Beautiful Children....

Children, children, what can you say more about them then that they are beautiful, innocent and not to blame...Look at them on the pictures with their open beautiful faces and their smiles. Who can see they have to bare so much pain and carry it within.......................................
Working almost 5 weeks now in the Don Bosco project I am really hung un them. It's not an easy job at all, I can tell you. But I feel so good with the boys and girls. In the beginning they had to get used to me ofcourse, they didn't ask me to help them with their homework only when I offered. But now when I come in the studyroom, a lot come running to me to hug and kiss me and tell me all kinds of stories, and show me their candy, their new playthings, their schoolwork, while they hang on one of my legs or tickle me. At my table are the most difficult boys and sometimes its almost impossible to maintain peace! They shout, hit each other, throw everything on the floor and in each others faces. Sometimes it's very funny as well. At 14.30 hours we always start with singing very holy songs about Maria, Jesus and God...and really they couldn´t care less, of course, but they have to sing and clap with the nons and us volunteers (Yes, me too, I know my share of holy Spanish now). And they hit eachother while singing how much God loves them and they have to love God, and then bang...., another slap in the face, lalalalala te quiero mi Dios, my Jesus, and then they start to sing really loud and funny to molest the nons, and hit each other some more and then the nons shout at them and they are silent for a minute or 2 and again the whole thing start from scratch........Complete chaos....every time again. Sometimes it's not so funny when they get really angry with one another and they fight really tough. But 5 minutes later they are friends again, sharing sweets and pencils. I have learned that it is almost impossible to teach them anything. For example, I have been working with this girl to get her to learn the table of 1 and 2. She is 10 years old and after 3 hours she still said that 1x0 = 10. They don't write their own language good, they show no interest in learning it themselves. I have chosen to make their homework for them now, after 3 weeks, because as I already explained, their lives exists out of moments and when I make the homework with them and finish it with and for them, their happiness is priceless in that moment. I have tried in the beginning to learn, explain and teach them Mathematics, English, words etc. The interest in the material is so little, there is no beginning nor end. As I found out that they will hardly learn anything or use what they have learned, I decided that it is better to give them their moments of happiness by me showing them how to do something, instead of teaching them by repeating and repeating. I just doesn't work. I rather give them these moments of happiness because I don't know if they will come back the next day (the abuse here is incredible) by being very sweet, understanding and cuddly. I know it's probably not very educative, but it feels much better to do it in this way. Hopefully it changed something somehow in their little innocent lives..... I do love them and hope the best for whatever future they have.....

Proposals on the bus to Cuenca and everywhere else for that matter...

I realized after a weekend well spent in Cuenca, that eventhough I'm 34 years old, I will always stay a bit naive somehow. Last weekend I went to Cuenca, apparantly the most beautiful town of Ecuador. This is 8 hours to the south, by bus. I arrived friday night and found this very nice hostal/restaurant/bar. It's quite difficult to stay alone or without a companion in South-America when you're alone and in Cuenca this proved to be completely impossible. After 5 minutes sitting by myself I got invited to this party in a discotheque, a painter introduced himself and decided to tell me all about his life...and on and on..After an hour or so I got bored and looked a bit around and what do ye know....I saw Philippa, this Scottish girl I met in Cusco.....3000 km further, different country, again I'm meeting someone that I met before!! Wauw...don't know if you can understand how weird that is. Well, we went to a disco, with a bunch of her friends and I danced like Ginger did with Fred, and like Miriam does all the time. The painter (he came as well) obviously wanted a bit more than to paint that evening, but I suggested that painting would suite him (and especially me) much better. His companion then took a shot at me with his dancing abilities, quite good I must admit. Well, I had a very nice time and went home around 04.30 in the morning by cab. The taxidriver asked me if I wanted to be his friend (had to sit in the front), and if we knew eachother better we could get married. I politely declined and said that if I would change my mind I would contact him. In my hostal the guard (every hostal has a guard because it's very dangerous otherwise for the tourists) asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette with him (it's a horrible lonely job), so I decided to talk with him for a while, After 3 minutes he told me that he really liked me and that I had beautiful toe-nails with the painted colour. He found my red nails very provocative. I quickly told him that it wasn't red but some kind of pink, but the damage was done; if I wanted to be his girlfriend, he not only liked my nails but everything about me. After I again politely declined he told me that he had no toenails. I thanked him for that information and said that I was really tired and had to go to sleep. He walked me to my room while telling me how he lost his toenails and then I could go to sleep safely..I tried to understand all these funny things and these open man with their needs and I felt I was not bothered nor offended by their proposals at all because it was so funny and kind of sweet that I felt rather touched by how they behaved. Next day, same thing, while visiting the beautiful center of Cuenca (so many nice buildings)...I was offered farms by policeman, marriage by the waiter from the icecreamsalon and more and more... Don't worry, no ring on my finger..In the evening I went out with Philippa again to this very nice cafe with live Cuban music and...dancing, dancing and dancing...Next day had breakfast at T...no twelve with Philippa and a really enjoyed my weekend in Cuenca. I was good that I left on Sunday because after 1 weekend everybody knows how you are if you have been dancing like I have been dancing. Cuenca is really small in that way. On the bus once again I was invited friendship and probably a bit more, I had to change seats this time because he didn't stop. It became harrasing. Even when I changed to another seat, he followed me with notes and (yes, really) with his photo...This time I had to shout a bit : Deja me en paz = leave me alone. Which worked thank God.....After 8 hours of Ecuadorian busdriving I arrived exhausted at 1.30 in the the night in Ambato. Then you have to be really careful which cab you take, if it is a cab in fact....02.00 I was overthinking all these strange offers.......I understand it, but it's still strange, well they are ....South-American man. Goodnight.

