Just as a note to everyone, I am still alive! I am so sorry that I haven’t been making much contact with people like I should be. It is amazing to me how much my priorities have changed while I have been here. There are definitely not enough hours in a day anymore. I had an off this morning and managed to get a lot of things done. Hopefully I can catch everyone up on what has been going on here these past few days.
THURSDAY:
Last Thursday, Shanna, Brigitta, and I were able to go into town for a few hours during our off and it was so much fun! Probably irrational of me, I felt completely confident in weaving through the streets of Cuenca. Let’s be honest, could I be any whiter, taller, redheaded, or have any longer extremities in a country that is so unaccustomed to all of the above? The gawks and disgusting comments from all of the Ecuadorian men are certainty not anything I will miss when I go home. These are the only times when I truly wish I didn’t understand Spanish. It still shocks me how shameless a lot of the men here are. I feel safe, but I am still always incredibly aware of each individual person surrounding us in the streets.
As all three of us weaved in and out of the streets, we periodically went into the local stores and did our best to find things to bring home that will epitomize everything we have seen in Ecuador. We were able to find traditional clothes, handmade trinkets, our coveted headbands that we could not live here without, and beautiful paintings. We continued walking down the main street by the Catholic Cathedral and stopped into our favorite ice cream parlor for “limon helado”. We finished our adventure with an hour of movie shopping and purchased 16 American movies for 24 dollars. That is just about the best thing that could happen to a group of girls from America and it has been so nice to have movie nights after our long shifts! My favorite part of the day was going to the flower market. On our way back to the OSSO house that night we crossed the street and found ourselves surrounded by huge tents of flowers. The assortment of colors is indescribable and the smell was heavenly! Even though they were exhausted from the long day, Brigitta and Shanna were troopers as I dragged them in and out of every single tent. I loved every second of it! I have never seen anything so beautiful. Further into the cluster of tents I met a sweet little old woman who showed me the most breathtaking yellow roses I have ever seen. I spent a few minutes talking with her and she told me about how she takes a 6-hour bus ride to Quito every morning to pick up the flowers that she sells here every day. I thought about how much I loved those yellow roses and how I had only been lucky enough to have flowers when they had been given to me. Immediately I knew it was time I bought some for myself for a change! Nothing surprised me more than when the sweet little woman told me that the bouquet was $1. ONE DOLLAR! I was so excited that I asked her if she would take a picture with me, which she agreed to without hesitation. I walked the rest of the way home carrying my bouquet of flawless yellow roses. Best dollar I have ever spent!
FRIDAY:
I am sure I say this a lot, but Friday was one of the best days I have had here so far. I woke up at 6 a.m. as usual for my morning shift and took the 25 minute bus ride that winds through Cuenca to the OSSO special needs orphanage. When I walked into “Casa Esperanza” one of the little boys, Christian, was in the doorway screaming “CABALLOS! CABALLOS! CABALLOS”! I had forgotten that it was Friday. Every Friday, the Military Base in Cuenca allows a group of kids from the OSSO orphanage to come and ride horses as part of their required service hours. I had never gone so I was just as excited as kids. The base is about a mile away so after we fed them breakfast and bathed each of them, we all grabbed a wheel chair and made our way to “caballos”. When we arrived, all of the military men were so kind and happy to see the kids. They sat us in the bleachers of the arena and we watched as the kids took turns riding on the horses. All of the volunteers were paired with the child that they brought and we rode on the horse with each of them, holding them to ensure that they didn’t fall off. I was paired with my little Eddie. Eddie is about 10 years old and has cerebral palsy. Cerebral Palsy is obviously a “blanket statement” made for most of the kids at OSSO because they are all very unique in their symptoms and functioning capabilites. Eddie has no obvious way of communication and cannot get from one place to another without sitting in his wheel chair, but that boy sure can smile! He can light up a room in an instant and if you chant his name again, getting louder each time, you can get him to bust up laughing! It was so sweet to ride the horse with him and see him so happy. He absolutely loved it and even though he couldn’t tell me that, there was nothing that was going to wipe that smile off of his face! One after another the kids and volunteers rode the horses around the arena and it seemed that the smiles got bigger as each person went. It was just another reminder for me that these amazing kids really do understand the things that are going on around them and they feel things just like we do. Definitely a morning I will always remember.
