Casa Don Bosco
Work is going wonderfully and so much has happened! Back in September, we hosted the Mundialito, a huge soccer tournament with teams from different Salesian Projects across the country. It seems like the futbol cancha is the only place they can forget/leave behind all the tough stuff in their lives and be like any other kid playing soccer. It was awesome to watch some good futbol, cheer on our Guayaquil kids and watch their eyes light up bright. They used our homework room for a ¨locker room¨ for the teams so we had to clean up a bit on Monday and I learned a new cleaning method! The kids hauled buckets and buckets of water into the room and poured it on the floor. Jefferson and some other kids then ¨swept¨ with brooms to clean the floor before pushing the dirty, trash-filled water out the door. I picked out the trash, the water drained away and we did homework outside as we let the floor dry :)
I definitely now feel at home there even though I still feel like I have a LONG way to go. The kids, staff and leaders know me, I know my way around and am re-learning more and more math, social studies and computer stuff. The Madrinas (cooks) have introduced me to the delicious and not so delicious Ecua-lunches. I have enjoyed fresh juices, yummy soup, tasty salads and occasionally even a bit of meat, which is like heave :) On the other side, I have also ben served ¨chicken foot¨ soup, cow liver and stomach. I couldn´t make myself eat the stomach (next time) but I am not a liver fan. I even got a countdown from my kids (in English) to try my first bite...but it was grainy and overall pretty gross. I have also glimpsed hearts and kidneys in the kitchen so I am awaiting the day that shows up on my plate!
I was given the privilege to stay with Henry, one of the shelter boys, overnight in the hospital as he was recovering from surgery. He was a lot of fun and full of spunk considering he just had an operation! But that is Henry for you :) We played Monopoly Ecuador (all the spaces were places in the country. Cool, huh?!), I read him a story in Spanish and he hijacked my pillow I brought :) He is a great kid and it is awesome to see what else the Project is doing.
We also have 2 new volunteers, Miriam and Francisca, from Austria. They are here until January and are great with the kids. I occasionally have to help translate, but they are taking Spanish classes in the mornings and can hold their own :) Great girls. We celebrated Jefferson´s birthday on the 17th. I baked banana bread for a ¨cake¨ and kids brought cola and candy and decorated the room. It was a surprise and so wonderful! We sang (in Spanish and English), said a few words (like a toast) in true Ecua-fashion, and danced/listened to music. It was so much fun!
I brought glow-in-the-dark skeleton earrings for Halloween from home and wore them last week and the kids LOVED them :) I seemed to always have a kid with his/her hands cupped by my ear and calling others over to look. We also had a really fun dance party (with the 11+) since they had exams that week and were done. Picture middle school dances with the circle and someone dancing in the middle. It was very entertaining and I was dragged into the middle multiple times. Best/craziest part? We were dancing to incredibly inappropriate songs...but they were in English so I was the only one who knew that! (ie Shaggy´s ¨Wasn´t Me¨) Yep. Haha. But is was great fun being goofy with them.
I am loving it more than ever, but there are definitely bumps along the way. I have had moments/days when I struggle with why I am there...when the leaders give up talking to me because they get frustrated so I´m left out of decisions or the kids go to one of the Ecua-ayudantes when I am sitting right there already walking them through it. It is easy to look back and know my presence is important and my help with English indispensible, but in those moments ¨At least I´m here¨ just doesn´t help. I´m also praying for help with the frustration I have been feeling with a particular boy. He is older and isn´t studying. I work with him on addition and it is 2 steps forward and 3 back...We leave one day and he is solving the problems on his own, correctly, then the next day he gets every single one wrong and needs me to walk him through the whole process, including counting. I am at a complete loss as to what to do...it is an essential skill, I don´t seem to be helping and getting frustrated at that doesn´t help. So I´m trucking through and praying God will bring some clarity!
Community - Mt. Sinaí
Community has been full of life. I have been meeting new people, deepening relationships with those I already know and giong to awesome events.
I´ve gotten closer with a family we affectionately call the ¨BibKids¨ as there are 5 children and they all have Biblical names. They live right down the street and have school in the afternoons so I can hang out in the mornings. I help with homework, sing along with songs, play with hair, learn other games and I even gave one of the boys a haircut! It looked pretty good if I do say so myself! Just the other weekend, they invited us over and we watched Transformers 3 together and had popcron :) We were all laying across a mattress with the kids climbing in, out and over us the whole time.
I´ve been learning to make bracelets over ¨girl talk¨ with Valyria and usually spend all of my Sunday afternoons at her house. I view Monica (Valyria´s mom) as our Ecua-mom :) We have a ton of fun with here kids and she is amazing. She is always giving us advice, teaching us new things to cook and welcoming us into her home. It is so comfortable to be there.
I am also in love with LuzMaria and her son, Ricardo. I go over whenever I can to help with his English homework but it is hard as he has school in the mornings. Nonetheless, I have had a great time with them. They are such sweet, warm people. I spent most of a Saturday with them, playing dice with Ricardo, looking at family photos, and playfully being made fun of for having 2 boyfriends in college. (They were joking with me that I had 2 at once Haha). It is juts gerat to be getting to the point where we can do that with one another. On top of being able to joke, we are also able to go deeper. I have sat with friends as they have cried, telling me their struggles, was guided through a beautiful prayer exercise at a birthday party, had a reading from Mass explained to me line by line followed by a discussion of how big our God is and had a neighbor join hands with her kids as I was about to leaveto pray over my health and insomnia. It is a beautiful depth of relationship that I am excited to continue and strengthen.
