The end of June signaled the beginning of big change. Monday the first new volunteer arrived, Natascha. Her arrival was completely unexpected for us as we had received an email that day saying she would be coming Tuesday. Within a few hours of reading the email, Natascha was touring the house. Haha! Such is the unexpected, uninformed life of a volunteer. We were so unprepared the rooms were not yet ready. Tuesday, the boys and I swapped rooms. I moved along with my roommate Martina in the larger bedroom at the front of our compound and Andrew and Dan moved into our smaller accommodations. No one was very happy about it. We were all very content with our previous arrangement, but the impending male to female ration dictated the change. Natascha therefore moved in with Martina and me and the three of us desperately tried to eradicate the nasty boy smell that the guys left behind as a housewarming gift.
My room in it's final days before the move! I had gotten it just the way I liked it...and then did it all over again:
Tuesday was a big day. We moved, Wesleigh left for vacation, and all year of service and directors left for the day for evaluations. In their absence I was seriously concerned the house would self-destruct. Secundaria kids were left in charge (horror!) and a few were with each section to supervise for the day. Somehow we all survived it, but I couldn’t breathe easy until the directors returned that night.
The rest of the week went smoothly, though I dearly missed Wesleigh. I must say I was not a good host for Natascha that week. She had arrived two weeks early then the others because she was Jeremy’s replacement in physical therapy and needed to be trained by him before he left. I was so tired for some reason that I started avoiding the sala for all reasons expect grabbing snacks and for the most part sealed myself in my room with my computer. Natascha is very tall, over six feet, and anytime she had a question she’d peek over my locker door to see if I was around and willing to answer questions. Sorry Natascha! I became a much better hostess later on, but her first week was touch and go.
Friday was my last day working in Grupo D. Monika and I supervised the game we had tried the week before, switching the teams, but again the game did not go as planned. I also spent a good portion of my day being interviewed by a representative of the Belgium NPH office. She wanted details about a volunteer’s life in the home in order to better prepare any volunteers coming through their office. She was very sweet and I enjoyed our conversation. The night’s activities consisted of movies on a huge projector in the school. Yes, it was movies plural. The kids were given coffee and freshly made donuts as their snack (can you say wired?), a huge treat in the house. During the first movie, it started to rain a bit but the house preserved and we kept watching. At the end of the movie, I started to get ready to leave when Agustin comes running through the kids a huge smile on his face and another movie in hand. Apparently he was having too much fun for the night to end just yet! The second movie took us well past midnight and the following morning was a little difficult for all.
Saturday the house played Rey Pide, a game where each section is given the same list of questions pertaining to the house which they then run around trying to answer. These questions can be anything from how many tables are there in the comedor to what is Father Phil’s full name. My section won. That night was the Gold Cup, USA versus Mexico and I must admit I was nervous. If States won, the kids would be devastated. If we lost, I worried about the teasing the volunteers might undergo. Jeremy was especially brave I thought as he sat front and center with the Pequenos for the game. In case you didn’t know, we lost, but I was impressed by the general lack of taunting.
