Go Dogs. Go! (2/21-24)

Monday through Thursday of last week was relatively tame.  I personally spent a lot of my time drawing.  On Monday, only 3 of my 6 students showed up so I spent an enjoyable hour reading Go Dogs. Go! and reliving my childhood.  What a great book!  No wonder it was Matt's favorite when we were little!  We also played a few rousing rounds of Hide and Go Seek before our designated time was up.  Monday night our section played a hilarious game called "Revolution."  This involved splitting up into two teams, each person being labeled, and then finding your corresponding name on the other team.  Basically it involved a lot of running and yelling and grabbing and falling.  Hilarious. Tuesday was our final platica (thank goodness) and English class revolved around Michael Jackson's Thriller song and music video.  The boys loved that. 

Wednesday my normal routine was interrupted by a tour group which I showed around the house.  The group was composed of about eight senior citizens who were taking a two week immersion course in Cuernavaca.  Apparently the organization they were affiliated with included a visit to Miacatlan and Casa San Salvador in the package.  They had never heard of NPH before so I had a lot of explaining to do.  The tour wasn't that long; the group couldn't handle the whole walk so it was more me gesturing in different directions and explaining that too much tour.  But I had fun. It was nice to introduce such novices to the NPH organization as well as talk to some folks from the States.

So that's about it from last week.  As you already know, the weekend was more upsetting.

Yes, lice has come to the volunteers!  Monika and Wesleigh have both been infected.  This is Wesleigh helping Monika out with the worst.  I shouldn't laugh too hard.  I might very well be next!

A very sweet drawing and note from one of my girls, Elvira.  She's one of my best buddies in the section.  It says "To: Mami Sara, t.k.m." Basically, Mami is what they call their most beloved encargadas (it sounds a lot like Mommy), Sarah is spelled without an "h" in Spanish, and "t.k.m." means Te quiero mucho or I love you.  Made my week when I got it.

A Step Along the Way

Thanks to Vicky to just sent an email with this poem today!  I feel compelled to share it.  It's from the writings of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  If you're not familiar with him, I strongly encourage you to do some research about this inspirational man.

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Junta Madness (2/18-20)

Friday was really chill as it was my descanso weekend.  I slept a while and ate a lot of good food from town and was on my computer a long time doing various things.  End of Friday.

Saturday was the important day.  We all had an obligatory work day for the big International Junta, the event the house has been going crazy about for the past two weeks.  Everyone got up a little earlier in order to give the place one more scrub over prior to the actual arrival of anyone.  After that, the kids showered and changed into their school uniforms in order to look extra special for the day.  The encargados were asked to wear their red shirts instead of black so don't be confused by these photos!  It was indeed Saturday even without the black playeras.  (Yes, I was a little thrown too. :-P)

I love this picture!  It's two of my girls, getting ready for the big day.  So sweet!

At 9:30am, we all started rounding up the kids and heading over to the school where the big welcoming ceremony and performance was to be held.  The show was supposed to start at 10am, but of course that did not happen.  So we all had a lot of fun just hanging around taking random photos waiting to be told what to do.  Here are some of the better gems from that time.

My girls hanging out at their designated entry point.

No, she and Andrew are not simultaneously scratching their heads.  Andrew is attempting to fold his ear, a trick he has that she is attempting to copy.  Adorable!

He's too cute and always loves hugs!

The kinder kids, our youngest group here.  The little boy in front in the current baby of the house at 3 years old.  That's not always the case; NPH does take in infants, but for now he's the littlest!  If you think they're cute now, just wait until their performance during the show. ;-)

Eventually, the visitors did arrive and the show started about an hour late.  But it was well worth the wait!  Here are some videos of the different performances:

This is the opening sequence in which all of the kids participated. If you look closely, you'll see the baby of the house refusing to dance and just huddled in a ball near the front.  He was eventually rescued by Rafa, the International Director of NPH Mexico.  It's kind of a different performance.  Very abstract and artsy.  The kids weren't very excited to perform it.

Awww!  The sweet conclusion to the opening sequence.

The Three Little Pigs performance was done by chicos and was quite the crowd favorite.  Personally, I especially enjoyed Ignacio's narration.  Check it out!

NPH Mexico's Children's Choir.  A lot of my girls were in this part.

Below is Kinder breaking it down for the crowd.  They were dancing to Alvin and the Chipmunks version of "Single Ladies."  Too cute!

Silly dance!  The Medianos boys and girls are responsible for this act.  Very adorable and hilarious!

The older kids performed too, but these were my favorites.  There were several musical groups who performed in addition to a couple other dances.

The finale musical performance.  They sang a song in English that basically said "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to dream."  If you look closely you can see the letters spell out family.

The grand finale!  They call it the Chinelo dance, but I'm still unclear as to what the dance really is.  They ended with inviting everyone down to join in.  Below you see the chaos and fun that developed.