With making these connections, we receive fun invitations. During the Week of the Family, there was a 24 hour Vigil in the next sector over where the Virgen del Cisne (Swan Mary) was also visiting. It was unbelievable! There were hundreds of people, craft booths, food, music and rosary or mass going on every hour. We almost got hit by a runaway firework (a tree saved us) and attended a Mass led by the Bishop! Our priest, Father John, was also a part of the proceedings and we saw a lot of our parish there. We celebrated the Feast Day of Santa Teresa de Avila (one of our churches is named after her) with fun and games and the Sinai volunteers performed ¨In the Jungle¨ from The Lion King. Pretty sure the Ecuas thought we were crazy but it was fun! One of the committees from Katie´s work at Hogar de Cristo put on Reina del Octubre, a beauty pageant. It was awesome! There were dance performances, a portion called ¨Typical Dress¨ which were beautiful costumes, and lots of intermittent dance parties between judging categories! It was here that I learned the basic steps of salsa! :)
Beyond structured events, we also get invited to things like lunch that turn into ¨Best Days Ever¨ to quote my housemates. After surprising his mom with a cake and cola for her birthday, we were invited to a crab lunch the next week at a member of the church music group´s house. We spent the entire day there, just hanging out and chatting, looking at pictures, listening to music and then playing ¨penitencias¨. Basically, you pull a piece of paper out of a hat that has an embarrassing act on it that you must perform in front of the group. Naturally, we were a little nervouse. Most ended up giving kisses on the cheek or goofily dancing for like 20 seconds. One person got to dance with a broom and another kiss the dogs. Haha. It was fun. Had our crab ¨lunch¨ at about 4:30 and we each had a whole crab. It was just sitting there looking at me...reminded me of The Little Mermaid and Sebastian :) It was delicious and an adventure as we had none of the ¨tools¨ we usually use at home! This was followed by more dancing until we finally had to head home.
In case you couldn´t tell, dancing is pretty big here :) and I don´t mind at all. There is a Festival of Dance coming up soon that my housemate, Elisa/Mandi, is participating in! I am loving becoming a part of Mt. Sinai and am revelling in the connections I am making.
Community - RdC Volunteers
Shrinking community down a bit :) Just like my relationships with the Ecuadorians are developing and changing, so are the ones with my housemates and fellow vols in Duran. We are really growing and have experienced so much in the last couple months! My house has been ¨messing¨ with things as we went ¨communist¨ last month and combined all of our personal stipends in a community fund. Apparently we are the first to do this and we managed to survive! It is a huge exercise in trust and also a blessing to be able to support your housemates in another way (financially) if they need it. We have also had fun with creative meals/snacks ranging form strawberry french toast to pesto pizza, caramel corn to donuts. (We had dirt cups for Halloween and that was pretty awesome!) The last few weeks, we have been dating each other (making sure to spend an intentional hour or more with your ¨date¨ that week), played Telephone Pictionary the other night (shout out to my Thetas!) and have grown close through ¨de-licing¨ and haircuts, surprisingly unrelated. Everyone´s personalities continue to blossom and we share more as time goes on and it really shows in what we do and how we are interacting. Wooo, go Sinai! (Below are pictures from our Halloween themed Community Night!)
 |
| Jack-O-Lantern Drawing Contest |
 |
| Pre-Donut Eating Contest (with no hands!) ...video should be posted soon! |
 |
| Post...notice the powdered sugar all over our faces!! :) |
Anything Else/Randomness
A little more about me personally...my physical health has been a struggle for me here. In case any of you haven´t heard, I got ¨bug-tested¨ back in September and had: Amoebas, e. Coli and Giardia. (Exciting, I know) Took my meds to clear them out, felt better for about a week and my stomach is back to being grumpy. So that is a continual thing I am trying to work around :P Some days are awesome, others not so much. I was really struggling with my insomnia for awhile but my community supported me through it all and my aids arrived from my perseverant parents. So I am, mas o menos, back on track :)
A funny story about prescriptions...I had to go to the Entrada to get one of my scripts as none of our pharmacies had it. I left early for work, brought a $20 to break (really hard to break big bills here) and $2 change for bus fare. I get there and my meds are $21.25. I did not have enough change to make it to work and back so I had to go home to get money (30 minute bus ride) to turn around an get to work (late). I look back and laugh but it was not funny at the time! :)
I am learning so much about myself and my faith - what I need, what I don´t, what is the core of me and what I was because I needed to be - and ways to address that. I have found that doing the big monthly shopping trips for the 3 houses has given me an outlet for needing to feel in control, on top of things and accomplished as it is rare to feel that way in any other aspect of life here :)
That´s it for now...post to come on the medical group that was here! Thank you so much for your letters and prayers!!! They mean so much and letters from home (and writing replies) gives me life and fills me with joys. Muchas Gracias! I´ll leave you with a few things:
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
---Romans 12:9-21
Matt led a Spirituality Night with this verse and we pulled ¨The Heart¨ of our community from it :)
And a quote from the awesome Henri Nouwen, courtesy of Bernadette (Belén):
¨One of the most rewarding aspects of living in a strange land is the experience of being loved not for what we can do, but for who we are. When we become aware that our stuttering, failing, vulnerable selves are loved even when we hardly progress, we can let go of our compulsion to prove ourselves and be free to live with others in a fellowship of the weak.¨
No comments:
Post a Comment