The question of “What am I doing?” is a challenging one for me, again, as life here at La Granja continues to change and pushes me forward to roll with it. Since having coming back from our extended trip in Chicago, several of my responsibilities were picked up by new volunteers. The two girls who have moved into the visitor’s dorm until the end of the year are working with the kindergarteners in Casa de Niños when I used to be in the mornings, so I am filling my mornings translating and organizing some spreadsheets to report information about misbehavior. I asked the head teacher of the kindergarteners if I could still take the 3 & 4 year-olds for their nap, so that responsibility is still mine. Again, it’s the only one I’ve maintained the entire year! In the afternoons, two college students are coming to give phys. ed. classes to each age group. That puts me back to floating around, lending sports equipment to those not in the sports class that day, and continuing to attempt to get all of the kids that are supposed to go boxing with me to come to the farm. It’s a challenge. I have two kids who are still very sufficiently motivated by candy and will come with me on a regular basis. I’ve started helping Karen at the beginning of the afternoon as she rounds up all the kids to go into her classroom after lunch. I open her room and try to keep all the kids who have already come inside to stay there and get started on their homework. I’m still battling for authority, but it’s occasionally effective if they see me write down their names in my notebook. They know I’m going to give the list to Karen and they’ll end up doing chores or some other consequence, so even though I hate resorting immediately to threats, that’s about all I’ve found I can do. If I was a candy machine and could spit out a sucker to each kid who was behaving well and pass over those who are not, I’m sure I would have quite the perfect classroom when Karen walked back in. The kids are incredibly motivated by candy and very other rewards (from my experience), which is pretty disturbing, but at the same time, a good fact for future volunteers to know.
Despite these obstacles that sometimes make me feel like I’m back at the beginning and don’t know what I am doing here or how to really contribute and make a difference, every once in a while I get a little encouragement from the people who work with me. I didn’t come here for something for myself, and therefore, I didn’t expect to have such an intense need for affirmation. However, it’s really a wonderful feeling when people ask me about when we are leaving and tell me how much they appreciate what we’ve been doing here and how they will miss us when we are gone. People tease us that next year’s volunteers better be able to do this and that, or how would they get along without us? I am confident that future volunteers will be able to help more and more with each year as past volunteers share their experiences and the sisters and staff here learn how to better use live-in, full-time help. However, it still feels great to be told that we will be missed and that we have been able to help in a variety of ways throughout the year. Sometimes, I don’t realize how frustrated and disappointed I’ve become with myself, feeling like I have earned no respect from the kids and have failed at my attempt to make a loving and positive impact in their lives, and I almost laugh out loud when they ask us if we would just stay another year. The kids definitely require tough love, to say the least. It’s not a “feel good” type of job here, and the progress is substantial when you look back at the beginning of the year, but seems stagnant during the moments where kids are so blatantly disrespectful and sometimes hurtful. Being told that we are appreciated is far more important than I’d thought it would be, and sometimes it’s just the little push I need to keep myself moving forward.
I thank God that the kids are more attentive and respectful during mass in the chapel on Wednesdays and for the friend I made in Sergio, the gruff-sounding but caring man who owns the corner store by our house and steps out the door to watch me walk home if I came alone. I thank God for the rain that came last week for a few days and cooled everything off, for the dedication of the sisters and staff here who work long hours for less-than-outstanding pay, and for the new puppies that were born a few weeks ago kitty-corner from our house.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
a bit of Dear Diary...
We finally made our way back again after several weeks with family and friends in Illinois. Christina and Tommy’s wedding was beautiful, and the mixed tape they made for everyone has been played at least few hundred times already. My toenails are still painted purple. As far as I know, we are under the impression we are still loved by our incredibly generous friends, Justin and Laura, who opened their home to us for the unknown extended period of time that everyone warned was too long for us to be houseguests. We made it to Luis’ niece Vanessa’s first communion party that we were originally going to miss, and ended up celebrating Luis’ birthday with chocolate cupcakes and Justin, Al, Katie and April instead of over dinner from the big-yellow-van-taco-stand that we like here near La Granja. I held my handsome new baby cousin, Gus, and was amazed at how the voices of my preteen nieces have changed tremendously over the year as they suddenly grew into young ladies. It was incredible how busy we became over the days that we weren’t supposed to be there. Suddenly, Sara and Emil needed a babysitter for Max on Friday and, if you’re still here, would you like to come over and watch him? If you’re still here on Saturday, can you come to the cookout? Katie’s soccer game on Sunday? If you’re still here on Monday, what do you want to do for Luis’ birthday? If you don’t leave before Wednesday, can you come celebrate Maria’s birthday, too? How about Mother’s Day on Sunday? And so it went. We were not bored, no worries. It was a great trip.