After the show ended, the volunteers were recruited to give tours around the house.  Andrew and I ended up with a priest who had lived at the house for a while and knew more about the place than we did and one newbie who had never before visited.  It was pretty fun.  We learned some things and taught some things.  Bought some things. ;-)  They had several stands selling different items like T-shirts, key chains, and crafts made by the kids.  Late mass and lunch and I was able to slip into the museum to view some NPH history.  Not long after it was time for the visitors to leave.  Which meant our weekend off was on again!

The old chapel/new museum.

The first pequeno ever!

Dan, Andrew, and I headed to Cuernavaca for the night.  We had a lot of fun: ran some errands, ate some tacos, watched a movie, hit a bar, a house party, a club.  Up 'til 5am.  It was the first time I had left Miacatlan and been on break and it felt great to let loose a little.  Sunday was also pretty chill.  I was finally able to chat with Lauren on Skype (yippeee!) for 2 hours!  We ate some delicious quesadillas, did some hardcore movie shopping, and finally headed back to Miacatlan.  It was good to be back, but strange at the same time.  I was very happy to see my girls the next morning!

Wild Child (2/14-17)

Valentine's Day was rough.  I was pretty tired from working the whole weekend and was unable to take a nap Monday due to various reasons and my own stupidity.  Up at 6am, back by 7am.  I decided not to go back to bed (for the first time ever) because I figured Monday was as good a day as any to actually start running in the morning.  Eventually that did happen; Wesleigh and I finally braved the farm fields connected to the house. 

My parents have requested that I go into detail about this run.  It was pretty entertaining.  First off, the fields are used by the house to raise corn for their fresh tortillas.  These corn fields are in various states of use.  The only paths through the cornfields are a series of tire tracks which cut through the middle and break off to each side.  These tire tracks also range from well worn to barely discernable.  We started in the middle set of tracks leading out from the house and navigated our way past several very swampy parts that smelled pretty awful.  Next, we branched off to the right at the edge of a recently harvested corn field which was by far the easiest part of the run.  We were running on top of old corn shucks and passed about five skulls picked clean.  They appeared to be goat.  Our next turn took us towards the outside border and the tire tracks we were following began to disappear in earnest.  The tracks were so overgrown that we were often guessing at where they went and were repeatedly being tripped up or hit by the surrounding vegetation.  Wesleigh actually caught her foot on a vine that didn't give and therefore sent her straight to the ground, bruising her up pretty well.  But we kept going.  Our next obstacle was giant piles of crap and before we knew it we were clear of the corn fields and standing in a slightly more open area.  With about three bulls.  Oh!  That's where the crap came from!  Not wishing to push our luck too much, we quickly turned around and re-entered the relative safety of the cornfields to avoid spooking the bulls.  On the way back we also became acquainted with a bush of very sharp thorns which succeeded in briefly stealing Wesleigh's headphones.  Another pleasant surprise awaited us back at the field entrance where Wesleigh had left her sweatshirt: her keys were gone.  We spent the next hour looking for them with no luck.  (Thankfully, they were returned later in the day.)

 The campo where we ran.  The bottom picture is more like where we were.

What other exciting events happened that day, you ask?  Well, I completely lost my second break of the day to Jorge, the English guru around here who wanted my help with the International Junta performance.  It proved to be a pointless discussion which was frustrating, but I was frazzled the most by my time in a classroom full of about twenty seven-year-olds.  Jorge wanted to practice the script for the junta with their teacher and I inadvertently agreed to let them do so which meant I was put in charge of her class for about 40 minutes.  The kids had no idea who I was as I received no introduction and the teacher just left with no explanation after passing out a short activity.  This short activity was supposed to keep them occupied the entire time.  Before I knew it, I had about five little boys running around the school, a fight going on in another corner, a group pulling on me for attention...craziness.  Finally, the teacher returned and I ran for my life (and the remaining thirty minutes of break).  This wonderful class experience was followed up by my English class that afternoon where half of my class arrived 15 minutes behind the others who had already completed the important activity for the day so I was trying to get the new boys on track while keeping the older three under control...madness.  The class finally degraded into a game of futbol which I enjoyed, but which also involved no English.  Ni modo.

The capper to this wonderful Valentine's occurred when I finally returned to my room for the night.  Utterly exhausted, I decided to take a nice, hot shower.  Prior to this moment, our shower had routinely flooded the bathroom, but only enough to cover most of the bathroom floor and not actually spill out the door.  Well, you can probably predict what happened next.  I had sudsed up my hair and washed my face when the water made it to the door.  I quickly tried to finish, but soon saw the attempt was pointless as water was pouring out the door and into our room.  I stopped with my hair still full of soap and peeked out the door to survey the damage.  A reasonably deep puddle now covered half of our floor space.  Great.  I put my towel on and start to sweep the water out the door.  This was made especially difficult since I couldn't move our lockers and had to maneuver around and under them.  It probably took an hour to get the worst of the water out the door.  I took a break in the middle to finish my shower in the other girls' bathroom.  Let's just say I was not a happy camper.  Bed never felt so good.

