The last couple of weeks have been a little rough. I had a pretty upsetting experience a couple weeks ago that I´m still trying to process. Also, one of my housemates needed to go back home so we´ve been trying to transition as best we can, but it´s hard since we were all so close to her. Even though I have been struggling with a lot of things, after hearing the stories from some of my neighbors, I realize that my struggles are nothing compared to the hardships that they have had to overcome in their lives. I am beginning to realize how hard – but also important – it is to not focus on ¨doing,¨ but on ¨being with.¨ Listening to neighbors´ life stories and not being able to take away the pain and sorrow of their past and present is really hard. I feel helpless just sitting and listening. I hope, though, that having someone to listen will provide them with at least some comfort and healing.
Besides enjoying spending time visiting neighbors, I also have really enjoyed my work placements. Since my English classes haven´t started yet I am able to go to Damien House two days a week. I really like working there. I spend my mornings visiting the patients/residents and getting to know them. The last couple of weeks I´ve been trying to remember everyone´s names (there´s a lot of them) and have started forming relationships. There are a couple residents who I can´t understand very well because they have very few teeth and mumble when they talk. It´s frustrating when a resident is so eager to tell me something and I can´t understand. I feel so bad! For the most part, I can understand people and I am becoming more and more comfortable speaking. Another hard thing is that a lot of the patients are in pain or have lots of wounds that need tending to. Eventually I might have the courage to observe wound care. I don´t know how long I will last though since it might make me squeamish.
Some of the women spend time doing sewing and art projects so hopefully I can learn a thing or two from them. A lot of the men at Damien like to play dominoes. I had never really played before so they ¨taught¨ me i.e. several guys were looking over my shoulder and playing for me or demanding I play a certain piece. When I ask ¨why this piece and not that one¨ they just ignore me and tell me to ¨play it!¨It was a little frustrating. I have managed to win quite a few games though, so poco a poco I´m learning the strategy. I´m trying to convince them to spice up their game schedule and throw in some cards, instead of two hours of dominoes. I´m also planning on teaching them how to play Bananagrams. (Side note: I spent a long time deciding whether to bring Taboo or Banagrams to Ecuador and I finally decided the volunteer house would probably have Taboo since Banagrams is a relatively new game. So I brought Banagrams and came to Ecuador to find that my house already had three sets of it, two more in the other houses and not one house has Taboo! Very upsetting! )
The other great thing about Damien is that they serve us lunch with meat! So basically I will be eating meat once a week. All my housemates get lunch every day at their worksites, but I have a different schedule so I usually have to cook for myself – usually scrambled eggs with the famous veggie trio – tomatoes, onions and peppers. Having lunch at Damien is definitely a treat for me!
I have included on the left of my blog a link to the Damien House website. I highly encourage you to read more about the organization and Hansen´s Disease. I am still learning more about it myself. It´s so interesting!
In the mornings once a week I have been helping out at a daycare in Arbolito. The first day I showed up dozens of 3-6 year olds came rushing over to me to give me hugs. They had no idea who I was, but they were so full of love anyway. We need to be more like children – full of love, no judging, energetic, excited to learn, curious, in awe about everything, and eager to find/experience the big and little joys of life.
When I went into the kindergarten class within the first five minutes the teacher had me singing in front of the class in English. Some of you might not know (others definitely do) that I am very self-conscious about singing so I wasn´t too keen about this task even if it was only a simple song about washing hands. = ) Today I taught them how to say different colors, animals and fruit in English. They are good at repeating the words, but it was hard for them to remember what each one meant. The kids are adorable and I enjoy my time with them, but I don´t know if I could do it year long especially when I´m also working with kids in the afternoon. Props to all those who work with kids all day! I don´t know how you do it!
Overall, my after school program is going really well. The last couple of days the kids weren´t behaving well at all so it was pretty chaotic. It´s hard to discipline kids when I´m not fluent in their language. Hopefully, by the end of the year this won´t be a problem at all. Usually the kids are really well-behaved which makes things easier. I´ve already gotten pretty attached to a lot of the kids, and I look forward to going to Valdivia each day. Every day when we arrive to open the gates the kids run up to us and give us big hugs and Ecua greeting kisses. It´s so great!
