Spanish Speaking Countries: 2 Katie´s Teeth: 0

So I´m writing this in the internet cafe tonight so that I can say that I´ve made my two-posts a month goal that I´ve set for myself in the new year...you could say I´m calling it kind of close.

The last few weeks have been fairly uneventful at work - which I´m not complaining about. Albertina and Martha continue to work together but they´re both doing a MUCH better job and I´ve actually quite taken to Martha and we get along really well.

I even have gotten Edson, Johnoton, and Adrianna to be able to say "Katy!" when they see me which is super cute - although maybe questionable considering the only other two words they know are "mama" and "caca" (poop). Today they decided to give all the kids (minus the newborns) Coca-Cola for a little celebration - genius idea, caffinated two year olds - and when I walked into the sala mid-way through naptime when three-quarters of the kids were awake and Johno and Edson started screaming my name so did about 4 others who had never said it before...it was awesome. I want to give them Coca-Cola all the time now.

I´ve also recently taken to taking a few of the older kids in my sala out to read picture books (with picture of animals and "my first words" type books) in the afternoon for 15 minutes each or so. My goal is to do a little research on how exactly to best go about helping a few of these three year olds who still only know how to say three words (mama, caca, and Katy) how to start saying more - but in the meantime it feels really rewarding when they can repeat "mono" (monkey) and "gato" (cat) and point out the eyes, ears, mouth, and legs on all the animals.

It was a nice short week at work last week because I donated blood on Monday - one of the boys from Casa Nazareth had heart surgery on Friday and in order to recieve the blood for his operation he needed people to donate the equal amount - and when I called Emma to tell her I would be coming into work late her response was "No vas a venir hoy - tienes que descansar y tomar leche - nos vemos mañana¨("you´re not coming in today, you need to rest and drink milk - we will see you tomorrow!"). So I had a nice lazy start to the week and a fairly uneventful week until...

I guess the biggest news is that my teeth and Spanish-speaking countries really have it out for each other...last Thursday when I was opening a little bag of milk with my mouth/teeth - yes the dentist in Spain told me I should not be biting into hard things or opening things with my teeth - my Spanish tooth went flying with the corner of the bag and I was left toothless in Bolivia for about 15 hours from Thursday afternoon until I went to the dentist on Friday morning. The second time around being rendered toothless in a foreign country was much more entertaining and less stressful than the first time. And hey, now I have one Bolivian and one Spanish tooth! Who wants keychains, tshirts, and manillas when you could have Bolivian teeth??

The end of the rope

This week I reached the end of my Albertina rope. I didn’t really realize before this week just how much of a difference there is between Sabina and Albertina, although I’ve known there is a difference, because there is always a mama I like working with Albertina to balance her out. This week however a mama I don’t really know worked with Albertina on Tuesday and Thursday. While Doña Martha doesn’t yell at the kids or do anything particularly bad, the problem is that she doesn’t do anything. She is a very passive, quiet, and reserved person. Having Martha and Albertina together was probably the most challenging days at work I’ve ever had.

Thursday I even left work enojadiiisima

Angry that Albertina and Martha had basically ignored me all day long – talking between themselves during baño and while folding laundry in the afternoon as if I wasn’t even in the room. Angry that they hadn’t tickled, laughed with, or kissed any of the kids while bathing them and getting them ready in the morning – that they had treated the kids like a process in a factory, just going through the motions. Angry that the kids could tell these mama’s didn’t care as much and took to revolting and walking all over the baño with their basins. Angry that I couldn’t handle every other kid crying when I tried to manage the sala by myself all afternoon. Angry that they hadn’t spent a single minute playing with the kids either in the morning or afternoon. Angry that they had disappeared for half an hour, nowhere to be found in the baño or sala, after changing diapers in the afternoon. Angry that I was letting them affect my mood. Angry that when I left in the afternoon they were going to be left for three hours without someone to give them the love and attention they deserve and more.

Generally 100% pissed. Pardon my language.