The these three Virgin of Guadalupe pictures are all pictures I've been requested to duplicate.  In addition, there's another Virgincita that's more popular, a rose picture, a child prayer, portraits of the girls, etc. ;-)

This all of course looks hilarious in retrospect, but it was definitely the most trying day I've had so far.  The rest of the week was tame in comparison.  Tuesday was a little difficult just because I had no break time with all our meetings and therefore could not catch up on sleep at all and, on Wednesday I was completely unable to accomplish anything because of similar circumstances.  Thursday I was up early (4:20am early) for the novios sweep team again.  I actually completely forgot about it, but thankfully Wesleigh remembered and woke me up by calling through the window.  A lot of time with my girls this week was spent drawing.  They've latched on to my supposed skills and request all kinds of things.  The latest craze is drawings of the Virgin of Guadalupe of which they have several depictions in the room.  The first request has exploded into one for each of the girls.  I have never drawn so much in my life!  My current project in a portrait which I'm finding frustrating.  The girls celebrate any sort of art tendencies and love to watch me draw.  They have no art class themselves and so have never really been encouraged to draw much less taught how.  I'd like to encourage them in this, but I'm at a loss as to how to do it.  It's been so long since I've taken any class myself!

So this was last week.  Sorry for the delay in updates and the lack of pictures.  The weekend post will be much more exciting! <3

Maps of House

It has been requested and I have delivered!  Below you can see different Google Earth views of the house.  I hope it gives you a better idea of the set up here.  To see them in more detail, I've put up a link to the album on-line in my right hand column.  It has versions with and without labels so you can understand what you're looking at.  Enjoy!

Overview of House and Fields

House and School

House

School

Three Legged Hi-jinks (2/13)

Sunday was pretty fun.  In the morning we filled our time with chores, more TV, and lice hunting.  I think the lice hunting takes a little more explanation.  Once a week most sections check each other's hair very closely to see if they find any lice.  If evidence of lice is found, it is plucked out and destroyed one by one.  My first exposure to this practice was while I was with the Chicas section when suddenly I had little girls coming up to me asking me to check them.  I didn't understand what they were talking about really, but they gestured to their hair and so I kind of flipped it around a bit and put it back up.  Later, I saw one of the other encargadas checking a girl's hair and I figured out what was going on.

I was unaware that my section did this as well until Sunday since it was my first work weekend with my girls.  The process is a long one; the hair is carefully parted little by little so that by the end most of the scalp has been exposed for checking.  For some girls this takes an hour if they actually have lice and for others about 10 minutes. I was ignored for the first wave of checks, but eventually was requested by about five girls in a row.  I looked very carefully even though I have never had lice and did not actually know what to look for; thankfully nothing unusual popped up for me to kill.  All in all, yet another interesting experience to repeat every other weekend!

In the morning we also had a brief activity period spent searching the school for clothing.  It was like an Easter egg hung except instead of eggs we were looking for small plastic bags containing shirts.  Comida, TV, and then I headed off to help prepare the afternoon activity.  The photos below are the fruits of our efforts.  I was put in charge of the 3-legged race with Dan.  We made it a little more complicated with some obstacles and the kids seemed to have fun.  There were a few other activities, but it all basically degenerated after a while into kids milling around playing whatever they felt like.  Lots of fun and lots of photos!

Notice the fallen pair behind these two.  The younger kids didn't always catch on to the teamwork element of this activity.

Me with two girls from Grandes B, the group just younger than my girls.

One of my more cuddlesome responsibilities.

Teresa, with one her boys.  Remember this face!  He becomes better known to me the next day and is not as innocent as he looks.  :-D

Dan, my partner-in-crime, with a couple of Tercercos girls, the oldest age group, and one from Chicas.  All the girls love Dan!

After activities, more aseos and TV then cena back on the patio.  There were about 9 different types of food stations to visit and a very carnival-esque atmosphere to it all.  A fun way to chow down.  We were pretty quick to bed after cena.  I spent a little time bonding with one of the encargadas over Hitch which was playing on TV and then I headed back to my house.  It was a pretty big night for the volunteers.  All of us (with the exception of Martina) headed out for a beer in town. It was the first time so many of us had been able to do that since arriving in Miacatlan.  And it's such a great crowd.  I'm really lucky to have such a diverse and strong support system here!