The kids gave me tons of great hugs when they came back yesterday afternoon—so much for the antibacterial gel craze… just not gonna happen. There were about 20-some kids who didn’t have a place to go while the school was closed for two weeks, and they unfortunately had the job of sanitizing the entire home. I’ve heard they were quite bored, not allowed to leave the grounds to go to the center or a park or anywhere. Even the TV was getting old. That says a lot for them.
I think we hurt people’s feelings here by putting off our return. Many people asked me if I was afraid of the flu, and a few people expressed that they were very upset about the blame that Mexico is receiving from the United States and even, from the rest of the world. It’s embarrassing and unjustified. When something bad happens in this country, everything is blown way out of proportion and accusations are strong, I was told. The sisters are very proud of the way Mexico handled the outbreak and lots of people boasted that there is more swine flu in the US than in Mexico right now. The whole situation is frustrating and uncomfortable, and I hope it’s all completely behind us soon.
Today I was trying to get back into the swing of things, but I found it to be a bit tricky. When we came back on Friday night, we found out that now we’re sharing our kitchen space with two girls who just graduated from high school and are volunteering here until the week before we leave in July, we think. It’s a pretty big adjustment for us, actually. I think if we’d started the year sharing the space, it’d be fine. We’ve pretty much had that place to ourselves for the whole year, though, and it feels like now they’re encroaching on our space. I’m sure we’ll get more used to having them around, but right now it feels pretty much like two teenagers just moved into our personal apartment. A change for us on the plus side has been that construction started in a building near our home, and thanks to the new temporary fences, kids aren’t walking in front of our windows anymore. In that respect we have gained privacy and a bit of quiet—well, from the kids’ voices on our days off, but not from the occasional jackhammer, of course—in our little home.
Another part that is slightly complicated for me is that some of my jobs were filled by other people while we were gone. Gaby, a teacher’s aide in kindergarten, teased me that our seats were filled when our butts weren’t here to sit in them. Honestly, though, I had to ask to keep my job of taking the littlest for their nap, because otherwise that was going to be the responsibility of the other volunteers, Chayo and Pita. The other time I spend with the kindergarteners in the morning is being “taken care of” by the two girls, but I’ll still come early two days a week to help with the P.E. class. In the afternoons, starting tomorrow, two other volunteers are coming to give sports classes in the afternoon. There goes half of my afternoon work. It’s fine, I don’t mean to be complaining. I guess it makes sense that things would come full circle near the end of the year. We won’t be here that much longer, I know. It just feels disappointing to spend so many months here before being trusted with specific responsibilities and then to only have them for a couple of months before they’re passed on to someone else. I asked one of the sisters what I should do now in the afternoons when I’m not taking my boxing group of kids to the farm, and she told me to give an extra hand to Karen and the 1st and 2nd graders. That’s was my job when I first got here. Maybe it just seems like the year went so fast, but it feels rushed to already start pulling myself out of a staff role here. I’ll still be hanging out with the kids, listening and talking with them, which is my most important job here, I know. I guess just for the adult in me, it’s nice to know what’s expected and to be counted on for something specific. Maintaining the energy and creativity for the jobs I had wasn’t coming that easily to me anymore though, anyway, and I was really struggling some days to think of ideas of things to do with the kids and the patience to carry them out. Some days before we left for the trip in April I felt like I was leaning on Luis an unfair share. I’m sure that these changes will be best for everyone, and I just need to find my place again and make the most of the time I have left with the kids. Mentally, I feel like I’m getting ready for the year’s experience to be coming to an end as well. It’s quite the emotional roller coaster from start to finish.
Uriel came to box with me yesterday without hassle or a tremendous convincing effort on my part. Estefania told me several times excitedly that she was turning ten years old. Marisa made the transition from training wheels to riding her bicycle solo, and I was able to witness this on Sunday afternoon. I combed at least twelve living, crawling lice out of Lizeth’s hair in the dorm bathroom on Sunday night. Martha threw her finger in my face yesterday and reminded me that I needed to put wart medicine on her finger. Lucia told me about her new boyfriend that she met while she was at home these past two weeks. This worries me because in her community, she is older than most girls who are not married yet. She wants to be a nurse and I really want for her to be able to go to school. Maria del Mar agrees that she will get pregnant if she leaves here, but what can you do? I pulled several kids around on the concrete while they sat on lids and held on to plastic tubes which I yanked so they could slide around in the 90˚ full sun during P.E. class. Tania fell asleep three times sitting up in her bed after naptime. I have to sit her in the middle of her bed when I wake her up so that she won’t fall off if she falls asleep and flops back down on the bed. Aron has a permanently runny nose which needed unclogging before waking him up yesterday. Francia asked me questions about kissing Luis and giggled before I could answer. I said of course, he’s my husband and then quickly changed the topic. She didn’t want to talk about anything else, though, so she left.
