I have settled into a wonderful life here and it feels like i belong in a way that i never dreamed possible. I feel at home with all the things i have been doing and i feel no stress .. working and making great friends has warmed my soul and my heart is light. In the routine of the day i plant those red sandals to my feet and go!! it is still warm here for half of the day despite the rainy season beginning but the tanned face of september has faded and only lines of colour cross the tops of my feet. long sleeves continue and everyday a rain jacket or poncho is packed to catch the afternoon cool and rain that happens around 3o´clock here. We have had some big downpours and there is a chill that comes with it and makes me want a fire on. today it is 66degrees and comfortable.
my spanish class is superb! and i am alone with the teacher Jorge and a great kid from Korea, Juan who is shy and almost fluent, having studied spanish.. one month!! i laugh. i am not shy to speak despite my mediocre skills and we all get some laughs. i see Ecuador and Costa Rica in my future if not Africa. it is a wonderful language! although it may be the people that pull me back here for a time.
the priviledge of no internet at my fingertips has enlightened me to an even more simple life and i am thankful to have read echkart tolle over romance novels, for i am able to stay present with my boys and babies which is where i choose to be. life is truly simple here and life is difficult all around me. seemingly untouched the people smile at me as i walk arms over packsack into a neighbourhood that my tandom warns me to be careful in. i do not know their circumstance and cannot imagine their stories..despite all, i feel safe and comfortable. i walk beside the same people every day.. the shoeshine man with the turned around feet always smiles and one day he was shaving and after passing him i turned around to see the daily routine... our eyes met and we both laughed. somehow i feel like they would all help me if i needed them.. certainly i would help them.
weeks ago the road that i pass was torn up.. man... picks and hard labour tore apart this road and over the span of two and a half months it is days away from being complete. like other streets it is made of stones.. measured and squared.. the sidewalk rises above it in beautiful pattern.. it is a repeat of the old in the present. there is nothing easy here.. labour is third world tough and the result is beautiful. there are no corners cut here in pavement. i am convinced the people here are all skilled craftsmen who sing.
you will remember that i changed houses in the hope of living with a Peruvian family.. in the hills, with or without electricity or running water but this is not the case... it is the same type of house.. set up for lots of volunteers. Changes have come with acceptance as new young people move into the home where i now live with the family of Sonja.. her lawyer husband and four girls..this family is around me and us.. there are six other volunteers in this house - all under 30 and from the States. it is different that Nadia´s house.. Sonja totally babies all of us and feeds us a wide variety of food .. daily vegetables and fruit will wait till i am home. We are served dinner on a plexi-glass !!!!!!!!!!!!!! table and chairs in her dining room wrapped in sheers. even the sofa is slipcovered in lace! the windows are massive with horizontal metal bars spàced 8 or so inches apart on the total window on both floors ..and the door is floor to ceiling wooden with gigantic locks. there are two washrooms - one with a soft plastic seat!! hot water is most of the time.. beds are made for us!! and laundry service is an option! the neighbourhood Wanchaq, is a step up from Santa Monica, with the same police patrolling at corners and monitoring throughout the night. they have a whistle system that they talk to each other with and it goes on in the wee hours of the night.. one side of the house is on a park so sleeping can be light.
morning comes early with light beamng in the gigantic wall of window.. i miss the mountain wake up at Nadia´s house but it is less lonely here with all the company and the family are here when i need somebody around. mostly my roommate is gone having found a peruvian lover! and i don´t mind a bit having the room to myself and the chick flicks that take me home. usually i get home about 8 :30 at night having finished my projects and Spanish tandom Mitsy who continues to be a great help and fun!