Return to Cuerna and Race to Mia (2/12)

Saturday I left Miacatlan for the first time in 18 days!  All the volunteers met in Cuernavaca for a training session Jeremy had set up for us.  Since it was the weekend, half of us were off and had left for Cuernavaca the day before.  It was crazy how much I already missed them after less than a 24 hour separation.  The training was with a couple of Jeremy's friends who teach at a prestigious preparatory school in Mexico City and was meant to help us with the English classes that we are now holding for the kids.  It was very informative and great to get out for a little bit.  Hopefully I'll be able to implement some of their suggestions with my crazy students!  (Who I love very much. ;-P) 

It was a mad rush to get back for those of us on duty.  We were trying to make it in time for mass at 4pm.  It normally is at least a 2 hour trip (because of getting to the bus station in Cuernavaca and then to Miacatlan) and we ended about 2pm.  In addition, everything was going slower Saturday.  We made it back about 10 minutes late only to find the gates locked.  Apparently the gate guys had completely abandoned their post for mass (which isn't supposed to happen).  Teresa, Andrew, and I just hung out for about 40 minutes impatiently awaiting their return and worrying about the repercussions of our being late. 

Me with Diana, one of the encargadas in medianas.  She's a real sweetheart and one of a set of triplets.  Her sisters are identical and impossible to tell apart.

Finally we were let back in and all of us ran to our sections.  It was nice to be back with my girls.  The rest of the day was rather chill.  We watched some TV (they watch absolutely no TV during the week so in my section it's a main feature of the weekend) and then headed to cena.

 I've started carrying my camera with me most of the time and the girls LOVE taking pictures.  Even though their expressions don't always express it.  It's kind of like the old fashion photos where no one smiles.  I'm trying to change that. (Poco a poco.)

Hanging out in the plaza.

This video was taken leaving cena at the comedor (cafeteria).  The star of the last video, is now the videographer and walks us all the way from our entrance to the comedor back to our room in the dorm.  Along the way, you can see better how the comedor is hidden behind the chapel area as well as our entire route back to our room.  We see a lot of the kids heading to their respective rooms through the plaza;  passing off the camera to another of my girls; lots of requests to "Di algo" or "Say something" with the prompt reply being "something"; and a pretty good look at the entirety of the girls' room.

After the video was cut, we spent a good amount of time watching a little more TV before heading back to the comedor for a Valentine's dance, the big activity for Saturday.  I danced with some of my girls, helped them hold up the wall for a little bit, and was taught some of the more traditional Mexican dance steps.  It was fun, but I was exhausted and checked out before it actually ended.  Hung out briefly with the other volunteers and then...to bed!  Yeah!

The comedor light.  !Que padre!

They closed off half of the comedor and the wings to make the space a lot smaller and more conducive to dancing.  The floor is littered with lollipops and lollipop wrappers, our Valentine treat.

Two of my girls.

P.S. You can tell what day it is in the slideshow by my shirt color.  So all the photos right now where I'm wearing my black playera are from Saturday, red from Friday, T-shirt Sunday and/or weekend off, etc.  My color schedule is in the right column if you need a more complete reference.

Filming Bunnies and Hopping Fences (2/11)

Friday was another day full of drawing requests, Valentine assistance, and bunnies.  We had a brief mass (usual for every Monday and Friday).  I was excited when my encargada left cena early, leaving me to dismiss the girls from the cafeteria and get them back to the room safely.  My girls also discovered the video feature on my camera which has caused a lot of frivolity and creativity on their part.

Me and one of my girls with Grisita (Little Grey), the star of our videos that night.

One of our productions.  Sorry, it's all in Spanish, but I'll give you a brief summary of what she's talking about.  She introduces Grisita as royalty of some sort and we start with her coranation; she's with her friend the princess.  There's a lot of dancing and random feet from my other girls.  We visit their castle (on the back of the pillow) and receive a lot of besitos (kisses).  We visit Grisita's novio (boyfriend) Lukas, the guinea pig and another of my girls, the neighbor and "Corte!" which means cut.  I hope you enjoy seeing their silliness in action.  I'm the one working the camera.  We're in the sala part of our section's room.

It was kind of a crazy night.  We stayed up really late just watching movies on TV.  I didn't really know when to leave and two girls fell asleep with their heads on my lap so I didn't want to move until I had to.  Finally, one of the encargadas said I should probably go since it was after 11pm.  To my surprise, I found the exterior gate to the dorm locked.  Uh oh!  I didn't know what to do.  I was building up the courage to attempt jumping the fence (pictured above) when Ochoa, the other encargada came out of the room.  And she confirmed my fears.  The exterior door would trigger an alarm if I tried to open it so the fence was my only option.  Thank God I have long limbs!  Sure that I was going to fall over the other side not only badly injuring myself but waking up the entire dorm and plunging myself into eternal embarrassment, I stepped up, took hold, and somehow made it safely.  Still not sure how that happened.  But I was very proud of myself too!  A little disappointed to find out that fence hopping is kind of normal around here and I'm sure I'll repeat the experience, but I'll never forget my first time!