I think this is what they were getting at when they asked us to just come and be with the kids. I didn’t know for a long, long time what that meant.
The flowering pomegranate tree in our yard will have fruit before we leave, I’ve been repeatedly assured. With aching I will miss affordable avocados, a kiss on the cheek for any greeting or departure, and deep, manly laughs from Ana Elisa, age 5, when it is time to go. Just try to take each day as it comes, I suppose.
Love to you all,
Janiene
The kids gave me tons of great hugs when they came back yesterday afternoon—so much for the antibacterial gel craze… just not gonna happen. There were about 20-some kids who didn’t have a place to go while the school was closed for two weeks, and they unfortunately had the job of sanitizing the entire home. I’ve heard they were quite bored, not allowed to leave the grounds to go to the center or a park or anywhere. Even the TV was getting old. That says a lot for them.
I think we hurt people’s feelings here by putting off our return. Many people asked me if I was afraid of the flu, and a few people expressed that they were very upset about the blame that Mexico is receiving from the United States and even, from the rest of the world. It’s embarrassing and unjustified. When something bad happens in this country, everything is blown way out of proportion and accusations are strong, I was told. The sisters are very proud of the way Mexico handled the outbreak and lots of people boasted that there is more swine flu in the US than in Mexico right now. The whole situation is frustrating and uncomfortable, and I hope it’s all completely behind us soon.
Today I was trying to get back into the swing of things, but I found it to be a bit tricky. When we came back on Friday night, we found out that now we’re sharing our kitchen space with two girls who just graduated from high school and are volunteering here until the week before we leave in July, we think. It’s a pretty big adjustment for us, actually. I think if we’d started the year sharing the space, it’d be fine. We’ve pretty much had that place to ourselves for the whole year, though, and it feels like now they’re encroaching on our space. I’m sure we’ll get more used to having them around, but right now it feels pretty much like two teenagers just moved into our personal apartment. A change for us on the plus side has been that construction started in a building near our home, and thanks to the new temporary fences, kids aren’t walking in front of our windows anymore. In that respect we have gained privacy and a bit of quiet—well, from the kids’ voices on our days off, but not from the occasional jackhammer, of course—in our little home.
Another part that is slightly complicated for me is that some of my jobs were filled by other people while we were gone. Gaby, a teacher’s aide in kindergarten, teased me that our seats were filled when our butts weren’t here to sit in them. Honestly, though, I had to ask to keep my job of taking the littlest for their nap, because otherwise that was going to be the responsibility of the other volunteers, Chayo and Pita. The other time I spend with the kindergarteners in the morning is being “taken care of” by the two girls, but I’ll still come early two days a week to help with the P.E. class. In the afternoons, starting tomorrow, two other volunteers are coming to give sports classes in the afternoon. There goes half of my afternoon work. It’s fine, I don’t mean to be complaining. I guess it makes sense that things would come full circle near the end of the year. We won’t be here that much longer, I know. It just feels disappointing to spend so many months here before being trusted with specific responsibilities and then to only have them for a couple of months before they’re passed on to someone else. I asked one of the sisters what I should do now in the afternoons when I’m not taking my boxing group of kids to the farm, and she told me to give an extra hand to Karen and the 1st and 2nd graders. That’s was my job when I first got here. Maybe it just seems like the year went so fast, but it feels rushed to already start pulling myself out of a staff role here. I’ll still be hanging out with the kids, listening and talking with them, which is my most important job here, I know. I guess just for the adult in me, it’s nice to know what’s expected and to be counted on for something specific. Maintaining the energy and creativity for the jobs I had wasn’t coming that easily to me anymore though, anyway, and I was really struggling some days to think of ideas of things to do with the kids and the patience to carry them out. Some days before we left for the trip in April I felt like I was leaning on Luis an unfair share. I’m sure that these changes will be best for everyone, and I just need to find my place again and make the most of the time I have left with the kids. Mentally, I feel like I’m getting ready for the year’s experience to be coming to an end as well. It’s quite the emotional roller coaster from start to finish.
Uriel came to box with me yesterday without hassle or a tremendous convincing effort on my part. Estefania told me several times excitedly that she was turning ten years old. Marisa made the transition from training wheels to riding her bicycle solo, and I was able to witness this on Sunday afternoon. I combed at least twelve living, crawling lice out of Lizeth’s hair in the dorm bathroom on Sunday night. Martha threw her finger in my face yesterday and reminded me that I needed to put wart medicine on her finger. Lucia told me about her new boyfriend that she met while she was at home these past two weeks. This worries me because in her community, she is older than most girls who are not married yet. She wants to be a nurse and I really want for her to be able to go to school. Maria del Mar agrees that she will get pregnant if she leaves here, but what can you do? I pulled several kids around on the concrete while they sat on lids and held on to plastic tubes which I yanked so they could slide around in the 90˚ full sun during P.E. class. Tania fell asleep three times sitting up in her bed after naptime. I have to sit her in the middle of her bed when I wake her up so that she won’t fall off if she falls asleep and flops back down on the bed. Aron has a permanently runny nose which needed unclogging before waking him up yesterday. Francia asked me questions about kissing Luis and giggled before I could answer. I said of course, he’s my husband and then quickly changed the topic. She didn’t want to talk about anything else, though, so she left.
