Wild 'n' Woolly

The past two weeks got off to a bit of a rocky start. I caught some kind of strep throat/cold that has been making its way around campus and was stuck in bed with the worst sore throat I’ve probably ever experienced. Thankfully, I wasn’t the first one to catch it, so as soon as I started feeling the symptoms, I went to the nurse and got some antibiotics that nipped it in the bud. I felt pretty miserable for a couple of days, but I think I fared pretty well compared to some of the others who got the same thing.

Unfortunately, I was still feeling pretty crummy when my day off rolled around, but I felt as though I didn’t really have the option to not go into town. Without any WiFi on campus, I was really hoping to find a cafe where I could connect to the internet on my laptop and post the first entry to my blog (see above). Additionally, I was hoping to troubleshoot my Microsoft Word and Excel programs that had stopped working, and needed internet in case they needed to be re-downloaded (Fortunately, I found the ultimate fix for all Microsoft Office issues--delete it and use Google Docs instead!). Now, I suppose I could have done these things the following week in a pinch (although doing grades without some type of spreadsheet would have probably given me a headache worse than the one I already had), but the director at Familia Feliz needed me to meet him in town anyways to get my psychological evaluation done.

Once finished using the WiFi at San Gregorio cafe over some delicious empanadas, I made my way to the port where I would meet the director. We took a ferry across the river and then took moto-taxis to the appointment for a total cost of 75 cents; $1.50 round trip! After whizzing around on a motorcycle on unpaved roads, in the rain, and with someone else driving, I was pretty sure I was going to fail my psychological evaluation. But, it turns out that psych-evals here are just a $40 art lesson. I drew a picture of a tree, house, and person, told the psychologist I liked working at the orphanage, and then left.

The director had also brought a couple of boys from Familia Feliz to talk with the psychologist who was a social services agent. I knew one of the boys quite well as I am often assigned to work with him out in the field with a machete (he was actually the one who took the picture of me with the machete in my last blog post). He’s not a big kid, even for a Bolivian, but he has one of the strongest work ethics of anyone here. He’s been especially friendly to me and I’ve been able to get to know him using my broken Spanish during long hours of chopping. I have no idea why he was brought to see social services, but when he came back to the waiting room after his appointment, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. At Familia Feliz, there is generally a pretty happy mood and I often forget that these kids have been through A LOT. Seeing one of the hardest-working kids I know (both in Bolivia and the U.S.) in tears really caught me off guard. These kids need good role models, and I want to make it my prayer and mission every day to try to be one for them.

One thing I know I’m going to have to work on as far as being a role model is my patience. The kids do test my patience quite a bit, but it’s the food that’s going to be the real struggle. After long days of teaching and chopping down trees with a machete, I can barely contain my excitement when the dinner bell rings. When they call for seconds, it takes every remaining bit of patience that I didn’t expend when my boys asked to watch a video for the thousandth time (I guess having a computer means you HAVE to have videos right?) to sit and watch as a huge line of kids forms and my chances of falling asleep with a full belly dwindle. Sure, I could push and shove my way to the front, or use my status as a volunteer, but is that what a good role model would do?

Giving the kids a head start on the seconds is that much harder because the food here is fantastic. A lot of the dishes here are similar to what we eat in the states, just with a Bolivian twist. We have veggie burgers, pizza, spaghetti, pancakes, and breakfast burritos, but when the spaghetti sauce has to be made out of carrots, it just isn’t quite the same. It’s still good, just a little different. My favorite meal, however, is the traditional Bolivian dish: sopa de maní (peanut soup)--I’m already looking up recipes to try when I return home. I’m still not sure if I love it because of the taste, or because I’m the only one who actually enjoys eating it and therefore have the seconds (and thirds, fourths, and fifths) all to myself. Either way, when it’s Sopa de Maní Sunday, the only way they can get me away from that pot is by rolling me out the door.

About the time I was just recovering from being sick, the family of volunteers who was living in our house moved out. I was sad to see them go as they were really great with the kids, but I wasn’t too sad to move into the room they had been staying in. After sharing a small room with two other volunteers for a week and a half, it was really nice to have the extra space and be able to unpack my things out of my suitcase. In addition to the extra space, THE ROOM HAS ITS OWN BATHROOM!!! Sharing a bathroom and shower with twelve other people got old pretty fast. I was even able to score a mosquito net to put over my bed, and no longer have to deal with waking up in the middle of the night to some unknown, fuzzy creature using my body as a jungle gym (true story, happened twice before I got the net).

Speaking of fuzzy creatures, there are lots of them here. I’ve already seen a capybara, bullet ant (apparently the pain of the bite is comparable to getting shot), toucan, several other tropical birds, a few tarantulas, and an iguana the size of my thigh. Some of the boys even convinced me to let a tarantula crawl around on my arm because they, “only bite when they’re angry.” I even got to see a sloth, though not in its natural habitat; our director picked it up on his way back from town because it was trying to cross the road!

Maybe that’s the metaphor I should be using to describe life here at Familia Feliz. I feel like a sloth trying to cross the road. Things aren’t going to slow down when I’m sleep-deprived, sick, and fed-up with the kids. For me, this is a constant reminder that I need to start my day off right in God’s Word. Things may get crazy here, but He never changes.

TL;DR

I got sick, go figure. I’ve finally caved and accepted the fact that Google owns my entire existence. Going to town hasn’t gotten old yet (but my new record of 10 passengers and a nursing mother in one 7-seat taxi has). A lot of the kids here have gone through three or four lifetimes worth of trama in a only a quarter of their own life. Because I can’t say the same for myself and empathize with them, I am just trying my best to be a good role model--easier said than done when I’m half-starved. There are all kinds of wild ‘n’ woolly creatures here, and now that I have my own room, I don’t have to put up with them crawling on me at night. Él nunca cambia.

¡Hasta la proxima vez!

P.S. My day off is probably going to change to Wednesday. If that is the case, you can expect a new post every two weeks still, but just on Wednesday.

P.P.S. Pictures of my boys are coming soon, technical difficulties prevented me from posting them this week.