“Can I Tell You About BEAUTY?!”

So I’ve obviously been bad at updating this blog with some of the fun stories that have occurred while here at the hogar so I thought I’d just go ahead and tell a few of them.

So this has happened a couple times and I wanted to share it with all of you because it makes me smile every time. We take some of the boys out on bikes after dinner, to Posas Verdes, to get drinks and treats occasionally. By the time we start or return, it’s usually dark. This is one of my favorite things because as we ride bikes or walk in the pitch black there are TONS of fireflies on either side of us as we walk. You can’t really see too far ahead of yourself so you have to either look out for the potholes in the torn up road or get a nice surprise when you bike through them. It’s a blast to hear all the laughing that goes on as we ride through the dark, beautiful to see all of the fireflies on either side of you and then absolutely breathtaking to look up at the countless stars above you.

This past Sunday I made ratatouille Stromboli for dinner with Rita and of course, knowing me, there was music on…BLARING! As we were finishing up dinner I decided, that after cooking for 2 and a half hours, we should celebrate the amazing food that awaited us in the oven. I then put on “Send Me On My Way” by Rusted Root (SHOUT OUT TO MARITA!) and we began to dance around the kitchen pulling Regina in to dance with us. A moment where I sat there and was just thankful that I’m here with some amazing people who will challenge me and let ME shine!
The other night I was walking up to the social work office, with Grace, and Oscar (one of the boys) stopped there with the light shining behind him and his silhouette standing before us with his arms OUTSTRETCHED for a hug. Definitely a moment that just made me smile, not a word was said… afterwards we just continued on.

On Monday and Friday nights we play soccer, after dinner, with the boys. Sometimes one of the padrinos, Padrino Luis, joins in. The electricity here is CONSTANTLY going out and so this past week it went out both Monday and Friday nights while we were playing soccer. We then cannot see a thing so are forced to stop however sometimes some of us stick around and still try and play or we just sit around and admire the thousands of lightning bugs around us and just lay on the ground and look at the stars.

Every Tuesday night we have "Silent Night". After prayer there is no music, talking and for this month we decided as a community to sacrifice the use of lights on Tuesdays and Fridays. It makes Tuesday nights really fun because I write all of my letters by candlelight. :)

Anyways, this past Tuesday we had some visitors. About 2 months ago one of the dogs here had two puppies in a shack behind our house. It's been really cool to watch their growing process (opening their eyes and learning how to walk). Two of my community members went to grab the puppies because they were yelping and they brought them into the house to play. We all sat around in the candlelight and fed the puppies some cornflakes and played with them. TONS of fun!

Our boys are VERY intelligent. They always love inventing things out of stuff laying around. One of our fans broke the other day so we threw it out in our trash. I was in the social work office the other day doing some work when my community member, Alan, came to tell me I had to come see something. I walk out of the office to see one of the boys, Gerson David, with his head over the ledge of the patio and a chord plugged into the side of one of the padrino's house. As I got closer I saw that he had taken our fan (with the part that had the 0,1,2,3 speed option and the little motor with a piece of plastic pointing out for the front of the fan to go on which was missing) and had attached a corn cob to the little point sticking out of the fan. He was using the speeds to dig a hole into the ground with the corn cob!

Another one of our boys, Mendoza, loves to play imaginary sports with you. He will pretend to kick a soccer ball to you and when you return it he'll gracefully receive it or pretend it has bounced off the ground or off of a wall or some object around and he has been known to entertain himself (along with volunteers) for hours upon end. These kids are AMAZING!

Wednesday night is community activity night and this past Wednesday our community decided to play sardines, in the dark, in the house. If you don't know what sardines is, it is when one person goes to hide and the other people have to search for that person. Once you find the person hiding you have to hide with them. You can imagine how entertaining this was with 8 full grown adults. We blared music allowing people to hide without hearing where and would search for people when the songs were done, singing along to each song of course! :)

The Usual Week

Last week we were given our jobs and I was excited to hear that I have been given the position as one of the social workers here on the Amigos property along with Grace and Regina, two other volunteers. This job entails working with those boys who are older and have left the orphanage to live in the surrounding communities outside of the Amigos property (Posas Verdes, aka PV, and Macuelizo). The social work position entails a lot of paperwork which is time consuming but interesting because through a lot of that paper work, and going through the boys files, I am learning a lot of their “stories”. Also giving the boys, whose families and loved ones are still alive, phone calls and house visits. This job will definitely help me work on my Spanish which is something I continue to be frustrated with.

