Stories from the Holidays

Hello, hello!

So many celebrations!  Christmas was wonderful here.  We started with mass on Christmas Eve, which was preceded by a live nativity.  That began with a kid with a donkey mask walking down the aisle, very closely followed by Mary (so it was like she was on the donkey maybe?)  That illusion didn’t last very long though, because Mary stopped to talk to someone and the donkey kid kept walking.  The most important part of the Nativity scene, of course, is the baby Jesus.  And because there is never a shortage of babies in this country, they always use a real baby, which makes for some noisy Nativities.

Isaias with Papa Noel-that's not his happy face.

After mass, we returned to the Hogar where we had a traditional midnight meal to welcome Christmas.  They really love fireworks here, so those began at midnight and continued well into the night.  On Christmas morning (after a few hours of sleep), Melia and I got up to put out stockings, then cooked breakfast (chocolate pancakes!).  Papa Noel came after lunch to hand out gifts.  We got hoola hoops for the 5-10 year olds (Santa Ana dormitory) to share, but they immediately began fighting over them, so we took them back for a few days.  Aidee (sassy 7 year old who lies out the wazoo) came to our kitchen that night and asked when they would be receiving the rest of their gift.  When I told her not yet, she responded “Well, you should know that EVERYONE in Santa Ana is crying right now!” and stalked off.  Love her.

New Year’s Eve found us with another late night party and, you guessed it, hours of fireworks.  For this one, we gave out bags of candy and a pair of yellow or red underwear (for money or love, respectively, in the New Year!  Those were a big hit.)  Then, on the 6^th (the Epiphany), a rich family came, brought a DJ and HUGE speakers and threw a party for all of the girls.  Lots of fun, lots of sugar, will be followed by lots of trips to the dentist.  What’s the next holiday? President’s day? I don’t think we celebrate that one here.  Thank goodness.

Aside from parties, there have been other things to occupy my time.  One of our dogs, Afra, became deathly ill and immediately began sleeping directly outside my door.  Which is ironic because, as of right now, the only thing I could do for her was not step on her on my way out.  I really thought she was going to die, in which case I was going to beg to be allowed to cut her open.  But she made a miraculous turn around.  Completely on her own at that, because I saw what the vet did, and that didn’t have any effect at all.

While Afra was sleeping outside my door, one of her gross, engorged ticks crawled under my door and onto my bed.  This is the only explanation I will accept because I refuse to admit that it could have come off of me.  Anyway, I killed the thing before I realized that it was a tick, gushing Afra blood all over my sheets.  The tragedy of this is that I had just washed my sheets.  Big deal you say?  Well, we hand wash everything here.  I almost cried…and then I left them like that for a few days.

I recently spent my first night in a hospital ever.  Not for me, one of the babies had an abcess on the back of his neck.  It really didn’t turn out to be too awful because we were at a private clinic (run by Dr. Clever Moron, my favorite pediatrician, and yes that’s his real name).  At first, we were going to be at the Children’s Hospital.  Which really would have been awful because apparently they don’t like washing sheets either, or believe in patching window screens.  And there were spiders on the wall.  Thankfully, the director of the Hogar pulled us out of that hospital and moved us to the clinic, were I had my own bed to not sleep in while I jiggled the baby in the one position that didn’t hurt his neck half the night.  He’s fine now.

I usually find out about fun little outings with the girls 3-5 minutes before we leave, and so have grown accustomed to being fairly spontaneous.  So as I was walking into the Hogar returning from the dentist and Madre Rosario stopped the truck full of girls on her way out to ask if I wanted to go to the pool, of course I said yes and hopped in.  (Please note, when I say “truck full of girls” I am referring to a 4-door Toyota Tundra that already has 6 people in the cab and 20 bathing suit clad girls in the bed.)  And then I went swimming fully clothed and taught one of my more difficult children to tread water.  That was a really good day.

