Getting started

We arrived in Chihuahua this past Friday around dinner-time after heading out from San Antonio, TX around 6:00am. We'd spent the week before in San Antonio at an orientation for new volunteers, provided to us by the Mi Casa Foundation. Volunteers from this past year came for a few days while we were there so that we could chat with them about their experiences and bombard them with questions. They were there for the week for Mi Casa's re-entry (into the States) retreat, which they attended in a separate area for the weekend. In our orientation we had workshops about experiencing culture shock, working with children of abuse, taking care of our own mental health, traveling safely, journaling & prayer & reflection, and advice and support filling every spare moment. I felt as prepared as possible by the time we packed up the van to head out of town.

Chihuahua is beautiful. The city is completely surrounded by breathtaking mountains and is currently full of lush green trees and plants. La Granja Hogar ("The Farm Home") is located at the northern part of the city, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood. Chihuahua actually has quite a bit of money coming from oil and other resources and therefore, has a section of town that with its Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Dairy Queen, Sirloin Stockade, Sonic, and other chains could fool you into thinking you'd crossed the border back up north. So where do these 150-some children come from? Well, not from that side of town, that's for sure. The children who will be arriving on Sunday are from the Tarahumara region (indigenous of this area of Mexico) and rural areas outside of the city. The reasons they are here are because they've been orphaned, abandoned, malnurished, removed from their parents due to alcohol abuse or other abuse, and/or because their parents can not provide for them due to extreme poverty. There are ten children here who had absolutely no where to go this summer, despite the best attempts of the sisters here to find a relative or family friend to care for them. So like I said, Chihuahua is beautiful, but it has its share of bruises as well. We are going to meet the sister who is in charge of helping us determine what our jobs will be for the year when she returns from vacation on Saturday. School starts on Monday, and all we really know so far is that we will be working directly with kids. Many people (both from the Foundation and from here at La Granja) have told us that one of the main gifts we can give to these children is our example of a loving marriage. We've been told that our faithfulness, respect, and love for each other will speak loudly to children who have witnessed great violence between their parents. For some of the children here, the violence they have witnessed was fatal for someone they loved. We have been encouraged to hold hands and show affection in front of the kids here so they can see what a different kind of relationship they, too, could have someday. This example of a loving marriage is one of the gifts we hope to leave with these children, and will hopefully make a lasting impression as they grow into adulthood.

On a lighter note, Luis and I are finally getting settled into our new home for the year. The director of the Mi Casa Foundation drove all six of us volunteers down to Chihuahua on Friday and was planning to drive the other volunteers to their sites in Saltillo (in the next state over east), but they ran into a bit of an obstacle. Rick took us shopping to get a few things for our new "house" and while we were in the store, someone tried to steal our 15-passenger van. They broke something in the steering wheel column and completely removed the lock on the door. Despite sitting in the parking lot for about 3-1/2 hours while we waited for police and an insurance representative (which we didn't need, turns out, in Mexico), I was a bit thankful for the incident because the other volunteers then stayed with us until the van was fixed on Monday evening. It was nice to have them here with us, but I know that they were anxious to get to their own volunteer sites and to get started themselves.

Today was our first day of an orientation for new staff members. We discussed for a long time what it takes to work here at La Granja and what type of character we need to have. The list was long. I am so thankful that we have an orientation tomorrow again because I really feel like I am starting to understand the philosophy here of how to work with these children, why we are here and what we can do. The sisters who run La Granja are incredible--supportive, energetic, organized, throrough, helpful, friendly, and very welcoming. If I were intereviewing at home to work somewhere with an administration like this, I would definitely be impressed. I know that over the course of the year I will find myself frustrated with different ways that situations are handled here due to cultural differences, but I think that we are off to a really positive start and that we are in agreement when it comes to the core of the matter. We'll see!

-Janiene