I think this is what they were getting at when they asked us to just come and be with the kids. I didn’t know for a long, long time what that meant.
The flowering pomegranate tree in our yard will have fruit before we leave, I’ve been repeatedly assured. With aching I will miss affordable avocados, a kiss on the cheek for any greeting or departure, and deep, manly laughs from Ana Elisa, age 5, when it is time to go. Just try to take each day as it comes, I suppose.
Love to you all,
Janiene
Thursday, February 26, 2009
and then February's gone, too... in a blur
It’s starting to warm up here already and I’m becoming more confident that all the warnings we received about the severity of winter here were mostly empty. It was pretty cold (full winter coat with lining, gloves, and hat weather) in December, I’ll admit, and I’d say that’s about the right amount of winter time for me—one month. I do not, however, have any doubts about the intense summer heat that I’ve also been warned about. This morning, February 25, it was already too hot to wear anything over my t-shirt outside at 9am. I can only imagine what that means for the desert in June, under full sun…thirsty?
Luis is doing a fantastic job with the kids in the afternoon during their hour of sports time. I’m supposed to be working with him, but I keep getting pulled away by responsibilities in other directions. I’m still going to the boxing room with a few of the kids for their “therapy,” although I just heard yesterday that one of them is being sent home for a suspension, so I guess I’m not getting amazing results, you could say. It’s so disappointing that he’s leaving, but I think we just don’t know quite what to do with him. He hit one of the staff members on Monday, and I wasn’t there to see it, but I got the impression that it was pretty intense. I think they’re sending him away for a while because the staff doesn’t really know what else we can do. Many of the other kids have started asking why this one kid in particular, Salvador, gets special attention. They know that if they fought as much or as hard as he did—and more so, if they hit a staff member—the consequences would be more severe. The sisters try to treat each child as a unique individual and to take into consideration that child’s personal history, but when there are over a hundred other kids watching, after awhile all the extra chances become quite unfair. It’s a really tricky situation, and I’m not jealous of the decisions they have to make.
Naptime with the 3 & 4 year-olds has had its ups and downs since coming back in January. I’ve heard Sandra, the person in charge of them in the afternoons, talk to them several times about how they have not been listening or behaving well since returning from Christmas vacation, so I’m at least thankful to know I’m not the only one struggling with them. I think what made things a bit more difficult for me is that one day, when we were walking from the school to their dorm room for the noontime nap, I heard them tell Madre Ana that they couldn’t do something because I would scold them. I should be tougher, I suppose, but actually this hurt my feelings. Nothing makes you feel more in charge than knowing your feelings were hurt because some pre-K kids think you’re mean. Honestly, though, it’s just really not what I came down here for, and it did bother me quite a bit. They have plenty of other people to put them in line; I just want to be like the visiting aunt or something and spend time with them and give lots of attention. But I do need them to listen to me when I’m in charge or trying to help them do an activity or work on the farm. So anyway, I’ve been paying more attention to the tone of my voice and trying to be more creative and patient with them. Some days are better than others, clearly.
Checking all the kids back in on Sundays has been going really well lately. There are four boys—two sets of brothers—that I get mixed up all the time, but otherwise, I mostly know all the kids’ first and last names, so the process is quite a bit smoother than it was during the first few months! Sunday evenings are still sometimes pretty challenging, but they also seem to go in waves. Recently I’ve been spending the evenings with about four or five girls, changing every week. I either try to just get them to talk to me about anything, their weekend or likes and dislikes, for example, or we play some kind of game. A lot of times they like to ask me about my relationship with Luis or they want all the details of our wedding and what my dress looked like. They still ask why we don’t have kids yet and are still confused as to why we are married if we aren’t parents. I love these chats because I hope to pass along the message that you can choose be married for love, and not because you need your boyfriend to support your baby. One night, a little while ago, some of the girls were talking to me about this and one stated that all boyfriends hit their girlfriends. The other girls agreed. I asked if all husbands hit their wives, and all heads nodded yes. I asked if they think Luis hits me, and they all adamantly assured me that no, he did not—of course not. I reminded them that Luis was my husband and left them with that, hoping they’d figure out the contradiction they’d made. These conversations are sometimes the most challenging experiences because I want to carefully choose my words and for them to make an impact. They’re also some of the most rewarding experiences because these are the opportunities in which I feel I can really make a difference by being here. I hope that years after we leave, they remember a married couple who came to stay with them and lived together (in the same house, in the same bed—always needs to be confirmed), loved each other, did not fight, and were best friends. I hope they look for a relationship for themselves with those qualities instead of the characteristics that make up the relationships they see with their parents.