It’s a matter of challenging myself not to speak English to the other volunteers around the boys (which is disrespectful in itself) and to take my own time to study. I find myself not talking to the padrinos or some of the older boys because I am not confident in my Spanish. This is upsetting because for those of you who know me I am NOT the type to not engage in conversation… I love getting to know people and hearing their stories. I think this lack of confidence also comes with the fact that there are times where a padrino or nino/joven will say something in Spanish and I don’t understand it and they do not repeat it and instead laugh. That’s mega frustrating. It’s an uncomfortable feeling having people talk in Spanish to each other, know that you don’t understand, and laugh and look at you… I’m constantly wondering, “What did I do”, or “Why are they laughing at me”?

NORMAL WEEK AT THE HOGAR:
I figured I should probably go through a “normal week at the hogar” with all of you. Every weekday we have community prayer at 7 AM and end each day with community prayer by 9 PM. Monday nights we have “Spanish night” in our house after prayer circle and we only talk in Spanish with encouragement from Chris (the volunteer who had the idea to start Spanish night).
Prayer circle happens 2 or 3 times a week and consists of all the boys, padrinos, and volunteers standing in a circle, holding hands, with 4-5 boys assigned to a certain night to pray aloud with their intentions. Afterwards we all say an Our Father and Hail Mary together. Afterwards we walk around to everyone and say, “Buenas Noches”. It’s a pretty amazing experience and one that I always look forward to because after a day of disciplining and having certain kids that drive you crazy it’s great to either shake their hand or get a hug from them and realize that tomorrow is a NEW day.

Tuesday night is “Silent Night” and after community prayer around 9 PM there is NO more talking in the house, no music, no electronics used. It’s a great time to write letters, read, reflect, go to bed early, or do whatever with your personal free time.
Wednesday night is “Community Night”. Two community members are assigned to make dinner. After eating we have a community reflection (once a month is Catholocity which is a question posed about Catholicism that we discuss- really great) and then afterwards we have a community activity. This could include watching a movie, playing a board game, asking goofy questions, or playing soccer outside on the field bringing in some house rivalry. Wednesday nights are a lot of fun.

Thursday night we have Celebracion where everyone at the hogar gathers in our volunteer chapel to exchange the sign of peace, sing, and listen to the readings of the day. It’s so much fun listening to the boys getting into the music and singing along!
Friday night we get to lay low. After dinner the volunteers all gather up at the Amigos cross (a 25 ft. cement cross up on the hill) to say the rosary with the boys. Rosary is optional so it’s neat to see the large amount of boys that decide to participate. Afterwards the boys get to watch a movie while, most times, some of the jovenes (older boys) and a few of us volunteers play futbol. After the movie and the boys all go to bed we are all able to come back to the house and bake something, veg. and share ridiculous stories from the day, or watch a movie.

Saturday we are able to wake up and eat, the special breakfast the cooks make, with the boys. Afterwards we are able to either go back to bed or veg. until 9 AM community prayer. After prayer we are supposed to play with the boys till lunchtime at noon. This usually means taking the boys out on bikes to play and swim in the river or heading to the park in Macuelizo. The rest of the day is pretty low key and then Saturday night is basically just like Friday night.
Sunday we get up for Mass in Macuelizo. Sometimes we walk, the half hour, to Macuelizo for Mass which is a really great experience. It’s fun crossing the river with the boys. After Mass we come back for lunch and then veg. for the day. Sunday night is another “community night” and two people make dinner for everyone. Afterwards we go over our “Biz List” as a community and take care of all business.

That’s basically a normal week with all of our individual work thrown in there.