Back to the 90's (Lord help us all)! (2/10)

Thursday was nice because I had both of my normal descansos to look forward to that day, so, as evidenced by my blog entries, I was finally able to do a little more than sleep during my time off.  We also had some German visitors walking around the place who were volunteers from several of the other houses.  It really pays to be German with NPH because not only do you get a two week seminar prior to your time here, but midway through your stay they provide an all expense paid trip for one week to another country for all the German volunteers and it doesn't count against your vacation time.  Monika gets to go to Costa Rica in July.  We're all super jealous.  It was also interesting to hear about how the other houses compare.  Mexico is about twice as large as any of the other houses but has only about a third of the volunteers.  Volunteers in the other houses, therefore are much more central the general functioning of things.

What else happened Thursday?  I somehow became the resident artist of Grandes A during homework time.  I'm not sure exactly how it started, but pretty quickly I was getting requests to draw all kinds of things, a legacy which has stayed with me into today.  I didn't have to teach English due to a mix up in the schedule (thank you!).  After dinner, a bunch of donated clothes were found by the girls and they had fun putting on a fashion show of ridiculous and outdated styles.  Below are a few of the photos I took to document the hilarity.  Look at them hamming it up for the camera!  The clothes were pretty bad.  I think most of them were from the early 90's.  It will be interesting to see if any become absorbed into the wardrobe.

After our fashion show, Blanche, one of the top guns here, came in to do some activities with the girls.  I think this was probably as a result of Tuesday's fight and other negative behavior reports we've been receiving.  Activities centered on self and group love.  I was especially touched when one of the girls shared her marshmallow with me which had signified some kind of personal love cache during the talk.  Blanche is a really neat person too and I've really enjoyed getting to know her better.  She's the one standing in the background in the purple shirt.  Eventually the girls calmed down and made it to bed.  None of these photos have all of the girls in them.  We have thirty in our section in all, not including the girls from Milpillas who only come for school.  But that's a story for another day.

Chapel Hill News and 3am Cat Fights (2/9)

Wednesday dawned a little brighter.  I was much more rested as I had gone to bed so early and I was able to use my morning break to sleep some more.  We had another workshop which took up most of the morning and then met with Daniela who was in Miacatlan for the day.  During our meeting I learned that a group from Chapel Hill is coming up in early March and somehow I volunteered myself to be solely responsible for their well-being while they are here.  Not exactly sure how that happened and I'm freaking out about it a little bit now as I have no idea what that responsibility will actually entail.  But it will be neat to have the Chapel Hill connection here.  As of now, I don't know who is actually in the group, what organization is sending them, etc. so there is a small chance I have some connection with them.

That was the biggest news for Wednesday.  Lunch, homework, no Life Teen because of cleaning, dinner, reading time, and bed for the girls.  Reading time was interesting that night because each girl had to read aloud a passage and then summarize it off the top of her head. Both sections were then graded by one of the encargadas.  I ended up catching the last 10 minutes of the Duke game which nice, but a little sad since we lost (boo Duke) and then had a really rough night of sleep because of some band playing next door and a couple literal cat fights out on our patio.  That was an experience.  You always hear the fake cat fighting from cartoons or when people make fun of girl fights, but those examples never quite prepared me for the real thing.  Think more nails on chalkboard. I guess I'm just privileged to get all kinds of new experiences here!

Reality (2/8)

Tuesday was back to normal school schedule.  For me that meant up at 6am to meet the girls for desayuno and then crashing briefly at 7am.  We had a boss meeting at 8:30am and then another of those darn workshops at 10am which lasted until 12:30pm again.  The workshops are really not that bad.  We do a lot of activities and get to know some of the other encargados and staff that we wouldn't normally have any time with.  It's just really long and takes over half our break time Tuesday and Wednesday.  With the other meeting on Tuesday that equaled no break time.  So Tuesday was long.  I spent the afternoon helping girls with homework, had another hour of English tutoring (this time with six boys and it went a little smoother), dinner, lecture time, and an awkward departure.

