• in the eyes of the beholder

    There once was a girl who had to go live in another country even though she didn’t want to. At first she was very angry and unhappy. She cried a lot and said she would be happy only if her mama and papa would buy her an American Girl Doll. But her mama explained (over and over again) that American Girl Dolls were out of the question, and their price range.

    “I just need a toy!” the little girl sobbed. “I need a doll!”

    “Why don’t you find a stick and tape a paper circle to it for a head—then you’ll have a doll,” the mother suggested cheerfully. She didn’t understand why the girl couldn’t just use her imagination a little.

    “No, I need a real doll.”

    “Well, we’ll look for a doll for you,” the mother sighed. “Remember, your birthday is coming up.”

    And then, on Valentine’s Day, it happened. At the little girl’s school, the students all put their money together to pay for their lunch: Happy Meals from McDonald’s. Along with her hamburger and French fries and little packet of ketchup, the little girl got a toy. A real, honest-to-goodness, piece-of-plastic-crap toy.

    It had blue hair and detachable pieces and the girl glowed with happiness.

    “Mama,” she said that night, “I have a toy. I am so happy now.”

    The end.

  • Monday blues

    I’m achy-sad this morning. My nene (little one) didn’t want to go to school and we made him go anyway and it broke my heart a little.

    He’s been having a really hard time. With zero comprehension and hours of sitting, he is bored out of his mind. And when he’s bored, he starts to think of me and then he gets sad and it’s all downhill from there. His teacher is a very nice woman, but quite reserved—he needs someone to engage him, to draw him in, to do more than just smile at him.

    So this morning he sniffled and whimpered from the moment he woke up, and then when it came time to get in the neighbor’s car, he flat-out refused. So the kids went on their merry way and we took the tearful boy inside and explained to him in no uncertain terms that he was going to go to school period.

    Fifteen minutes later, we were in a taxi, headed to school. He and I sat snuggled up together in the backseat, my arms around him and his arms around his stuffed snake, his sweet head leaning on my shoulder. I sniffed his head and hoped with all my might that the safety and coziness of the moment might, just might, be enough to carry him through the day.

    At school, I walked him to his room—the closer we got to his room, the slower he walked—and when we arrived, he burst into tears and clung to me. But I got out his play dough, and the teacher, a sub (the director for the primary grades and a much more dynamic woman—maybe she’ll catch on that the poor child needs some extra help?), set up his desk and greeted him in English. And then he sat down obediently, and I fled out the door and down the corridor to the waiting taxi, his muffled sobs chasing after me.

    On the way back to the house, the taxi driver ran over a dog, oh my word NO. (It’s not dead, he assured me cheerfully. Whatever.)

    Hello, Monday morning.

    PS. At least the sun is shining.

    Update: he had a great day, hip-hip!

  • buses, boats, and trucks, oh my (and puke)

    Last week we traveled to Guatemala City, met up with the MCC team, and then headed out to Santiago Atitlán for team meetings.

    our bus line

    While in Guatemala City, we stay at CASAS, that Garden of Eden that I mentioned awhile back.

    When we arrived last Tuesday evening, exhausted and hungry, there were six plates of food, salad, fresh pineapple, and a basket of tortillas awaiting us in the kitchen. Just looking at the food, I started to breathe easier, my muscles relaxed, and the tension from the day started to melt away.

    They (not sure who) had reserved one of the apartments for us. In our apartment, there was a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and two bedrooms that slept four each. There were fresh towels galore, and hot water came out of the hot water taps. It was glorious.

    And to make it all even more wonderful, our neighbors from back in Virginia/long-time friends/support team leaders were staying right next door in their own apartment. (They are leading EMU’s Central America Cross-Cultural.)

    Looking into our neighbors’ apartment from the porch: they are all gathered around the computer, attempting to call the States to send birthday wishes to their son-in-law.

    We didn’t see them that first night, but when we got up the next morning, we discovered a note that had been slipped under our door: Coffee next door if you want! Um, YES.

    They also brought me two bags of cocoa from Antigua!

    That afternoon we headed to Santiago. 

    In the host family’s kitchen watching (and later “helping”) them make tortillas. 
    Note the airy walls, the dirt floors, and wood stove.

    We slept and breakfasted in homes, but then we went, via pickup trucks in which we all stood in the back (the kids were thrilled)..

    …to a gorgeous hotel on the edge of the lake for our all-day meeting.

    The hotel grounds had a variety of decorative pools and structures, and there was a huge swimming pool with a diving board and two slides.

    Sadly, however, they were all completely empty.

    Our team is made up of a wide variety of people. Because we have non-English speakers—and the volunteers come from Bolivia, Honduras, El Salvador, Columbia, and the States—all the meetings are in Spanish.

    While this can be difficult at times (hello thirteen years of not speaking Spanish!), I appreciate it. I am here to learn Spanish (among other things), and the meeting-type vocabulary is quite different from day-to-day-living-type vocabulary.

    On the second day, we hopped on a little boat and zipped across the lake to a private beach.

    It’s amazing how quickly it warms up here. Mornings are brrr-cold and require lots of layers. But by 9:00 in the morning, it’s warm enough (for some people) to go swimming.

    The kids were fascinated by the large rocks that floated: lava rock.

    They collected shells and swam and played ball.

    That afternoon we headed back to Guatemala City and my older daughter contracted a stomach bug. At one point we stopped the van (thank goodness it was our own MCC van and not a public bus) and went door to door looking for a bathroom. We stopped several other times—once when my younger son nearly threw up (yes, he got the same bug, too), and then twice when my daughter threw up. The first time we caught it all with a plastic bag…that, we discovered, had holes in the bottom, FREAK OUT. The second time, we double-bagged and things turned out much better.

    entertaining a bored child with a meandering tale

    Our teammates were relaxed about all the puking. They haven’t had young children on the team for a good number of years—one might be inclined to call that bus ride a rude awakening—and they held up marvelously well under all the upheaval (ha! upheaval, get it?).

    That evening, back at CASAS, the kids (expect for the puking daughter) watched videos (a TV! Videos! It really is the Garden of Eden!) while my husband and I walked over to the grocery store to load up on lentils, cheese, salsa (!!!), curry, and other exotics.

    That night, the younger daughter violently hurled her supper all over the bedroom floor (ever try to clean up puke in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar place with no cleaning supplies to be found anywhere? Let’s just say that skillets and spatulas have more than one use), but the next morning at 6 am, we were all on the privately-contracted bus with the EMU students heading north, retching kids and all.

    Here’s a picture of me sitting with my younger son. You can’t see it, but I have a double-bagged plastic bag in my finger tips.

    A couple seconds later, my photo-taking husband had to toss aside the camera and leap to my aid.

    Apparently, my younger daughter decided she’d better document the excitement. (It was a false alarm.) (As the trip wore on, the sick boy started to see the humor in the situation, so he’d sometimes cough and tense up, just to see me jump, the little stinker.)