i haven´t written of work lately. it is a full shift and there are still no pressures with the boys although i have learned the lessons of having money or prizes in my backpack. as life unravels there we have become completely comfortable with one another.. and they are open to asking for everything and it seems that either answer is acceptable. there is a way of life here i am just beginning to understand.. and there is nothing i can ever change. since the boys have nothing .. getting something is momentarily important. . in the knowledge that it will probably will be taken from you from a bigger boy.. so hide it.. keep it in your pocket. a name on it won´t matter. also there is a ´brotherly´order here that protects and takes care of the smaller ones like in a family that i am seeing. marco, the 15ish tough guy that is "studying to be a pick pocket" from the best teacher in Cusco was somewhat frightening to me at first but i have warmed up to him watching him walk in from school with the smallest of the lot next to his arm.. and watch him help the little guys get the stone on the right number while playing bingo. it is good despite his apparent skills at the game of survival.. pickpocketing! i am at home with them now and like when you kids were little, i have become fussy about their squabbling amidst themselves and take away the games if they continue to misbehave.. it is frustrating without good spanish but they understand expressions and actions are good teachers too and they quickly understand. it is a motherly chore and i accept it heartily even when they get mad and stomp away!! i love you anyway.
a few weeks ago in the search for something new and having discovered the relatively untouched computer room we got permission to use the room .. but shortly later we were banned as games here, like cards, are a no! NO! this room has six appearingly new computers .. two with internet .. and all under plastic covers. i have not figured out when the boys are allowed to be here, or with whom.. for the room is constantly locked and obviously must be monitored when in use.
anyway weeks ago a pile of great things... colouring books, crayons, story books and boxes were piled on that old worn velvet couch and shortly later disappeared.. where??? so i asked the secretary, who needs glasses badly to work.. where they went and was told in the storage room.. where is that. it seems that all these great things.. books, painting supplies, paper, musical instruments.. are tucked away and under lock an key. i don´t know the point of this because other than volunteers there is no play with these boys and no effort to do something fun.. maybe this is because we do it for them.
one day we asked Janet, the directora, to show us the supplies available to us and she opened up the closet in the computer room for us where we discovered a bag of recorders, a huge drum with a white skin and boxes of games some opened and some not.... well, we were set for the afternoon.. wow!! what a day.. there was more noise and whistling than was bearable from those recorders and this continued accompanied by the guitar playing by niños and me for several hours. !!! whee... just like at grammas!! complete tolerance for everything: awesome.. we were all in our glory.
when i left that midafternoon the workers all breathed a sigh of relief.. but the best part was that nobody said one thing while the recitals were going on.. i am sure the whole street heard us and not even a neighbour complained! fun.
a bonus of opening the door was the pile of games tucked into that closet!! wow. some new and never played, others in boxes slightly worn... so we got the bingo game out the next day and it has taken over the guitar for the time being..the new adventure of learning english numbers and me learning spanish numbers... what a perfect exchange.
parked on the sidewalk, marvelous sunshine upon us boys scatter too close .. all touching something.. and around me..still dirty brown feet in sandals too small .. selected by choice over runners that fit.. from home, comfortable and dirty. most wear the same clothes they have worn all week except the older boys who are cleaner in all respects. i am so happy with them around me and i pause and listen to their calls as they are eager to take over for a more rapid.. and accurate pronunciation! in silence i soak them in.. the cement is hot and the sun is beating on us.. there are no prizes on this day and with no idea that there ever could be the boys seem completely happy as am i......they catch on in a wink and i am intrigued by their lasting interest, knowledge and speed.. even the little schooled ones have this down in an instant. i am surprised. Gabriel, the used to be little rangatang (called lovingly)guesses at numbers and there is a general helping each other throughout the games. a brotherhood.
the sun is hot.we have no blotters or plastic circles to cover the numbers called. little stones work perfectly and i jump up to gather more at the call of deborah, deborah! and pointing fingers. it is not fancy. exactly what i love. not fancy. it is always the little things that make life perfect and this is the place to get your life up!
it has been almost two weeks with bingo. we spent one day playing monopoly and Marco, my pickpocket in training was both the banker and the instructor.. keeping track of houses and purchases and fines and the money!! there are different rules here and the 1´s are 200.00s. i am delighted with him. convinced of his skills but love his brotherly love and protection that he gives those niños. he is not bad.
