hello my friends!!! okay, so I can´t find the thumb drive with my saved blog entries... so stay in tuned. when I find it, I will post it.... there are always kids in and out of our room jumping on our beds and touching everything... it could be anywhere.
but everything´s going well! Don´t stop praying for me! I need it!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunday, December 13, 2009
nov 30
I’m old, fat, and slow.
…At least, that’s how I feel.
Soccer (futbol) is a big sport here. I don’t think the word “big” really gives it justice, but because I’m always at a loss of words (both Spanish and English), I’ll just leave it at that. Last week the kids posted a paper on the door of the cafeteria. It was a list of different groups… actually, the more appropriate word would teams. To go into more detail, the lists were futbol (soccer) teams. At first I thought, “This can’t be too bad. A little running will do me good.” As a silly American, I definitely overestimated my abilities. I mean, I know I can’t play soccer very well, but I didn’t understand how much pain the sport would bring me playing against children. I practiced with one of the girls right before the graduation dinner on Thursday. As she yelled at me to run faster toward the ball, I felt as though all the bread and ice cream was yelling in my other ear to stop.
The volunteers and I were talking before the games started. We all agreed that we were nervous. These kids love futbol. It’s a deep, deep love. It was very possible that a 13 year old would start chewing us out for messing up… but it was too late to turn back. One of the volunteers was on my team and so we began preparing for defeat (not of our team, but of ourselves…both mentally and physically). That’s when we find out that we only have 4 players. We had the best girl on our team, but she couldn’t play because she had been disrespectful. The other younger girls couldn’t play because they were being punished as well. It was not very good news for us. The losers had to pay 5 limps each to pay for the winner’s lunch. After searching for people to play with us, we finally got a few girls to agree to it. The game started. These girls get pretty angry when someone messes up because futbol is serious business to them. You don’t mess… with the pies (not as in yummy pie, pies means feet… haha, yeah, not funny. Ignore me). Although we were the underdogs, we ended up having a tied game. I was torn between ecstasy and horror. I had worked so hard and I was so tired. The fact that we didn’t lose made me feel like I was unstoppable (the kids like to bust out singing We Are the Champions… that’s what I felt like even though it was tie game). On the other hand, we had to play again because they weren’t doing penalty kicks. This made me want to cry. I imagined playing another game much like the one I just played, but instead of barely making it through, my legs would go on protest during the first half and refuse to work again.
This was yesterday.
Today, I feel more tired than I have been during the whole 3 months here. My legs ache and I feel like collapsing. I was at the Infa sitting at a table and accidentally fell asleep. I woke up to a child shaking me and asking me to read them a story. And why am I this tired? …Because of one soccer game. I hardly think that’s normal… but I’m working on it. Hopefully Miss Old-fat-and-slow will say goodbye if I start playing with them more often. But the catch is I have to do it… and after yesterday, the sidelines look a lot more appealing to me.
Well, I’m off to bed. It’s already past my bedtime.
p.s.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA!!!!
…At least, that’s how I feel.
Soccer (futbol) is a big sport here. I don’t think the word “big” really gives it justice, but because I’m always at a loss of words (both Spanish and English), I’ll just leave it at that. Last week the kids posted a paper on the door of the cafeteria. It was a list of different groups… actually, the more appropriate word would teams. To go into more detail, the lists were futbol (soccer) teams. At first I thought, “This can’t be too bad. A little running will do me good.” As a silly American, I definitely overestimated my abilities. I mean, I know I can’t play soccer very well, but I didn’t understand how much pain the sport would bring me playing against children. I practiced with one of the girls right before the graduation dinner on Thursday. As she yelled at me to run faster toward the ball, I felt as though all the bread and ice cream was yelling in my other ear to stop.
The volunteers and I were talking before the games started. We all agreed that we were nervous. These kids love futbol. It’s a deep, deep love. It was very possible that a 13 year old would start chewing us out for messing up… but it was too late to turn back. One of the volunteers was on my team and so we began preparing for defeat (not of our team, but of ourselves…both mentally and physically). That’s when we find out that we only have 4 players. We had the best girl on our team, but she couldn’t play because she had been disrespectful. The other younger girls couldn’t play because they were being punished as well. It was not very good news for us. The losers had to pay 5 limps each to pay for the winner’s lunch. After searching for people to play with us, we finally got a few girls to agree to it. The game started. These girls get pretty angry when someone messes up because futbol is serious business to them. You don’t mess… with the pies (not as in yummy pie, pies means feet… haha, yeah, not funny. Ignore me). Although we were the underdogs, we ended up having a tied game. I was torn between ecstasy and horror. I had worked so hard and I was so tired. The fact that we didn’t lose made me feel like I was unstoppable (the kids like to bust out singing We Are the Champions… that’s what I felt like even though it was tie game). On the other hand, we had to play again because they weren’t doing penalty kicks. This made me want to cry. I imagined playing another game much like the one I just played, but instead of barely making it through, my legs would go on protest during the first half and refuse to work again.
