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.