The really tough stuff...

Monday, week 3 in the project. Afternoon, helping with homework like every day. Nothing indicates that this day will end differently, for me that is. 16.00 ' o clock..a woman walks in with a boy, Leonardo, that I hadn't seen that day. He normally sits at my table with his brother. I didn't pay much attention at first to her conversation with another volunteer (woman from Ecuador). After I heard the words "hospital, and nearly dead" I couldn't help wanting to know what it was about. I wish I hadn't. The boy lifted his t-shirt and this moonlandscape on his back was available for everyone to see. Mutulated from the beginning till the end of his back. Aparantly his mother had thrown a pan with boiling water over him, without this being an accident. I froze, got nacious and felt really sick. It was the most awfull thing I've ever seen. What hit me the most was that nobody seemed to care much. The other children became a bit more agitated, but the volunteers and teachers didn't give it another thought....After the woman and boy left, everybody went on with their business as usual, like he had just shown his new shoes. I found myself in sort of a shock. I proceeded as well and finished helping this girl with cutting words with gi, ga, gu, gui, ge from a magazine (we also do this) but I lost myself in thinking of the boy. I saw the tears dripping on the white paper on the table with the cutted g-words. I pretended I had to go to the toilet and lost control..The pain he must have felt, not just from the burns, but from the act in itself. I don't want to judge, I don't know what happened, but his own mother...Later I tried to talk about it with the staff but they said that as horrible as it was I had to get used to this. And they went on with cutting little red hearts for Valentine's, the next day. So I started to cut little red hearts as well without feeling what I was doing, and my own heart told me that I should never get used to something like this. I don't ever want to think of this as something normal eventhough I know it happens all over the world. But seeing it from so close up is not the same as knowing. This tiny little body already mutulated for life, his big eyes on my faces while lifting his shirt. Just another monday in Ambato. Happy Valentine tomorrow...

Patience, contemplating and what else...yeah...more patience

Pfff.....what a week and there will be more weeks like this to come. I'm having a bit of trouble in getting my act together. Meaning, nothing really changes here in the sense that you feel like something matters. How to explain this? Futurewise there are like no expectations for the children in the line of work I'm in for the moment. I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the children, their parents etc.

There are just moments. Everything consists out of moments. If you use these moments well, you might be able to create future. If not, they just stay moments. Nice moments, good moments, horrible moments......but just moments. Nothing more. Do we need more? I don't know the answer to that. I guess in Europe we do. Here, well if you survive a moment that, at times, is already something, a gift maybe. Life doesn't count that much here in the way that people are upset by death or illness as such. Did I know this, yes I did, but you never know your feelings and reactions towards experiences you didn't have before. So I'm allowing myself some time to inhale it all- Patience...

By the way, who wrote the beautiful anomynous comment on my Don Bosco piece? Answer provided on the phone this morning...My fantastic mother did!

Baños

I went to Baños last weekend. Baños is a small town 45 minutes from Ambato, but it's like another world. Very small town, but very touristic. The same thing that happened in Peru happened to me again. I met the couple (from Austria - see photo) that work in the same project as I do in the streets of Baños. Normally I wanted to go to Cuenca, but decided to go to Baños. They were going to Puyo but eventually decided to go to Baños.....I think I have this angel on my shoulder that doesn't want me to spend my free time on my own..We went to visit the virgen on top of the mountain surrounding Baños. On every mountain top in South-America (slightly exagerating) you'll find either a Jesus or a virgen statue to watch over the village. Very impressive nature again. In the evening we had a lovely dinner (they know how to treat a tourist here :-) and went out in the night to this discotheque that could have easily passed as a sauna. It was so humid that the smell was almost unbearable. So we had to get really drunk to shut down all our smellorgans, but that didn't work. I had a lovely time, dancing with 22-year old boys. And Susanne and Markus are very nice company! Sunday evening we went back on the bus to be dutyful the next weekagain.......