So in that mindset I went to a travel agent to ask about flights home – supposedly there was a direct flight from Santa Cruz to Washington DC, but apparently “direct” means a stop in Panama and Dallas. So instead I went to the internet café and booked a flight with American Airlines for May 22^nd from Santa Cruz to Miami and Miami to D.C. I guess it was better for me to do this at a time when I was angry and ready to leave rather than when I couldn’t bare the thought of leaving this beautiful country I’ve fallen in love with.

When I had first arrived at Solomon Klein in August the director, Emma, had told me if I ever saw a mama not giving the kids enough love or treating them well that I should say something. While I’ve always had a slight problem with the way Albertina treats the kids, I knew that Emma already knew she was difficult to work with because several of the mamas had told me of conversations they’d had with Emma about how they would work at any time of day in any sala with anyone BUT Albertina. However, after Thursday I knew I needed to talk to Emma myself, even if it was just to reaffirm what she already knew.

Friday I walked into the baño in the morning to smiles and laughter with Sabina and Emilen and the kids rather than the stoic faces and chaos of Thursday. It was casi imposible to believe that it was the same place I had been yesterday and that the change of two people in the room could make that much of a difference. Friday was an absolutely amazing day at work. There is no other word to express the day. I saw Sabina chasing the kids around the sala, tickling them, stimulating them, and generally enjoying every single one of them. After lunch I went to Emma’s office to talk to her and that conversation was also amazing. She knows and agrees with the fact that Albertina is no longer a good mama and that she tends to treat the job like factory work. The problem, she explained, is that Albetina is one year away from retirement and there are laws protecting women workers in Bolivia from being fired right before retirement. Mostly to make sure they aren’t getting denied pensions, but in this case making it impossible for Emma to fire Albertina now. So instead we discussed how maybe Emma would keep one of the mama’s who had worked in my sala before and had said last week that she wanted to quit to go back to school, but this week had come back to Emma saying she wanted to stay because her family needed the money. Emma had told her that it wasn’t a game – to decide one week to quit and the next to stay – but told me that maybe she would keep her on to work with Albertina because they had worked together before and not had too many problems and she treats the kids really well. Someone who won’t butt-heads with Albertina and will also be able to balance out Albertina’s stoicism. After that discussion we went on to talk about Emma’s family (she has a daughter my age who has been studying medicine in Cuba for 6 years and she hasn’t seen her for that whole time), how she never gets to rest , how she studied in North Carolina for a year when she was preparing to take over as director of Solomon, about how great some of the other mama’s are, and other topics for another half an hour.

Perhaps the most amazing thing I took away from this whole experience is how although education is extremely important and can make all the difference in a person’s life, there are some things that education cannot teach. Albertina and Martha are both professionals – a nurse and a dentist – who studied for years with specialties in caring for kids. Sabina has never even learned to read and write. Yet the innate difference in their spirits is astonishing. Emma told me that she has been paying for Sabina to go to night classes so she can learn to read and write so that she can better help to educate the kids and read with them – an initiative that I find truly inspirational in a woman who is just learning to read at over 50 years old for the sake of 21 kids who aren’t even her own. That passion is something I will definitely take with me. Some people could blame the fact that Albertina has been working at Solomon for almost 5 years as to why she is burned out (but has been working in general for over 14 and she needs 15 years for pensions/retirement), but Sabina has been working at Solomon for over 20 with a passion and love in her eyes stronger than ever.

Playing Catch-Up

So I’ve promised myself I’ll do a better job with this blog in 2011. I figure there is both a positive and a negative to the fact that I haven’t been updating this as frequently as I would like…Positive: It means I’m actually living my life down here – busy and happy, but not always with enough time or energy to update my blog. Negative: I don’t get to share as much of my experience with all of you. So in 2011 I’m working on finding a happy medium between the two extremes. Wish me luck.