There are some new trees here that are small and young, and the kids are pretty hard on them as far as making them serve as swings and coat racks. Just the other day, though, the kids were involved with planting a bunch of trees in the playground area at the school. I saw today that a few kids were really giving a lot of attention—and not harmful attention—to the saplings. Two boys were building sort of a fort wall around a few of the trees, and I even saw them shoo away another kid who had started to tug pretty hard on their tree. I was impressed. The plants and animals here are to be therapeutic for the kids here, and I hope that in nurturing them and watching them grow they can see the blessings for what they are. I know the idea is that they will know someday they are blessings as well and will hopefully learn how to lovingly care for themselves and their own children. I agree that through nature is probably the best way to teach them about love and caring. After what they’ve been through, they so desperately need to be taught that they are loved.
As far as things go for us personally, we are pretty happy here and grateful to be currently in good health. With at least one of us getting pretty sick every few weeks last year, our record of being healthy so far this year is so far a huge relief. Hopefully, it will continue somewhat! Luis got a thermometer in his stocking for Christmas, so I'm actually wondering if that's our good luck charm. Luis is busy checking the schools for a open science teaching position for August, so please keep him in mind. I almost feel bad asking for that, though, since we hear on the news almost every day that more and more people at home are looking for jobs as well. Please know that we are praying for you, too! I'm currently busy, too... waiting. I'm hoping to start grad school this fall in a social work program and am waiting to hear back from a couple schools about how that might all work out. We'll see! Over Valentine's Day weekend our friends Justin and Laura came to visit--whoo hoo, FRIENDS!!! Valentine's Day weekend also happens to include my birthday on the 12th and Laura's on the 14th, and with celebrating our sandwich day in the middle on the 13th, it was quite a fiesta. Of course it went too fast, but we had such a great time showing them our home and our life here with the kids. I think they'd agree we're a pretty good time, so if anyone else is interested in coming down, let us know! (Did I mention it's already hot?) Other than that, we are enjoying our work but are always appreciative of our days off, as well. We've been swimming weekly at a really nice indoor pool in the city's sports park (huge and glorious, I think it must be lost here in Mexico), and it's just something that feels good and isn't noisy and is somewhere else than home with all the kids. It's healthy to step out and enjoy some time for ourselves, and we need it to be able to start again on Sundays. We catch a movie every once in a while and make a trip to the market for avocados and mangos. Not too stressful on Fridays and Saturdays, which is good. The mangos aren't half bad, either.
Janiene
Luis is doing a fantastic job with the kids in the afternoon during their hour of sports time. I’m supposed to be working with him, but I keep getting pulled away by responsibilities in other directions. I’m still going to the boxing room with a few of the kids for their “therapy,” although I just heard yesterday that one of them is being sent home for a suspension, so I guess I’m not getting amazing results, you could say. It’s so disappointing that he’s leaving, but I think we just don’t know quite what to do with him. He hit one of the staff members on Monday, and I wasn’t there to see it, but I got the impression that it was pretty intense. I think they’re sending him away for a while because the staff doesn’t really know what else we can do. Many of the other kids have started asking why this one kid in particular, Salvador, gets special attention. They know that if they fought as much or as hard as he did—and more so, if they hit a staff member—the consequences would be more severe. The sisters try to treat each child as a unique individual and to take into consideration that child’s personal history, but when there are over a hundred other kids watching, after awhile all the extra chances become quite unfair. It’s a really tricky situation, and I’m not jealous of the decisions they have to make.
Naptime with the 3 & 4 year-olds has had its ups and downs since coming back in January. I’ve heard Sandra, the person in charge of them in the afternoons, talk to them several times about how they have not been listening or behaving well since returning from Christmas vacation, so I’m at least thankful to know I’m not the only one struggling with them. I think what made things a bit more difficult for me is that one day, when we were walking from the school to their dorm room for the noontime nap, I heard them tell Madre Ana that they couldn’t do something because I would scold them. I should be tougher, I suppose, but actually this hurt my feelings. Nothing makes you feel more in charge than knowing your feelings were hurt because some pre-K kids think you’re mean. Honestly, though, it’s just really not what I came down here for, and it did bother me quite a bit. They have plenty of other people to put them in line; I just want to be like the visiting aunt or something and spend time with them and give lots of attention. But I do need them to listen to me when I’m in charge or trying to help them do an activity or work on the farm. So anyway, I’ve been paying more attention to the tone of my voice and trying to be more creative and patient with them. Some days are better than others, clearly.