Post-dinner warrants a little more explanation.  Apparently in school that day, two of my girls had an all out fight during English class in which blood was drawn.  There was no sign that this had occurred when the girls got back from school and I learned about it only through bits and pieces over the course of the afternoon.  For the group, this resulted in a serious conversation run by Ochoa about different crimes and their subsequent punishments, voted on by the girls.  Towards the end of the night, Ochoa suddenly turned to me and said something that I didn't understand.  I was really caught off guard as I had been pretending to listen and she never addresses me directly unless I initiate plus she's hard for me to understand normally so I tried to play it off as the room was completely silent and all the girls were all staring.  That just inspired laughter.  Finally, one of the girls took pity on me and explained that she was saying I could go ahead and leave since it was going to be a late night for them.  One of the major female bosses was going to come by and give the girls a serious talking to.  So I left.  I was sooooo tired and really frustrated at my exit and wished I had requested to stay for the talk. It was one of my lowest points since coming here.  My journal entry that night is pretty emotional.  I was questioning what I was doing here, what I could actually give these girls, how embarrassed I was, etc.  I had also been hearing a lot of crap all day about my group and was really pissed off about that too.  This illustrated once again, the correlation between sleep and attitude.  The more rested you are, the better you feel and the better your communication.  The less sleep, the more easily upset.  I passed out almost as soon as I got back and the next morning was definitely a little brighter. 

Overall, though, reality is starting to set in.  These girls are not innocent angels and I'm gradually starting to see their normal behavior and get to know their individual personalities.  But I also realize it's going to take a LONG time to get to know any of them well.  Little by little.  That's become my personal motto while I'm here.  Little by little.  It's going to take a lot of patience on both sides for this to work.  But I'm not giving up.  I'll take it little by little too.

Futbol and English (2/7)

Monday I finally was back with my girls.  It felt like it had been forever.  The day was especially unusual since there was no school; it was a national holiday.  Something to do with the Constitution.  We spent an exciting morning playing futbol on one of the courts here and I had a great time.  I hadn't had the chance to play with these girls before and enjoyed seeing this side of them.  We divided into three teams with the first team to score two goals as winner.  Winner than stayed to play the next team and so on.  The court we played on was more like an indoor futbol field than what I'm used to, but I learned relatively quickly how to take advantage of the walls.  Everyone here plays and I wish I'd brought shoes more suitable to these impromptu games.  I played in my Chucks which wasn't too bad, although I did get some blisters and didn't have the best traction.  And it was HOT.  For about three hours we were out in direct sunlight.  I also got to see another side of Ochoa, one of my fellow encargadas and the general of my section.  She is really good at futbol and was really enjoying the game.

Futbol was the highlight of the day.  We spent a good chunk watching a popular Mexican show called Rebelde about the equivalent of a prep school here.  Lots of drama, lots of crying, lots of ridiculous plot twists.  I found it pretty hilarious. 

In the afternoon I had my first taste of attempting to teach English.  It went...well, it went.  I was put in charge of three boys (it was suppose to be six) from the Grandes B category.  I went in not really knowing what to do or where to start.  It was kind of nuts.  We started off well enough, but the boys kept getting restless so I kept trying to change it up and come up with different methods on the spot which made for an interesting hour.  I mean, they're boys, they're just bursting with energy and these supplemental English hours are taking place during their normal activity period.  No wonder they're bouncing off the walls!  I was going on no experience, limited planning time, and few resources.  But I survived the first day!  And I was excited to have boys.  It's nice to get to know some of boys as previously I had only worked with girls.  We're having a training session with some English teachers from the School of the Americas in Mexico City this weekend (aka HUGE deal) and I'm really hoping the tutorial helps.

The rest of day was pretty typical.  After English class, dinner.  After dinner, calm/reading time which Monday night equaled a lot of talking, and finally, bed.  End scene!

Cuteness (2/6)

So, my last post was rather brief and I left out my very cute break on Sunday with some kids from chicos/as and kinder.  All the kids had a free period in the middle of Sunday and some found their way up to our section to play. 

I ended up in the racquetball room for about an hour playing an interesting version of tag.  The walls and floor were all base if you touched them with your hand.  I, of course, was usually "it" and had a lot of laughs watching the kids crumple to the floor whenever I got too close. 

I generally chose the walls as my base.  The drop to the floor was a lot farther for me!

Silly boys!  They always had some kind of crazy expression going for them.

Ivone, our fearless leader.  She is bossy!  When I was in her section during my prueba week I spent the morning being bossed around by her from place to place.  Ever since then she always asks me when I'm going to come back and play with her so this day was especially perfect.  I personally think she's one of the prettiest girls here.  And definitely a force to be reckoned with!

More photos of our hilarity are up on the slideshow so check them out.  It was a refreshing break from the couch!

Christy (2/4-6)

This weekend did not exactly go as planned.  I never left Miacatlan.  Teresa and I were planning on heading to Cuernavaca for the night on Friday when she received a call from her family in the States.  For the past several months, Teresa's grandmother has been in Hospice and Teresa was informed Friday that it would not be long now, probably only a few hours.  Needless to say, we cancelled our plans.  The next morning Teresa was told that her grandmother had passed.  I chose to stay in Miacatlan with Teresa so she wouldn't be alone.  The rest of the volunteers were working long hours around the house and so were not around very much.  In some ways, my presence mattered little as Teresa slept nearly 36 hours straight and I saw her once for about 10 minutes from Friday night to Sunday night, but I felt like I should be there just in case.