Although it is January I can hardly believe that the holiday season has passed. Christmas Eve we played Bingo with the boys in our house from 9pm-1am – I’ve never played so much bingo in one night…and never had such bad luck with bingo. Four hours and I only won ONCE. Ouch. But I didn’t work that day and had stayed home to Skype with people and then bake lots of desserts for the boys for during bingo. It was really cute because I’d told them on Tuesday or Wednesday of my plan to bake desserts for bingo and one of the youngest boys of the house, Erwin, who is 13, then asked me at least once a day every day what time I was going to have the desserts ready and to make sure I saved him some.

Christmas day was probably one of the best days I could have ever asked for. I went to Solomon in the morning until lunch to say hi to my kiddies, see them get some gifts, and watch one of my colleagues dress up as Papa Noel. Then at 1:30pm my family arrived!! The volunteer director, Tom, took me to the airport to get them and asked on the way if he would get a good show in the airport when we were reunited…I think we fulfilled his request -Tim picked me up and carried me about 50 yards across the terminal which drew attention in and of itself, along with the fact that Tim is probably the tallest gringo almost any of the Bolivians in the airport had ever seen.

Having my family here was absolutely amazing. We did a few of the touristy things – climbing the Cristo (mom even braved the gondolas with her fear of heights), visiting the Cancha market, walking around the city, etc – But the highlights of the trip were their getting to meet the 21 kids that I’ve fallen head over heels for, the mama’s who have taken me in as a family of their own, and the friends I’ve made down here (and of course our family bridge tournaments for hours in the hotel with popcorn and beer). I try to explain my experience down here, but there are some things that are just impossible to convey without seeing them or experiencing them for yourself, so I feel incredibly blessed that I was able to share this experience with them. Luckily they left early enough the morning that I was almost too tired to realize I actually had to say goodbye for another four and a half months – that is until I went up to the observation deck to wave goodbye to them as they boarded the plane, it felt like a scene out of a movie – them walking away and waving, me standing, waving, and bawling my eyes out.

This past week getting back into the routine of work has been a challenge to say the least. When my family was here they came to visit the kids twice for about two hours each time and afterwards would exclaim “How do you DO this every day all day?!” – and getting back into the routine again I wondered how I had gotten so accustomed to it before. One of the highlights of the week included me sneaking a video of Blanca, one of the tiniest girls in the sala (although also one of the oldest) who when you ask her ¿Quien quiere chicha? (which is a corn-based alcohol that is very popular down here) she raises her hand and says ¡Yo! (Me!) and its probably one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen and now I can remember it and show it to all of you when I come home!

I ended up taking Friday off as a bit of a mental health/recovery from too much Albertina day. Hanne didn’t have to work this week because the day center was closed due to a lack of boys coming in the prior weeks, so she and I had some nice quality time in the morning with coffee and visiting a beautiful convent. We found out Friday night that we get a third roommate on Thursday which, although is good for me in the long-term because it means I’ll have someone once Hanne leaves at the end of March, we aren’t quite ready to become a three-some instead of the pair we are now. Friday night we also went out for First Friday celebrations and went to an awesome chicheria where we danced around a fire and it was truly a magical experience. Bolivians still find it weird that extranjeros do NOTHING to celebrate the first Friday of the month because it’s such a big deal down here.

Although it’s been difficult attempting to readjust to work and a routine and schedule walking back into the sala and seeing all 21 of the kids’ faces light up and hearing them yell “Mama! Mama!” was one of the most amazing feelings. I was starting to question at the end of December if I should start working a day or two a week at Madre de Dios, the girls shelter, because I want to work with older kids when I go back to the States and it might be good for me to have some practice, but now I’m not so sure. I feel so at home and so loved and so useful at Solomon that I can’t imagine splitting the little time I have left somewhere else. I want to get every hug, smile, laugh, and “mama!” I can out of the little guys before I have to figure out how to stash them all in my suitcase on the way home.

This blog has been a little random and all over the place, but I promise to update more frequently and therefore be able to share more particular stories and elaborate more on my life instead of having to summarize one month into one blog post!