Don Bosco

Monday morning, 8.30 'o clock. Walking to Don Bosco (almost half an hour). I start working at 9.00 'o clock so I'm right on time.. I have no idea what will I'll be awaiting. At nine 'o clock I walked in the door and there was hardly anybody. Later some children arrived and I presented myself and they accepted me helping them with their homework. Joceleyn this lovely 8-year old girl seemed particulary fond of me and we got along real fine. Later at 12.00 we all went down to the kitchen (gaarkeuken). And this was from a complete different order....Al the children that work as bootblackers (schoenpoetsers) and other workers came to get food. I worked in the kitchen from 12.00 till 14.30 and at least 80 children came to get food. Heavy language, already adults with faces of a child, hard but beautiful features, hunger, pain but laughter too. Later after everybody had eaten, at 14.30 the children that came from school in the morning stay untill 17.30 hours in this project to do their homework. This is more or less the procedure : At 14.30 one of the nons comes down (not from heaven but,) from her office and we all have to pray and sing songs about Maria and Jesus. This is all quite new to me, but hé I know songs about Maria now in Spanish. It is rather funny at times, I can see myself singing these songs and it seems quite natural, like I've been doing this a lifetime already... Anyway, after this we (the volunteers) help with the homework of all of the children (about 55). This is quite a hard job, because there is no disciplin whatsoever, the children are shouting all the time, they don't really want to make their schoolwork. They hit each other, they pull the hair of the one setting next to them. They throw everything on the floor without picking it up, they fight and they fight hard. They steal each others things etc. I doesn't really bother me, I didn't expect real disciplined children, as I knew they are abused, hit, screamed at by alcoholic parents and by, god knows who....It's not an easy job but I like it. At the same time they are very sweet and very small also, to me and to each other. All kinds of behaviour will be shown. They hug and kiss me in the same time as they spit on somebody else. And it's all very natural. I was not apauled nor angry, nor suprised. Sometimes I have to shout or to get really angry as well, because there is just no other way. I know that nothing will change by helping, but that's never a reason not to help. I hope it doesn´t sound to hard, but the lives here won't change just because you decided to be this mother Teresa. Their ways are too different, they don't really wont or really need the help either in this way. Still, we have to, because we have everything and they don't. I doesn't affect me either that it is the way it is and that makes me able to help better than if I would feel sorry all the time or if I would feel proud. I don't. I'm there, I do what I can and that's all their is, nothing more, nothing less and that's just good enough. For now....I have been doing this for a week now and I'm quite tired but satisfied in the same time. I deserve a weekend out of Ambato. Going to Baños.....Tell you all about this later on. Comments on working with the children are very welcom !! If anybody has any other ideas, please do not hesitate....

Ambato

Friday the 27th I arrived late at night in Ambato, a town two hours under Quito. De hours don't correspond with the milage. You can imagine that the roads here are not as well paved as in our "fancy Europe". So 30 kilometers is probably an hour of driving, in the mountains, that is. Anyway, I met my new family, who live about 30 minutes walking outside the centre of Ambato; la Señora Fanny, el Señor George and the daughter Soledad (29). First they stalled me in sort of a cellar below the house, very big but without windows and kind of smelly, and after my encounter with this very big spider I decided to ask for a room in the house. This seemed to be no problem, so now I'm safe from anything with more than 4 legs...The next day I had a meeting at 8.00 'o clock in the morning (on a saturday!) with the main sister (moeder overste - non) from the streetchildrens centre to which I will refer to as Don Bosco, because this is the name of the centre. She wasn't there but another non was and we went through my schedule and my tasks. Later I walked a bit in the center and Fanny and Soledad showed me around. Ambato is a town without any tourists therefore no late night sessions....Everything is dead after 22.00 hours. I don't know how I'll manage after Cusco but I will. Sunday we went to Puyo, a town near the rainforrest, so a bit warmer then it is here in the mountains. I really have traveled through all the temperaturezones this journey, seen all kinds of countrysides, from 12 degrees till 45 degrees, from cold and high mountains till hot and dry desserts, sometimes in one day and this is a very akward feeling. Puyo has a few nice sites but I'm not completely smitten by Ecuador yet. Maybe I'm still full of Peru which is an amazing country. But it was a nice day. The other daughter of the family lives here and we barbecued and laughed and I tried to settle in like before in Peru with the family. On the way back to Ambato we got this horrible news about the cousin dying in the car accident in Quito (previous message) and everybody was very upset and sad. Later that evening mother and daughter went to Quito for the funeral the next morning and at the same time there were like 15 members of the family who were visiting the family that night (had nothing to do with the accident), so it was a very strange and straining day, especially for the family. So I tried to console the daughter and helped a bit in the only way that you can when you just know somebody. By beeing understanding and helpfull. Well so far for that weekend....