, he finally came murmuring angry things about me. He kept reaching for the ball if it came our way (it’s a small playing area and so it came our way often). I told him to stop and told him to look at me when I’m talking to him (a line I never thought I’d say… sounds like a mother). I picked up his hat so he would look up at me and then he got up extremely angry and started walking away. I had already taken away his dinner for the day and I was ready to take away the dinner for the next day. I told him that he had to come back. This is when he picked up a rock. It wasn’t a little pebble either. I looked at him and I could tell in his face that he was ready to throw it at me. I freaked out on the inside. I couldn’t believe he was actually threatening to throw a rock at me. I pushed aside my shock and fear and gave him the angriest look I had. I tried to be as threatening as I could saying, “Que?! Que va a hacer?!” (What? What are you going to do?) I quickly went up to him and grabbed his arm… and the nice sized rock of course… and dragged him into the office. Isabelle and Nelson talked to him and asked him what he was going to do with that rock. He said very confidently that he was going to throw the rock at me. Isabelle told him that he had to go home and she wouldn’t let him come the next week. She kept the rock in the office to show to her mother. That was not so fun.

Random note: Today someone asked if I was from Spain. The question surprised me because I’m always expecting them to guess somewhere in Asia. People have guessed my homeland to be China, Japan, Korea, and now Spain. I just want to ask… do I look Korean to you (hint: no I do not)? There obviously haven’t been very many Asians in Honduras in a long time.