The kids are all at different learning levels so doing activities for them is a little challenging. Some of my activities have been very successful and others not so much. It´s also surprising some of the things they haven´t been taught yet.
Below is our schedule:
2:30-3:15pm: Homework or silent reading
3:15pm: The kids line up, say the Our Father and we make announcements
3:20 – 4:00pm: Activity for kids who have finished their homework
4:00pm: Recreo = recess
4:45pm: We give out necklaces to kids who have been well-behaved and have done something extra to help. Then each kid says thank you to another kid for helping them with homework, playing with them, etc. It´s such an awesome way to end the day. Then we give a ¨charla¨or talk about the value of the week. Next we say a prayer, and then we pass out bread, bananas and vitamins.
Community is going well. It has definitely been hard after our housemate left. I planned our first spirituality night. I just had people share what their faith journeys have been so far so we could better understand where everyone was coming from. We have all had very different faith journeys and are in very different places spiritually so it will be interesting to see how we challenge and/or strengthen each other´s beliefs and help each other grow.
I cooked my first dinner without any help from a housemate. I was very proud of myself since we usually have cooking partners. I didn´t make the most healthy or complicated dish, but it was still good. What did I cook? One of my favorite ¨comfort¨ foods – French Toast! We don´t have syrup here so I made banana ¨goop¨- boiled bananas with brown sugar and cinnamon. It was so good! And of course being a fruit-lover I had to make fruit salad too. I think I´m going to run out of ideas for dinners so if anyone has any simple vegetarian (gutting a chicken doesn´t sound too fun) recipes please let me know. Hopefully we have the ingredients here.
I also suggested that we start a ¨quote wall in our house. So far it has been quite the success. We´ve said some hilarious things. Unfortunately, out of context they sound pretty inappropriate so I´ll pass on sharing them. Haha.
Last Saturday, all 15 of us went to Guayaquil for a benefit concert against child labor. One of my fellow volunteers accidently agreed to perform in the concert. How was it an accident? Well, she´s still learning Spanish so she thought she was agreeing to teach them how to sing a song in English for the group to perform, but really she agreed to perform herself and be the lead singer. Another volunteer agreed to play the drums. It was great! The group opened for one Ecuador´s well-known Reggaeton artists. We had a gringo dance party in the middle of staring and pointing Ecuadorians. Los gringos locos! It was so much fun! The singer also sang a song about Facebook ¨romances¨ which was pretty entertaining. The venue was great too. It was right on the boardwalk overlooking the river. It was a fun day, but after the concert ended a bunch of kids who were only about six years old came over to us trying to sell us candy. The irony of this at a No Child Labor concert was heartbreaking. It just makes me think of all the children – not just in Ecuador, but all over the world – who work instead of go to school, who have to worry about making money to eat instead of having fun with friends. They have such great potential, but they may never reach it because of their lack of basic necessities and lack of opportunities. It pains me to think about it.
On a different note, our first retreat group of the year arrived last night. They will be on a ten-day mission trip here. My housemate is leading the group and the students are living in the retreat house right next to ours. We will be having 27 retreat groups this year and I will be leading at least two of them. It´s going to be interesting to be on the other side of a mission trip. I hope the students will be affected as much as I was after the trips I went on. Several of my fellow volunteers came to Duran in high school or college which is how they decided they wanted to come back to do a year of service.
Random Things: The weather hasn´t been too hot which is nice during the day, but it definitely has made our cold showers a lot harder to take. I have come to realize that I have to get used to seeing dozens and dozens of ants in our kitchen every day. We are very good about not leaving food out and cleaning all of our surfaces with bleach, but the ants still come. They are tiny and harmless, but just really annoying.
Recommended Books (both are excellent!):
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Color of Water by James McBride
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