The most recent funny story is that I had chicken feet in my soup a couple of days ago.  The funny part is that we cooked this for a homeless shelter in Jamaica during Spring Break a couple of years ago, and I was appalled.  This time around, I didn’t think too much of it, just fished around them.  I really do think it added some great flavor.  Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.  As for the popular question, what happened to the rest of the chicken?  I think we ate them the next day.  That, or someone just donated a bunch of chicken feet to the Hogar.  Be generous with what you have, I guess.

Love, peace, joy and goodwill!

Christmas is just around the corner.  We’ve been very busy here, shopping, wrapping and baking.  It’s way too hot to be baking, but I can’t help myself.  Nativity scenes, or pesebres, are a huge deal in Bolivia.  Each of our dorms has a large, elaborate nativity that the girls constructed themselves.  It turns out, according to the scene in the baby room, that an elephant was present at the birth of Christ.  

The girls sort of know the story of Papa Noel (Santa Claus).  They know he’s coming on Saturday to hand out their gifts, but even the five year olds ask me, “So who’s going to be Papa Noel?”  When you ask any of them about Christmas, they always talk about the birth of Christ, attending mass on Buena Noche (Christmas Eve) and then again Christmas morning, and having a beautiful lunch that everyone will help to prepare.  We’ll have a full day on Saturday, beginning at 4am when we’ll put stocking-like gifts at the foot of each bed.  Afterwards, Melia and I will be making breakfast for everyone (pancakes and mangos!)  This will be followed by mass, an awesome lunch, dances the girls have prepared, a visit from Santa and an evening full of silliness.  

This has been a hard time to be away from home, not only for me, but also for many of the girls.  I can’t wait to share the day with these kids that I have come to love so much.  I pray that you each have a very blessed and joyful Christmas.  I hear it’s going to be a White Christmas in WV.  Where ever you may be, God bless!

Mango season has arrived!

Yes, mango season is here.  I love mangos.  We have two giant mango trees in the back of the hogar, but they don’t have mangos.  Why?  Because the girls also love mangos.  They get so excited for mango season, that they eat ALL of them when they are green (and then have stomachaches).  Fortunately, there are also mango trees at the convent and at another nearby volunteer site.  So we have a stash.  On Thursdays, the volunteers eat at the convent with the sisters.  This is easily our best meal of the week and I always get really excited.  Especially for the bowls fruit that we eat after the meal.  We’ve had mangos at this meal for the past 6 or 7 weeks.  Here’s my challenge for you:  go eat a mango, it’s really hard.  The Common mangos here are even stringier and juicier than those that you encounter in the US.  After a month of laughing at me eating these with juice to my elbows, the sisters began teaching me to eat politely.  I’m getting pretty good at it.  There are actually many different crosses of mangos and other fruits that ripen at different intervals of mango season.  Apple mangos are wonderful and easier to eat.  There are also peach mangos, banana mangos (heaven I hear) and others that I haven’t encountered yet.

Because convent lunch is on Thursday, Melia, Tom, Laura and I are going to be cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for the sisters this week.  Turkey and all.  If we can find a turkey, that is.  When I asked if I could order a turkey at the supermarket, I was told that it was much too early for turkeys.  Apparently you can only buy turkeys around Christmas here.  I did see a live one while walking the other day though.

Last weekend, I visited some other volunteers in Yapacani, which is to the east of Montero.  I saw a body of water and hills for the first time since I arrived three months ago.  While visiting Amboro National Park, we played on a rope swing, and then hiked three hours into the rainforest to see a waterfall, which I drank from.  Maybe not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but it tasted wonderful.  While we didn't see any large jungle animals, there were plenty of frogs, tarantulas, ants and a snake to keep me occupied.  It was a good day.