For me, this meant I spent most of the weekend on the couch.  Not a horrible place to be, but it did get a little boring after a while.  I watched a little TV on my computer, helped Ignacio out with some English vocabulary, ate random stuff (:-P), and made a huge dent in my book.  I've always wanted to read Christy; I have many fond memories of the show from when I was little and have wanted to pick up the book for a while but just never seemed able to get around to it.  When I found it on the shelves of our "library" in Cuernavaca, I knew it was a God-send.  And I mean that literally.  As I read, I found myself identifying with the main character Christy as she attempted to integrate herself into the culture and hearts of back country Appalachia much as I'm trying to here in Casa San Salvador.  I discovered yet another literary role model in the character of Miss Alice Henderson to add to my list of fictional favorites and became inspired by the many Christian lessons in the pages.  My journal is now half full of wonderful quotes. 

Here's a sampling:
I felt fear rising in me - a greater fear than I had ever known.  That train was my last link home.  Everything dear and familiar was disappearing there, right there over that horizon with that train.  What was I doing standing beside these train tracks in a strange village?  I did not know a single human being in this desolate town.   What would I do now?

How odd life is, I could not help thinking.  Why are things so disproportionate?  Why do some people have so much and others so little?

But perhaps, I reasoned, the accident had nonetheless been one of many signposts trying to tell me that I had made a mistake, pointing me back to my world where I belonged.

If we will let God, He can use even our disappointments, even our annoyances to bring us a blessing. There's a practical way to start the process too: by thanking Him for whatever happens, no matter how disagreeable it seems.

Call this what you might - "starter-force," "God," "Father" - it was personal all right.  It thrust deep into me. It pulled.  And it insisted that life was precious - all of life - Fairlight and I, and every bird and every squirrel and every tree reaching through its forest cover for the light.  It cried that all effort was worthwhile; that doubt and fear and discouragement were a desecration of beauty, that hope was always right.  It insisted that small achievement was not enough; that hopes and dreams must be large enough to stand up beside those soaring summits and not once bow their heads in shame.

Just a small sampling. ;-) I guess I'm trying to say, if you haven't read it you should and if you have read it, maybe read it one more time.  Can't hurt!

Poco a Poco (2/3)

Day 2 of official-ness went much better than day 1.  I was requested to help with homework, became the emissary to the library, and was able to participate in activity time as there were no aseos (chores) today.  I also built up the courage to ask my general (the boss for my section) what my schedule was going to be like.  Here's a general view:

6:00am - up
6:15am - desayuno with section
7:00am - descanso (break) starts
7:45am - sweep team
8:00am - descanso
10:00am - almuerzo in el comedor
11:00am - descanso
1:30pm - in section to meet girls from school
2:00pm - comida
2:30pm - tarea
4:30pm - activities (on Wednesdays: aseos or chores)
5:00pm - English tutor of primary grades (on Wednesdays: Life Teen)
6:00pm - return to section
6:30pm - cena
7:00pm - reading time or English tutoring for secundaria
8:00pm - lights out in section

A general overview.  It depends on the day, but for the most part, Monday through Friday this is how things go.  I need to figure out where to fit in a few things for myself like exercising, chores, Skype, napping, blogging, reading, etc. also known as the things that keep me sane and functioning, but that will happen sooner or later I suppose.  It's good to know what to expect.  And I currently know the names of all the girls in my section except for one who, for some reason even though I've been told it plenty of times, I can't seem to remember.  I ended today feeling much happier about how things were going and I think I figured out the true core of my responsibilities: being there.  Yes, I will have plenty of moments of just sitting around feeling useless, but just by being there I'm proving to the girls that someone cares about them and is interested in being a positive part of their lives.  Tasks are one thing, presence another and the girls need the second much more than the first at this age.  Poco a poco.  Little by little.  I'm getting there.

Ni Modo (2/1-2)

As I mentioned in my last post, this week has been a little difficult.  Tuesday was Decision Day which I thought meant that we would talk to Daniela in the morning and then be with our new sections the rest of the day.  Instead, we essentially had the day off to catch up with Daniela and relax a little before our posts began the next day.  Daniela, our volunteer coordinator, is not just our coordinator.  She has about five different jobs with NPH and is based in Cuernavaca which means we only get to see her once a week.  It was great to catch up, to talk about things, to get her opinion and direction, but this also meant she was in and out a lot attending to these different responsibilities of which we are only a part.  So a good chunk of the day was spent waiting for her to finish this or that so we could have all our questions answered.  In the morning we had a meeting with the head honchos of the place which took up a good bit of time and a few of us did head out in the early afternoon to get food in the pueblo as well.  Not that the food here isn't great, but a change of pace is nice.  ;-)

Nice, Wesleigh.