Checking all the kids back in on Sundays has been going really well lately. There are four boys—two sets of brothers—that I get mixed up all the time, but otherwise, I mostly know all the kids’ first and last names, so the process is quite a bit smoother than it was during the first few months! Sunday evenings are still sometimes pretty challenging, but they also seem to go in waves. Recently I’ve been spending the evenings with about four or five girls, changing every week. I either try to just get them to talk to me about anything, their weekend or likes and dislikes, for example, or we play some kind of game. A lot of times they like to ask me about my relationship with Luis or they want all the details of our wedding and what my dress looked like. They still ask why we don’t have kids yet and are still confused as to why we are married if we aren’t parents. I love these chats because I hope to pass along the message that you can choose be married for love, and not because you need your boyfriend to support your baby. One night, a little while ago, some of the girls were talking to me about this and one stated that all boyfriends hit their girlfriends. The other girls agreed. I asked if all husbands hit their wives, and all heads nodded yes. I asked if they think Luis hits me, and they all adamantly assured me that no, he did not—of course not. I reminded them that Luis was my husband and left them with that, hoping they’d figure out the contradiction they’d made. These conversations are sometimes the most challenging experiences because I want to carefully choose my words and for them to make an impact. They’re also some of the most rewarding experiences because these are the opportunities in which I feel I can really make a difference by being here. I hope that years after we leave, they remember a married couple who came to stay with them and lived together (in the same house, in the same bed—always needs to be confirmed), loved each other, did not fight, and were best friends. I hope they look for a relationship for themselves with those qualities instead of the characteristics that make up the relationships they see with their parents.
There are some new trees here that are small and young, and the kids are pretty hard on them as far as making them serve as swings and coat racks. Just the other day, though, the kids were involved with planting a bunch of trees in the playground area at the school. I saw today that a few kids were really giving a lot of attention—and not harmful attention—to the saplings. Two boys were building sort of a fort wall around a few of the trees, and I even saw them shoo away another kid who had started to tug pretty hard on their tree. I was impressed. The plants and animals here are to be therapeutic for the kids here, and I hope that in nurturing them and watching them grow they can see the blessings for what they are. I know the idea is that they will know someday they are blessings as well and will hopefully learn how to lovingly care for themselves and their own children. I agree that through nature is probably the best way to teach them about love and caring. After what they’ve been through, they so desperately need to be taught that they are loved.
As far as things go for us personally, we are pretty happy here and grateful to be currently in good health. With at least one of us getting pretty sick every few weeks last year, our record of being healthy so far this year is so far a huge relief. Hopefully, it will continue somewhat! Luis got a thermometer in his stocking for Christmas, so I'm actually wondering if that's our good luck charm. Luis is busy checking the schools for a open science teaching position for August, so please keep him in mind. I almost feel bad asking for that, though, since we hear on the news almost every day that more and more people at home are looking for jobs as well. Please know that we are praying for you, too! I'm currently busy, too... waiting. I'm hoping to start grad school this fall in a social work program and am waiting to hear back from a couple schools about how that might all work out. We'll see! Over Valentine's Day weekend our friends Justin and Laura came to visit--whoo hoo, FRIENDS!!! Valentine's Day weekend also happens to include my birthday on the 12th and Laura's on the 14th, and with celebrating our sandwich day in the middle on the 13th, it was quite a fiesta. Of course it went too fast, but we had such a great time showing them our home and our life here with the kids. I think they'd agree we're a pretty good time, so if anyone else is interested in coming down, let us know! (Did I mention it's already hot?) Other than that, we are enjoying our work but are always appreciative of our days off, as well. We've been swimming weekly at a really nice indoor pool in the city's sports park (huge and glorious, I think it must be lost here in Mexico), and it's just something that feels good and isn't noisy and is somewhere else than home with all the kids. It's healthy to step out and enjoy some time for ourselves, and we need it to be able to start again on Sundays. We catch a movie every once in a while and make a trip to the market for avocados and mangos. Not too stressful on Fridays and Saturdays, which is good. The mangos aren't half bad, either.
Janiene
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Feliz Año Nuevo
Happy New Year! Okay, so I know we’re over halfway through the month now, but this is me finally getting my act together to write something about what we’ve been doing. Coming back was a bit of a challenge for me because we had such a wonderful time visiting with family and friends over our holiday trip, but even still, weren’t able to see everyone we wanted to see. I finally feel like I’m getting back into the groove of life here at La Granja, and I am very thankful to be happy to be here because we have about another six months left!
