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!
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