los pequeñitos

We had a sharing meeting on Sunday night for the new volunteer who came (though she was here previously so I was a little ticked we had to do it). The sharing meeting happens every time new volunteers arrive. Basically we just had to go around and everyone in the group had to share their feelings about working with the kids.

It sounds super lame. And I thought it was going to be. But you know what? It wasn't. As we went around and people starting talking about experiences they've had with the kids and how their love for them has grown, everyone started to get a little teary eyed. Now that I know these kids and have worked with them myself these stories mean more to me than they did at our first sharing meeting when I arrived with other new volunteers. The stories that people relate now bring to my mind actual images of the kids doing these things: the looks on their faces, their personalities, their gestures, all of these things that I have come to learn about them as individuals. Lorena, our "madre" here, told us that after working with these kids we will never be able to look at children again in the same way and I am starting to believe her. It's so strange to me now to see kids places with their parents, like at church or just in the street, and I am becoming more and more aware of what a blessing and a sacrifice parenting is.

When I was in high school my AP English teacher once told us that he asked his dad if he liked his life and if he had to do it over again would he make the same choices. His father told him that if able to go back in time and change things he would not have gotten married and had kids—he did it just because everyone else was doing it. My teacher himself never married and has no children of his own. He seemed to think that this was perfectly fine and that there was nothing wrong with his father wishing he was not a father. I think it's sad. I mean, isn't my teacher glad that is father did have children? Otherwise he wouldn't be here. I think sometimes we forget that our very lives on this earth are gifts from, not only God, but another human being. No person on this earth was born without a mother and father in some way, shape, or form. It's pretty ungrateful to think that we are here just on our own merit—also it's just not true.

I am so glad that my parents are parents and that I am their child. And I'm glad that I know they're glad about that too.

food and friends

Every day after our afternoon shift while walking from one orphanage to another to get picked up by the bus we pass this lady who has one of those little food stands where she sells salchipapas, aka french fries with a little sausage on top (salchichas=sausages, papas=potatoes). To top it all off there is the choice of mayonaise, salsa de tomate (ketchup), and/or special sauce. Every Monday and Wednesday (ok, maybe not EVERY Monday and Wednesday, but fairly often) Chelsea and I buy some: they are only 50 cents! I usually ask for them without the sausage because it's a little sketchy but sometimes she gives it to me anyway. And I eat it. Salchipapas, con o sin salchica, makes my day every time.

Another thing that made my day today was when I went to the orphanage with the kids who are 2-5 years old. They like to chant their favorite volunteers' names like, "May-gan. Megan!" and they get really angry at you if you are not that volunteer whose name they are chanting slash if that volunteer will not be there that day. Whenever I go I always have to remind them of my name because they can't remember it. It's pretty awesome. In a not way. BUT today when I walked over to get the other volunteers to leave for dinner the kids saw me and started chanting, "Caaa-si. Cassi!" I didn't even have to prompt them! It was amazing.