When we arrived back we were welcomed with numerous beautiful changes. The staff here at La Granja had been working tremendously hard while we were gone, and changes were abundant all over the grounds, both in and out of the dorms. The kids are soon going to be getting a key to their very own, very private lockers in a locked area outside next to the cafeteria. The hope is that being able to guard their own belongings will help teach them how to take care of what is theirs and how to respect others’ property. As of right now, they do not have any space to safely store anything personal. Another change was that the youngest kids in guardaría moved to the new building, which has been under construction since before we arrived. The new room is absolutely beautiful. The kids have so much more space, not to mention their own bedside tables with cubbies, new tables and chairs, and a larger and now functioning television. Clocks were installed in all the dorms and main buildings, which should hopefully make life more fair when the kids are supposed to be somewhere or doing something by a certain time. Another huge surprise that the kids haven’t yet gotten to see is that a humongous TV was put into a large room in the new building and is outfitted with dozens of new chairs. The television is in a huge, locked cabinet. The sisters are waiting to share the surprise until an area is painted surrounding the TV, marking the area that children cannot cross. If they step into the painted area, they are not going to be allowed to watch TV for a certain period of time. This is such an awesome privilege because the TVs the kids have now are in the afternoon classrooms and are tiny and have horrible quality. There are also few places to sit. Another aspect of this new development that I love is that with every privilege the kids receive, it can be used to take away something as a result of misbehavior. Taking away privileges is a natural way to correct bad behavior in a typical home, but when you don’t have them to take away, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with consequences that can reasonably easily be enforced.
We had braced ourselves for serious aggression and misbehavior as the kids all returned from Christmas vacation and settled into life here again. However, we were incredibly surprised at how calm they were as they returned. My dad warns not to get used to this and to stay on guard for when it changes, but we’ve had almost two weeks back now, and things don’t seem to be running crazy again just yet. Actually, when Luis and I looked back over the past several months, we realized that the kids have been on a calming-down trend for a long time. I know there are occasional issues and outbreaks, but they have not been a daily occurrence that sends me home shaky and upset in a long, long time. I think that what the sisters and staff here are doing here is working. I think that the kids feel loved here, and it shows in the way they behave. Our child to adult ratio is still extremely poor, but I think the kids here really do feel cared about, deeply, and on a very personal level. It’s amazing. We were fortunate to have these thoughts confirmed this past week when we were able to welcome back last year’s volunteers for a visit. John and Mary, a married couple who were in our yearlong positions last year, came to visit the kids for a few days. They were shocked at all the changes and most impressively, the drastic changes in the temperaments of many of the kids here. I can’t even tell you how many hours we spent catching them up on how all the kids are doing lately and hearing all the stories about the different way so many aspects of life were here last year. It was absolutely wonderful, and such an amazing gift. We were with John and Mary in San Antonio last August for our orientation. Many things that they were telling us a few days ago we remembered hearing from them before, but it just didn’t all make sense until we understood how life is for the kids who live here and got to know them and care for them ourselves.
Our afternoons have changed quite a bit as well, keeping us busier and providing us with some much needed responsibility. Luis and I are now in charge of the “Bodega de Deportes,” the room with all the sports equipment. We’ve organized it by labeling all the equipment with number/letter codes, and then creating a sign-out system for “renting” the equipment. There are four hours in the afternoon between lunch and dinner, and there are three different classes. Each class is allowed to check-out equipment during their assigned hour, and consequences rack up quickly if equipment is not returned at the end of the hour. We’ll see how it actually works! The other hour that we have during the afternoon is used for me to take the kids I have assigned to me for boxing (the attempt at anger-management therapy) and for Luis to sort recyclables and stay on top of the program, which he is now in charge of with the help of a few of the oldest kids. I’m really enjoying having something specific to do in the afternoon, as I was sometimes searching for exactly what to do. It was often really difficult to try to organize some activity with the kids because I found getting them to listen to me in a large-group setting was challenging, if not extremely frustrating—sometimes far beyond enjoyable. Being in charge of sports equipment is wonderful because they know that we have the keys. KEYS. That means we have something that they want and can not get themselves. That means we now have some control. This may not sound important, or may even sound mean. You don’t understand. Of course we came to volunteer here to love the kids and to spend time with them. However, this can be more difficult at times than previously expected, and having the keys to something they want can be such a helpful tool in bringing about participation in large-group outdoor games, pleases and thank you’s, and just overall increased respect towards us. It really does make our time with them so much more enjoyable. I want to be here to be doing things with them that are positive and fun. We are not here to be disciplinarians, and when we do occasionally try to be, we often fail embarrassingly. We just don’t have enough time here to earn the respect that it would take to maintain reasonable control or order, so holding the keys to privileges that are fun is a much better way to spend the year volunteering. I seem to have made so many more friends already. Again, though, we’ll still have to see how it goes. Wish us luck, though, we are optimistic.