Saray Masa Rivera

Life at the Hogar has been going, going, going.  We had baptisms in October, so I now have another goddaughter.  Her name is Saray, she is almost four, and is exactly as ornery as she looks.  When I tell her not to do something, she gives me a look, then usually does exactly that as quickly as she possibly can.  We threw a Halloween party where we bobbed for mangos (which I learned don’t float).  On my birthday, I watched the Princess and the Frog with the girls.  They gave me a frog and told me I had to kiss him.  So I did, and they screamed.  Last week, we had seven girls graduate from kindergarten, and this week we’ll have three who will graduate from high school.  We will hopefully be finishing up our Christmas shopping soon!

An owl?

Two girls just walked into my room with this thing.  It's dead.

A typical day

Since I last wrote, three additional Americans have arrived to live in the area: my site partner, Melia (recent Notre Dame architect graduate) and a married couple Tom and Laura Kent (Tom’s a rocket scientist [his words] and Laura has a Master’s in biology).  Tom and Laura now live at the convent and work in the Institute, which is a type of trade school, and in the guardaria, which is a sort of day care run in conjunction with the kindergarten. 

After Melia had been here for about a week, we were given our official duties for our stay.  She was assigned to managing the Madrina account in the morning, which is a program of sponsors for the girls.  (Let me know if you might want to sponsor a girl).  In the afternoons and evenings, she’s been given the library.  I’m still assigned to the toddlers in the mornings.  My afternoon assignment is “Salud” which quite literally means health.    I’m sure you can imagine that this isn’t exactly confined to the afternoon.  It actually spans from the time that I am spotted in the morning until I am able to lock myself away late at night.  This might be partially because most everyone thinks I’m the only one with a key to the infirmary.  This isn’t true.  I should spread the news.  Here’s a rundown of my yesterday (which isn’t all that uncommon).

5:30 am:  Bell rings, girls in the bordering room get up.

5:45 am:  I give up trying to sleep.

6:00 am: On my way to do yoga until breakfast, a nun stops me and asks me to convert 112 F to Celsius.  I assume she means 102 F, and treat the fever.

6:15 am: Yoga is interrupted (and not returned to) by more fevers.  At this point, I find a girl who has thrown up, peed, and had a nose bleed in her bed.

7:00 am: Breakfast (piece of bread) and YOGART!!!!

7:15 am: I treat cuts, foot fungus, give medications, etc.

8:30 am: My official duties start with the toddlers.  I brush teeth, wipe butts, do hair, give vitamins that the kids would rather play with.

9:45 am: Yolita gets her finger shut in the door of the truck, I bandage that.

10:00 am:  Jose Manuel finally poops.  Excellent! (He had a parasite and we needed a feces sample before going to the clinic.)  An older girl and I take 3 boys under the age of two to the doctor.

11:00 am:  I tell the doctor what’s wrong.  He doesn’t listen to me.

12:30 pm:  We finally leave the clinic, but can’t catch a taxi.  So we take mototaxis. (I’d been on a moto with four people before, but this was the first time with two toddlers.)

1:00 pm: Lunch (rice and beets that taste like dirt)

1:30 pm: Give more medications

2:00 pm: I take three girls to the dentist, Nora baulks.

5:00 pm: Back from the dentist, just in time to give the skinny babies milk.  And more fevers

6:00 pm:  Supper (something soupy?)

6:30 pm: I treat ringworm, ears that were pierced by hand earlier in the day, etc.

7:30 pm: Treat fevers, give the youngest kids their medications

8:00 pm: I hide and boil water to drink tomorrow

9:00 pm: Cold shower (no hot water in the staff bathroom)

9:30 pm: Make it to bed early

 It makes for a long day.

Our monkey has escaped, but now we have a baby rhea.  This is a flightless, omnivorous bird which, when grown, will stand over 4 feet tall.  I don’t know why it’s here.  Hasta luego!

Well, my iron stomach failed me.  I ended my nine-year streak of not having thrown up this weekend.  (Last time, I was in seventh grade and had to miss a field trip to the Greenbank Observatory.  I cried.)  Anyway, I think I picked up a virus from the sick baby I was caring for the day before.  Thank you Isaias.