marco is fifteen. he has been here since he was little. so when the nuns ran the place when the beatings existed. this according to the directora, Janet. in the monopoly picture Marco is the banker. rough on the edges, cool as cool.. and a strong leader.
catching up on recent days, prizes have become the order of the day now and this is really fun. we don´t just do ordinary lines.. we call squares, X´s, full cards, L´s, triple lines, double lines.. and the boys usually pick.. it is exciting and there is great intention going on here. the concentration is thick!! now at this point i have learned my numbers quite well up to 75 and my pronunciation ( my spelling used to be fairly good in english!) in español is, well, to my professoros amusement becoming Ketchanwan (sp?) .. so not proper!!.. i thought that 7 - which is pronounced "see et eh".. was this.. but the boys are repeat "shet eh" whenever i call a number with a seven in it so i corrected myself... and now i sound like the boys! funny.. i love the harmony of voices that echo number calling.
imagine a table, that has chairs.. rarely used in the game... with me crowded on a chair with my backpack behind me or underfoot.. (learned the lessons) and little and big boys smashed together shoulder to shoulder almost making it impossible to move, and knees to cards , bodies folded over on the table over with small piles of irregular stones guarded between knees and under hands... bingos bring a choice of combs, pens, english/spanish dictionaries, decks of cards, erasers and maple sugar candies..
thursday under the tree.. a day off from school for the twenty-four that go.. we plunk down in the shade . the ground is dry with small brown seeds good for markers. behind and under me white painted irregular stones circle the tree and i, like the boys, seek the comfortable curves of the earth.. around me eager bodies in fleeces worn all week fold over now personalized bingo cards now coloured with markers and pen the preference over stones. now, calling numbers have disappeared and scattered and x´s mark the numbers missing replaced by small paper scribbled on... 1 - 17, n - 33... soon these blow away in the wind and stones randomly fill the holes on the master card.
on the big win, a deck of cards... i reach into my backpack for the honours... no cards!! hmm. my heart sinks. i still have a hard time believing that it is ok to pickpocket .. accepted.. a way of life. i am becoming convinced that it is not seen as wrong to many.. just a deck of cards... anyway this story gets sadder.
there is a special little boy beside me. he has not always been hand in hand.. hugs when i leave.. joy in his eyes but he is this now. well i made a huge mistake !!! as we finished our game and was putting things away he left the circle with his sweater folded over something inside his sweater.. i got up followed him .. i asked him what he had.. thinking he had the deck of cards.. he put his head down.. i asked him to show me and he unfolded his sweater to reveal a pile of cards. but not from the packsack... they were like magic cards.. all loose and worn and obviously a treasure from a way back. i felt sick because of what i thought. i should have let this go.. i have let so many other things just go.. a lesson.
yesterday i got help with an apology in spanish and when he came to me to hug me goodbye i got out my notebook and told him as he read the letter that said i am sorry.
there is a small window for these boys.. they have three years here in the orphanage, funded by a corrupted government.. then they have to go somewhere. where? the street. the huge orphanage in Lima... the streets.. some go back to their families to a life of poverty, maybe hunger and hard work. for the lucky.. they get sponsors.. to have english classes at Maximo Nivel at the cost of 120 sols per month... so 40$ .. others get jobs like Guido who got swept up by the roofers to work a long day for next to nothing pay ... at 14 years old. others may get lucky and move to privately funded houses for orphans... housing 6 or 8 ..
so this is the tear your heart apart sad thing... and then, if you did sponsor a boy there is no guarantee that they would get the money.. janet believes the whole orphanage is corrupt.. if you steal with them life there is harmonious...
i am feeling sad and emotional at the thought of leaving them in two weeks and realize that every moment needs to be good. it is harder to stay in the present as time gets closer but i mostly happy and focused on making their days good and i can say they are.
sending some pics of the faces that i love. settling into writing for the weekend and will catch you up. missing you all and greatly looking forward to seeing all your faces and hugging and kissing a bunch of you. keep those fires burning and have happy days. these are the good old days.
all my love ,
moommmmmmeeeeeee, me .....
No comments:
Post a Comment