When we arrived back we were welcomed with numerous beautiful changes. The staff here at La Granja had been working tremendously hard while we were gone, and changes were abundant all over the grounds, both in and out of the dorms. The kids are soon going to be getting a key to their very own, very private lockers in a locked area outside next to the cafeteria. The hope is that being able to guard their own belongings will help teach them how to take care of what is theirs and how to respect others’ property. As of right now, they do not have any space to safely store anything personal. Another change was that the youngest kids in guardaría moved to the new building, which has been under construction since before we arrived. The new room is absolutely beautiful. The kids have so much more space, not to mention their own bedside tables with cubbies, new tables and chairs, and a larger and now functioning television. Clocks were installed in all the dorms and main buildings, which should hopefully make life more fair when the kids are supposed to be somewhere or doing something by a certain time. Another huge surprise that the kids haven’t yet gotten to see is that a humongous TV was put into a large room in the new building and is outfitted with dozens of new chairs. The television is in a huge, locked cabinet. The sisters are waiting to share the surprise until an area is painted surrounding the TV, marking the area that children cannot cross. If they step into the painted area, they are not going to be allowed to watch TV for a certain period of time. This is such an awesome privilege because the TVs the kids have now are in the afternoon classrooms and are tiny and have horrible quality. There are also few places to sit. Another aspect of this new development that I love is that with every privilege the kids receive, it can be used to take away something as a result of misbehavior. Taking away privileges is a natural way to correct bad behavior in a typical home, but when you don’t have them to take away, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with consequences that can reasonably easily be enforced.
We had braced ourselves for serious aggression and misbehavior as the kids all returned from Christmas vacation and settled into life here again. However, we were incredibly surprised at how calm they were as they returned. My dad warns not to get used to this and to stay on guard for when it changes, but we’ve had almost two weeks back now, and things don’t seem to be running crazy again just yet. Actually, when Luis and I looked back over the past several months, we realized that the kids have been on a calming-down trend for a long time. I know there are occasional issues and outbreaks, but they have not been a daily occurrence that sends me home shaky and upset in a long, long time. I think that what the sisters and staff here are doing here is working. I think that the kids feel loved here, and it shows in the way they behave. Our child to adult ratio is still extremely poor, but I think the kids here really do feel cared about, deeply, and on a very personal level. It’s amazing. We were fortunate to have these thoughts confirmed this past week when we were able to welcome back last year’s volunteers for a visit. John and Mary, a married couple who were in our yearlong positions last year, came to visit the kids for a few days. They were shocked at all the changes and most impressively, the drastic changes in the temperaments of many of the kids here. I can’t even tell you how many hours we spent catching them up on how all the kids are doing lately and hearing all the stories about the different way so many aspects of life were here last year. It was absolutely wonderful, and such an amazing gift. We were with John and Mary in San Antonio last August for our orientation. Many things that they were telling us a few days ago we remembered hearing from them before, but it just didn’t all make sense until we understood how life is for the kids who live here and got to know them and care for them ourselves.
Our afternoons have changed quite a bit as well, keeping us busier and providing us with some much needed responsibility. Luis and I are now in charge of the “Bodega de Deportes,” the room with all the sports equipment. We’ve organized it by labeling all the equipment with number/letter codes, and then creating a sign-out system for “renting” the equipment. There are four hours in the afternoon between lunch and dinner, and there are three different classes. Each class is allowed to check-out equipment during their assigned hour, and consequences rack up quickly if equipment is not returned at the end of the hour. We’ll see how it actually works! The other hour that we have during the afternoon is used for me to take the kids I have assigned to me for boxing (the attempt at anger-management therapy) and for Luis to sort recyclables and stay on top of the program, which he is now in charge of with the help of a few of the oldest kids. I’m really enjoying having something specific to do in the afternoon, as I was sometimes searching for exactly what to do. It was often really difficult to try to organize some activity with the kids because I found getting them to listen to me in a large-group setting was challenging, if not extremely frustrating—sometimes far beyond enjoyable. Being in charge of sports equipment is wonderful because they know that we have the keys. KEYS. That means we have something that they want and can not get themselves. That means we now have some control. This may not sound important, or may even sound mean. You don’t understand. Of course we came to volunteer here to love the kids and to spend time with them. However, this can be more difficult at times than previously expected, and having the keys to something they want can be such a helpful tool in bringing about participation in large-group outdoor games, pleases and thank you’s, and just overall increased respect towards us. It really does make our time with them so much more enjoyable. I want to be here to be doing things with them that are positive and fun. We are not here to be disciplinarians, and when we do occasionally try to be, we often fail embarrassingly. We just don’t have enough time here to earn the respect that it would take to maintain reasonable control or order, so holding the keys to privileges that are fun is a much better way to spend the year volunteering. I seem to have made so many more friends already. Again, though, we’ll still have to see how it goes. Wish us luck, though, we are optimistic.
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