Until today, I’d been living (just sleeping, really) at the convent, which is in a separate complex across the street from the Hogar.  That was nice because it was quiet, and little girls didn’t knock on my door at odd hours.  I really loved being there.  I frequently found giant cockroach-like bugs in my room there.  I’m usually not a chicken, but these things move REALLY fast.  I would generally dance and hop around trying to kill them with a squeegee.  Also, there was a kitten that lived outside of my door for about three days.  He liked to come inside my room and cause trouble.  My guard dogs (which are sort of ferocious and one of them would attack the other as soon as he came too near me) didn’t seem to mind the kitten.  However, he didn’t have enough sense to stay in my yard, wandered under a gate and was immediately killed by the guard dogs in the courtyard.  Such is life.

Now, I’m in the Hogar.  I have my own room with an oscillating fan installed on the wall!  It borders the 5-9 year olds’ room (a quality room for peace and quiet on Saturday mornings).  Actually, “borders” is putting it lightly.  There is a giant window between our rooms.  It’s probably designed for me or whoever to keep an eye on the girls (not that you would need to keep an eye out when I can hear everything).  However, if not for my lovely curtain, it would feel more like I was the subject of behavioral research.

Over the weekend, I visited Okinawa for another volunteer’s birthday.  We ate pizza, pancakes, triple chocolate brownies and banana bread.  (This was, obviously, pre-virus).   The volunteers at that site teach at a school and live in a compound with other teachers.  It being more rural and quiet (no kids begging for attention, no all night parties outside the walls of the compound) made it a very refreshing trip. 

You will be pleased to know that my toddlers with scabby, oozing scalps are about to start a full course of antibiotics (administered by me, so that the medications are actually finished).  The “skin doctor” (he’s not really a doctor) says that the problem probably starts with bug bites which are scratched open by dirty hands and then the infection spreads and becomes systemic. You know, he’s got a point.

My site partner, Melia, arrived yesterday!  She's been in language school for the past month and is doing really well.  All I could do when I got here was smile and nod.  Madre Rosario and I went to the airport with Don Poncho, two staff members, 9 toddlers, a baby to pick her up.  She was pleased.  I’ve learned a lot in the past 3.5 weeks by myself, and I think it’s been a great experience.  I know most of the names and spanish is getting a little easier.  But Hallelujah, the help has arrived!

Lice, Rice and a Monkey

Well, I have lice.  Don’t worry, I have lice shampoo, lice spray for the bed, lice combs and lots of girls to play with my hair and reinfect me.  This might be a never ending battle.

We eat a lot of rice.  Like I think I’ve had a couple pounds of rice in the last 5 days.  Lucky for me, I also have a jar of peanut butter (that I had to buy at a special store an hour away for $9) and yogart.  And vitamins.

We have a monkey.  I can’t believe that we have a monkey.  It’s a little guy that arrived 2 days ago.  You may know that having a wild animal in a little cage irritates me, but I’ve decided to look at it this way.  The girls that come here are loved and fed, but they sleep in a room with 25 girls, wear clothes that are bought in bulk and have very few items to call their own.  If having a monkey to play with makes this childhood better for some, then I guess I’m ok with it.  And since the monkey is here, I suppose we’ll have to be friends.

Yesteday, I served as a judge for a sort of talent show of skits put on by the Catechism classes.  I learned I was serving as a judge when I was handed the score sheet (the point categories, of course, were in Spanish) and was told to sit in the front of the crowd.  I’m not sure if you know this, but I really do not blend in here.  I was told yesterday by someone “I like walking with you.  Everyone just stares.”  Anyway, it worked out.  My fellow judge (a kind nun) explained the point sheet (also in Spanish) and I’m pretty sure I sort of did it right.  Some highlights from the talent show:  a motorcycle was driven around the cancha (a covered, outdoor gym) during the Prodigal Son skit; “We Are the Champions” was played when David beat Goliath; and the bread for the Last Supper was apparently a little difficult to break so Jesus got frustrated and punched it.