SATURDAY:
Saturday was my half-way mark and that thought was lingering in my mind all day. I spent Saturday morning in Milagros, which is one of my favorite groups of kids that I work with. Laurita and Martin are some of the higher functioning children at the orphanage and it is so fun to interact with them. Laurita is adorable and can understand everything that we say in Spanish and responds with body language, a few words of Spanish, or distinct noises. Her smile is irresistable and her laugh is contagious! Her favorite things are cuddling, coloring, calling you crazy in sign language, and giving you “besitos” (little kisses). On Saturday she saw some of the bed bug bites covering my body from the night before and she insisted that she kiss every single one. I truly love this little girl.
Martin is a 12 year old little boy in “Casa Milagros” that is more capable of communicating with the volunteers. He is so incredibly intelligent. He spends most of the time in his wheelchair but during his therapies, he can walk if we help support him in his laps around the orphanage. Martin speaks a few decipherable grunts of Spanish but understands Spanish and English in their entirety. He has learned English from all of the volunteers that he has met and it is hilarious communicating with him. We always tease him and he communicates with us with his own little way of playing “charades”. After you spend a lot of time with him you better understand each of the gestures that he does, but occasionally you are thrown into a random guessing game. Sometimes I have no clue what he is getting at and after guessing 10 different things, he will shake his head in frustration. That is when the game becomes the most fun because I start guessing things that are completely farfetched and end by saying things like “OOOOOOH you love me?”…..”You want to be my boyfriend”…..”We’re eloping before I leave?!” He rolls his eyes, but I always get him to crack a smile! I will miss the soccer games, arm wrestling tournaments, and Michael Jackson dance parties with this little boy. Even after only a month, I can’t imagine what life without seeing him every day will be like.
My second shift on Saturday was at “Casas” or more familiarly known as the Ecuadorian Mafia. They were crazy as always but I have grown to love the insanity. I love being able to speak Spanish with them and they are so funny. I got a glimpse of the more unappealing aspects of parenting during the shift though. During the last hour of the shift I was getting all of the boys ready for bed and it was time for all of them to brush their teeth. I gave each of them their toothbrushes and toothpaste and when they finished I asked for all of the brushes back. Well, these kids LOVE their toothbrushes and think of toothpaste as candy. Dillon, who is 4 years old, decided that he didn’t want to give his back. I gave him the best “mom look” I could muster and asked him one more time to please give it back to me. He looked straight at me and SPIT IN MY FACE!!! Without even a second thought I grabbed him and calmly said only 2 words before I let the silence do the rest. “CASA SOLO”. I put him in his room and locked the door. I was furious at first, but it took everything I had to not laugh as I passed by his window and saw his chubby little cheeks pushed up tightly against the glass and heard him faintly repeating “Lo siento. Lo siento. Lo siento.” Haha I love those little monsters with all my heart. They have definitely taught me patience and how to stand up for myself when it comes to discipline.
After all of the volunteers had come home from shift, the OSSO cook was waiting to teach us how to make Empanadas! Let’s just say that they were amazing and I can’t wait to make them when I get home! Catalina was so patient with all of us and it was so fun taking a break from everything and spending time with all of the girls.
SUNDAY:
I was lucky enough to get a church shift this past Sunday! I was given the option of 10 a.m. church so the bus took us to morning shift as usual at 7 a.m. but it came back to pick a few of us up at 9:30 a.m. and drove us to church. We only got to stay for Sacrament Meeting but it was still worth going! The frist half of my morning shift was in CUNAS with the babies so I smelled of diarrhea, diaper cream, and baby wipes without a doubt when I walked in but the ward in Cuenca has come to expect that out of the OSSO volunteers at this point. We walked in the building with just barely enough time to change into our church clothes and find a seat. It was so humbling to walk in, look around, and notice that the full head count of the ward totaled less than 30 members. The faith of the people in the Gospel here is incredible. One by one, the members shared their testimonies at the pulpit and the spirit they brought with them was so strong. There could have been no greater proof of the truthfulness of the Gospel than to travel halfway across the world only to find such a familiar place.
A single moment in my afternoon shift is one that has changed my perspective forever. It was the kind of experience that I was hoping to have even back when I started planning this trip. I was working in Esperanza that afternoon and it was time for all of the kids to be taken outside for a few hours. Every day when we take the kids outside, we take turns taking each of the kids on a walk around the orphanage in their wheel chairs. A few of the kids in particular like to stop at the front gate for a few minutes and peek out at the cars that pass by in the street. I decided to take Vanessa for a walk for a few minutes. Vanessa is about 9 years old and for the most part, is completely unresponsive to things going on around her. She spends every day being supported by her wheel chair and constantly moves her head from side to side. It is fairly hard to get any kind of connection with her since eye contact or a smile is so rare from her. Contrary to her usual brief route around the orphanage, Sunday afternoon I decided I was going to stop at the gate. I propped her up in her chair and made sure she was facing the street. I sat down on a curb right in front of her. Knowing there was no way she was going to understand what I was saying, I just started talking to her in English. I told her everything. I talked to her about things that have been bothering me, people back at home, important moments in my life, and basically anything I wanted to get off of my chest. At one point I started telling her how tired I was and how hard some of the days are here. I was feeling completely inadequate. At that moment I looked up at her and I caught HER gaze. Her head was perfectly still and her eyes were staring straight at me.