This was yesterday.
Today, I feel more tired than I have been during the whole 3 months here. My legs ache and I feel like collapsing. I was at the Infa sitting at a table and accidentally fell asleep. I woke up to a child shaking me and asking me to read them a story. And why am I this tired? …Because of one soccer game. I hardly think that’s normal… but I’m working on it. Hopefully Miss Old-fat-and-slow will say goodbye if I start playing with them more often. But the catch is I have to do it… and after yesterday, the sidelines look a lot more appealing to me.
Well, I’m off to bed. It’s already past my bedtime.
p.s.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA!!!!
Nov 26
Happy thanksgiving!
… okay, so it wasn’t as happy for me, but I’m trying to be thankful here! It’s hard to be away from family when you know they’re all gathering together without you. Tarynn and I were talking about our Thanksgivings and I’ve become more aware of how strange my family may seem to other American families. While some families eat apple pie and mashed potatoes, we have barbeque, rice, and some weird gooey purple stuff for desert. And although my family may not have the most traditional Thanksgiving, we spend it together and I believe that’s the most important thing. I’ve realized how hard the holidays are going to be. Today some of the kids graduated high school and so the tables were set up different and we ate enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup. This was very exciting because on Thursdays, the dinner menu usually consists of bread (it may be good or bad, depending on what kid made it that day) and some weird soy spread.
I’m thankful for:
God’s love (seriously could not make it through these 3 months without this)
Family and friends
Good health
Running water
My own bed
Enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup
Jane Austen
Internet, no matter how limited
Phone cards!! (Since I can’t have my family with me, I’ve got to make do)
… okay, so it wasn’t as happy for me, but I’m trying to be thankful here! It’s hard to be away from family when you know they’re all gathering together without you. Tarynn and I were talking about our Thanksgivings and I’ve become more aware of how strange my family may seem to other American families. While some families eat apple pie and mashed potatoes, we have barbeque, rice, and some weird gooey purple stuff for desert. And although my family may not have the most traditional Thanksgiving, we spend it together and I believe that’s the most important thing. I’ve realized how hard the holidays are going to be. Today some of the kids graduated high school and so the tables were set up different and we ate enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup. This was very exciting because on Thursdays, the dinner menu usually consists of bread (it may be good or bad, depending on what kid made it that day) and some weird soy spread.
I’m thankful for:
God’s love (seriously could not make it through these 3 months without this)
Family and friends
Good health
Running water
My own bed
Enchiladas, veggie meat, and soup
Jane Austen
Internet, no matter how limited
Phone cards!! (Since I can’t have my family with me, I’ve got to make do)
November 22
All volunteers supervise tables at every meal. Tarynn sits with a bunch of hungry, growing boys and she needs to fight to get food. I, on the other hand, deal with other kind of fighting. I sit with the preteen girls. Well, they’re not all preteens, but they all act like they’re very much in charge of everything. There is always someone fighting with someone else. I can’t understand everything they say, but it sounds pretty vicious. There’s always a girl that doesn’t want to talk to me and there’s always a girl that says that they hate the food and they don’t want to eat it. One of the girls is older than me, but she acts like a child. Her name is Letty and she has two sides to her. One is when she’s angry or upset and doesn’t want to do something. She will fuss and pout for as long as she can. There are many times when she just sits with tears in her eyes and refuses to eat because someone said something like, “You said this and I’m going to tell on you.” One day, she got angry at one of the girls because she had a nicer chair than she did. She thought that she took it from her even when I was there before she got there and said that she hadn’t. Letty then took her chair and put it away against the wall and then started eating at the table standing up. When she realized that I wouldn’t pay attention to her if she was acting like that, she took her food and sat on the floor and ate… she was crying the whole time. The other side is a lot happier, I must say. She laughs for no reason and gives you hugs and talks a lot of nonsense. She’ll call you her friend and she’ll tell you things that have no relevance to your conversation. For instance, she came up to Tarynn and told her it was Friday. Then she informed Tarynn that Saturday comes after Friday. Then she proceeded to tell her what days come after that. She can get pretty funny sometimes. Today we were talking about friends. She said that she has exactly 6 friends and so I asked her to name all of them. She started off with me (very thoughtful) and then moved on to four more people. After she finished naming off the 5 people, I pointed out that she was missing one. She looked surprised and then she started picking people in the room to be her friend. After she named off a few names, making the friend list longer, I reminded her that she has a lot more friends by asking questions like, “how about so-and-so?” She was extremely happy that her group of friends grew significantly in the last 5 minutes. I don’t blame her, I would be happy too. (:
Sunday, November 22, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, November 13, 2009
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.
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.
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