Dear Reader,
I've never loved sleeping
children so much. It might actually fall into my top 10 favorite things in this
universe. Work was actually pretty easy today. I don't know if it was magic, a
miracle or what, but I'm so thankful to the gods of babies for making the
children sleep, because that's precisely what they did all day. There was
minimal crying and poopie diapers. It was pretty much perfect and it gave me
time to actually talk to Seely, the other volunteer working at the shelter, for
longer than thirty seconds in between tantrums and crying fits.
Seely is the
only other person, besides Kit and I, who is 18 at the shelter. She's currently
in the middle of her Gap Year and chose to spend a third of it in Guatemala,
volunteering at the shelter. Seely's already been at the shelter for a month
and has become involved in many projects to help the women at the shelter. For
instance, for every girl that leaves the shelter, Seely makes a care package
for them containing various items that they'll need for 'the real world'. Today
she enlisted Kit and I's help on another project for the shelter. Most of the
kids that I take care of at the shelter are currently suffering from a disease
(I don't know what it's called) that gives them diarrhea, farting, and stomach
pain. The nurses have been trying to combat it with medicine, but the shelter
doesn't have enough money for all the medicine they need. Seely calculated the
amount of money needed to buy the medicine necessary for the kids to get better
and began raising money, asking her spanish teacher and others such as Kit and
myself to donate to the cause. Kit and I are more than happy to help,
considering we were already planning to donate to the shelter anyway. In total
Seely needs 1800 quetzales which translates to about $278. So Kit and I have both
agreed to split up our money to donate to the shelter for medicine and other
needs.
Medicine is
just one small step in relation to all the material that the shelter needs.
They also need diapers, baby wipes, female sanitary products, clothes for the
mothers, toys for the kids and many other things. In short, the orphanage works
everyday without a lot of necessary supplies and staffing. It still amazes me
the strength of people's wills when faced with a challenge that seems very hard
or nearly impossible. By American standards, this shelter would've shut down
years ago, but they keep working because they know the girls at the shelter
need them. Being there makes me wish that there was more that I could do,
something more than just donating money or being a care-taker. In hindsight,
I'd like to think that my time spent with the kids was 'doing something' or
worth more than a little less stress for the nurses and the mothers during the
day. Somehow through this experience I'm giving the kids some kind of hope or
happiness about their situation and that the relief on the mother's parts is
enough to make them even more determined towards their studies. That's just one
small hope of mine, that my days at the shelter amount to more than just a little
baby-sitting, that I'm actually making a difference.
After work at
the shelter Kit and I went home for lunch and then I scrambled to finish my
Spanish homework. Jaime had given me 6 new verbs and I had to conjugate each of
them with all 7 pronouns, plus 3 of them had 4 different ways they could be
used and I had to do examples for each way. In other words, it was a lot of
homework, but I worked speedily and finished with 2 minutes to spare. Kit and I
then walked to the cafe and went to our respective Spanish teachers. Today I
learned vegetables, parts of the house, possession and how to conjugate AR
verbs, which in itself came with 14 brand new verbs to learn and memorize. Some
things came easy enough. French has been a big help and all, but others just
continue to slip my mind. After going through all the vegetables, Jaime
proceeded to test my memorization skills with a game. He'd say the name of a
vegetable in Spanish and I'd have to tell him in spanish the color and/or
colors that the certain vegetable came in. We started off relatively easy, el
brocoli is Broccoli and el zuchini is zucchini, but unfortunately not all
vegetables are that easy to figure out. I learned that the hard way.
When I stopped
knowing what vegetables he was talking about, I just guessed green. We were
talking about vegetables which I would deem 90% of them to be green. I was very
wrong and Jaime made sure to tell me so. He even did one of his famous google
translations in order to tell me. As I've said before, Jaime knows very little
English and I obviously don't know very much Spanish, thus the language barrier
is VERY real. Our lessons often rely on Jaime's brilliant charade skills and my
context clues skills/drawing skills. Luckily for me, many spanish words either
sound like french or english so it's relatively easy for me to guess or figure
out what he's trying to tell me. I also have pages of picture diagrams and
explanation attempts just in case context clues don't work. However,
somethings just don't translate well no matter how much Jaime waves his
hands or I listen for the hidden french or english behind the Spanish. Thus
google translate comes in. Today Jaime translated this phrase for
me: Usted está adivinando, which is Spanish for... You're guessing. This
very phrase,, which he's translated for me 3 times in the last few days, is the
reason why studying is so important.
You can
learn a lot in four hours and my spanish classes are expedited beyond belief.
In four days I've gone through about half of Spanish I. In other words, in 3
days I've learned (well sort of learned, memorizing all this stuff is hard)
what the average Lovett Spanish I student does in a full semester. Its a lot of
work and on occasion I still mix up my Spanish and my French creating the
beautifully mysterious language of Spench. That of course is always fun (note
the sarcasm). However I'm learning to take it day by day. I, of course, have to
study a lot and remember to actively use my Spanish whenever I can, but I think
with work (A LOT OF IT) I can make Spanish my third/second language
(considering I'm not actually fluent in French, I can just get by).
After Spanish class,
Kit and I went home. We ate dinner and then proceeded to get ready for bed...at
like 8:30. I feel like an old lady going to bed so early, but these days really
do take a lot out of you. I continue to take it all in piece by piece. I feel
as if I've learned so much in these last few days. Much more than the internet
and the research could've ever taught me. I feel incredibly lucky to have had
this experience. For me, this trip has been the gift that keeps on giving and I
can't wait to see what it has in store for me tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Journey
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