Vanessa is a unique little girl at the orphanage. She was born a beautiful, healthy little girl. Through years of horrible abuse, the trauma took a toll on Vanessa’s spirit and she will never function the same way again. Although the damage has been done, there is a little girl in there that knows exactly what it’s like to be “normal”. We only made eye contact for about 20 seconds, but that was enough to bring me to tears. That was the connection I had been waiting for with her. The odds of that happening again are so slim, but it only took once for me to fall in love with her. I cannot even imagine all that Vanessa has gone through in her life. One thing I know is that she wasn’t put on this Earth to learn something. She was put here to teach others; more specifically, to teach me. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to see how much she has to offer before it was too late. I have realized how little time I have left here and there is so much more I have to learn from these kids before I get on that plane in two weeks.
MONDAY: (almost caught up)
Sunday I woke up to 27 bug bites. BED bug bites. I could lie and say that I was cool, calm and collected, but let’s be honest….BUGS WERE CRAWLING ALL OVER ME WHILE I WAS SLEEPING. It doesn’t get sketchier than that! I am the only girl that hasn't gotten sick and thrown up while I have been in Ecuador so I suppose it was only a matter of time before something unfortunate happened to me. I would much rather have bug bites than be sick here. I never had the chicken pox when I was little, but I imagine that it would have been a lot like this. I am itchy all over! Unfortunately there are a lot of things you have to do to get rid of them. You have to strip your bed, wash your sheets, do all your laundry, and spray your mattress. Unfortunately I had to wait to do all of this because when you spray your mattress you have to leave the room for 2-3 hours. That meant I had to sleep one more night in a bed-bed-infested bed. I prepped myself for the inevitable bites but still took preventative measures. I put on long pants andI tucked them into my socks. I even wore a sweatshirt tucked into my sweatpants and pulled the strings on my sweatshirt tightly enough to only leave a small hole in the center for oxygen. The other girls will attest to the fact that I looked ridiculous. Just as we were all going to bed I clumsily knocked the bed bug spray on the ground and some of it spilled on the carpet. Well, in case you’re wondering, bed bug spray smells like gasoline. It had been a long day and we weren’t about to leave our room for 2-3 hours so we decided to just suck it up and go to bed. It smelled so awful and it was hard to breathe (even harder with the get-up I was wearing). I was pretty convinced that we were going to die so I woke up every 2 hours to check and make sure all of my roommates were still breathing. I wish I was kidding. We ultimately all survived and I discovered a dozen more bites in the morning. Luckily I was able to spray my mattress the next day and I am now bed-bug free!!!
TODAY (Tuesday):
Today was a great day! I had a much needed off this morning. I got to sleep in until 8:30, talk to my mom, pay some bills online, and do all my laundry. This afternoon I had a shift in Alegria with all of the little toddlers at the OSSO special needs orphanage. I have only been scheduled there a few times, but I love it there. The kids are so full of life and they absolutely love being with the volunteers. One of the little boys caught me off guard today though. We were all sitting in circle reading books and Christian, who has Autism, was sitting on my lap. As I was reading to him he looked up and said, “Mommy, mommy, mira!” He was pointing at a picture of a dog in the book and trying to not act surprised, just acknowledged it and turned the page. Throughout the rest of the shift, whenever he sat with me or wanted my attention he would call me “mommy”. I kept trying to dance around it and kept referencing myself as his friend. Finally I went to the worker and asked how I should react to it. She told me to answer to Mommy. She could tell I was confused and continued to tell me that the kids at OSSO don’t think of Mom’s as the people that gave birth to them. The children call someone mommy when they feel that they have become a mom. She told me that I should love it when one of the children calls me mommy, because that means they feel that I have become that in their lives. It’s so strange for me to accept that at only 20. As I left tonight, Christian gave me a hug and a kiss and said, “Chao Mommy”. I left before he could see that I had started to cry. How can I ever get on that plane going home?
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