It's a miracle!  Andrew's actually smiling normally in a photo!

Daniela took us to our sections shortly thereafter to inform them who would be showing up the next day and we were all pretty nervous.  Wesleigh, Monika, and I had become very attached to several of the groups and were worried about how they would take our "rejection" of them as well as what kind of reception we would receive at our new posts.  Reactions were definitely mixed.  It was impossible not to offend someone especially since there are so many sections and so few of us.  For the most part, people reacted positively and we had cena with our sections before heading back to volunteer central.  That night too, I went with the guys for a beer in town to celebrate our new assignments.  Don't worry, we were back by our 9:30pm curfew!

Wednesday was my first day with my girls.  I got up in time to make their 5am wake up call and then basically just sat there while they showered, dressed, cleaned the floor, tidied their beds, and found their school things. We headed to desayuno after which they prayed with the other older girls and were at school by 7am.  At this point I passed out until my next responsibility at 10am, helping serve and set up almuerzo, but this effort was interrupted by a workshop we were required to attend with the other head honchos of the house.  It was...interesting.  The point of this series of workshops is to help make us better caregivers by discussing things such as identity for the kids and positive reinforcement.  It was pretty long and only one of several we will be required to attend.  The points the women were making were good.  It was just hard to focus and it involved a lot of complimenting those around you who for the most part I didn't know.  Awkward.  The workshop ended just early enough for a few minutes quiet time before meeting the girls back from school.  After comida came homework during which I was mildly useful, chores in which I was completely useless, and finally, for me, Life Teen.  I had become very excited about Life Teen since it is one of the few formal ways I will be able to interact with the older girls, but I was a little disappointed when only a few chose to show up this week.   It was still fun.  We sang songs, read a bible verse, prayed, and ate candy.  Teresa was feeling pretty poorly so she left early leaving Monika and I to attempt to teach an English song that I didn't really know.  But all in good fun!  And we will definitely turn this around.  Okay, so after Life Teen was cena then reading time and bed.  Reading time is probably my favorite part of the day so far because it's one of the few times that you really see how young these girls are.  They still enjoy reading with someone else and kind of cuddle up to you while you switch off passages of the story.  Bed time for my section is 8pm.  After their lights went out, I hung out around our house a little and went for tacos and nieve (kind of like ice cream) in town with Dan and Andrew.  There are lots of little taco stands all over Mexico and, just like the street vendor in Chicago has the best hotdogs, the taco stands in Mexico have the best tacos.  I forced myself to go to bed once we got back.  Even though it was only about 10pm these 5am wake ups are no joke.

My days won't always be 5am to 8pm.  There exists some kind of system where you get off early if you do early wake up, but I haven't figured that out yet.  !Ni modo!  That means "whatever" and it's an essential phrase, lesson, and attitude to make it through this.  So !Ni modo! everyone.  Miss you all!

Drum Roll Please (2/2)

I have chosen!  It was a really, really, really hard decision for me, but I finally decided on Grandes A, the first group I spent time with here at the house.  So far things are going okay.  I was hoping life would get easier once a section was determined, but so far, not so true.  There are two other encargadas in my section and neither of them is very chatty so I'm currently building up the courage to ask more direct questions about what the heck I'm suppose to be doing.  Yesterday was my first full day in the section as an official encargada and I was about as useless as I was during test week. 

(Me with one of the girls in my section)

Something you've got to understand about Mexico, everything is indirect.  No one makes a phone call and starts off the conversation with why they are calling. It's only after a thirty minute conversation about everything else that the question might be broached and even then it's not directly asked.  I'm finding this very frustrating as it applies to our lives here.  We're kind of thrown into the mix and expected to gradually figure out how things work.  For such a detail-oriented person like me, you can imagine how challenging I find this.  The first day, therefore, I felt pretty useless and was wondering if I had made the right choice, but I'm sure gradually I will become more integrated.  These first two weeks are supposed to be the most difficult!  And the girls are very sweet. 

(Also in Grandes A)

I purposely chose probably the most difficult age in the house.  They are our equivalent of sixth graders which here means that they are in their last year of primary school about to move up to secondary or middle.  They're not as cute and cuddly anymore, they're not as dependent, but they're also not quite as independent and self-assured as the older girls either.  They still need lots of hugs and good conversation too.  It is halfway through their final year of primary school so I will even be with them as they make that first big school transition.  And like I said, I'm still figuring out where I fit in to all of this as are the other volunteers as well.  Wesleigh chose Grandes B girls, Andrew Grandes B boys, and Monika Secundaria Primeros girls.  Martina and Ignacio chose not to take a section.  Martina is working in the school and the library and Ignacio is assisting with English classes and organizing our English tutoring sessions.  And thankfully this weekend I have my first descanso!  A little time away will be nice to get some distance and rest before really going all in.