A story or two

To give you a little peek into my world here are a few of my favourite stories from El Centro throughout the year. I can certainly understand why Jesus values children so much. They are honest, compassionate, curious, fun, and a little crazy.

 

It's likely not hard for you to imagine that these kids are CRAZY! 

There’s one little boy named Eduardo. Gahh!! I cannot even explain how cute he is. He yells almost everything, can’t pronounce almost anything and is the messiest eater I have ever seen.  Doesn’t that sound cute?

Him and another little boy Olvidio are both very hard to understand. One day I was talking about how I was going to start teaching English in the daycare and a little boy named Alejandro tapped me on the shoulder and said “Olvidio and Eduardo already speak English so you don’t need to teach them”.  Unfortunately Olvidio and Eduardo do not speak English…. or Spanish apparently.

This is Olvidio…the little English speaker. 

There’s a little guy here named Gabriel and he too is darn-it-all adorable. There’s a very popular song here and the chorus is “I only want to give one kiss”. So I sing it and he starts running and when I catch him and give him a big kiss on the cheek he says “Wakala” which means gross and wipes it off disgustedly. Don’t worry he teases me lots too. Like when he is changing and threatens to rip the buttons off his shirt if I don’t help him unbutton it. What a character.

Gabriel…this is face is similar to the one he makes when I start singing dar un beso. 

One day while Lola was teaching a lesson I was on the side assigning homework. I was listening to the lesson while tracing circles and squares. The theme of the week was protecting the earth so Lola was teaching the children to respect animals and insects emphasizing that they have a right to life. The children were passing around a beetle, which escaped one of the girl’s hands. I was going to grab some more notebooks when I without any knowledge of the escaped beetle with the right to life ended up stepping on it. The class went silent until little Sayri said with a hint of shock in her voice “Rebekah killed the insect”. She then proceeded to give me dirty looks all day. '

Lola and some of the children I may have traumatized. 

Cesar is one of my very favourite kids in Pre-kinder. He has these huge eyes that let you know every emotion he’s feeling. After a week of not coming to the daycare I saw him and his mom in town and made him promise that he was going to come on the Monday. What I didn’t realize was that I was leaving that weekend for meetings and didn’t make it back to the daycare until the following Friday. All the kids were so excited to see me finally show up on Friday… but before Cesar would give me a hug he gave me a good scolding for not coming all week. Kids…won’t let you get away with anything.

 Daniel, another little boy in the pre-kinder class, has long curly beautiful hair. He could be a little child model….but all the other kids think he is a girl. On day the teacher very specifically explained that Daniel was a boy. “She is a he” she said, “he is a boy not a girl. HE’S name is Daniel”.  Cesar looks up with his big eyes full of legitimate curiosity and says “ohhhh Daniela”.  He was still a little confused. Most of the kids still are.

Daniel and his beautiful curly hair.

At the daycare we highly discourage the kids to play with pretend guns. You know…recent war… 1000’s of people died. It’s understandable.  So when Geovany was using a toy doll as a gun and shooting other kids I gave him “the look” (“the look” is often easier then speaking in Spanish), quite quickly he replied “No it’s just a water gun…I’m shooting water at them”. I guess that acceptable…right?

These kids are little bursts of laughter waiting to happen. I know I will miss them an incredible amount. But I was a little encouraged my something lately.

When I first came to El Salvador little boy named Jorge in the Kinder class gave me a VERY hard time. He never listened to me and one time even hit me. As time past he started to respect me as an authority figure and we bonded. So in the new year I was really excited to see Jorge again and all the other kids I had grown to love. But Jorge left to go to a different school and I thought I would never see him again. Jorge is back!! He missed El Centro Infantil and wanted to finish the year with us. I never expected to see Jorge again but I did.

As the days get fewer and fewer before I leave I do not want to have the same attitude as I had when Jorge switched schools. Seem’s silly to be upset about something you have no control over. I had no control over weather I would ever see Jorge again or not. Only the Lord knows my future regarding all my little friends in the daycare, in Perquín and Guatemala. It may be harder then it sounds…but I am going to try not to be sad or worried about the friendships I have formed here and leave it in God’s hands.

If you really did read all that… felicidades! Thanks for all your support and prayers this year!  

Su amiga,

Bekah

An overdo update!

I am so sorry…. Where did the time go?

 I was told it might happen, but thought I would never be the kind of person to leave my friends and family in the dark for months. What could be a legitimate excuse for something like that?  But sure enough it has been what… three months? Allow me explain my absence with a metaphor because those are fun.

I have an abundance of awesome people in my life two of which just came and left Central America.  Hannah and Rachel who I met at University lived my life in Perquín for a week then we did a little traveling in Guatemala.

On the boat for Atitlan!  

Hannah is one smart cookie and decided to bring her slack line, which was a huge hit! For those of you who might not know what a slack line is I will explain. It is essentially a long belt tied around two objects and then tightened to the point that you can walk on top of it…IF you have a good sense of balance. I do not and will often trip over absolutely nothing. It’s almost as if tiny invisible people are trying to make my life miserable. I tried to slack line but found myself continually falling to one side or the other.

The slack line was as big of a hit in Guatemala as it was in Perquiín

So the metaphor is this.  Walking on that line was impossible for me and when I knew I was going to fall I needed to quickly choose which side.  At the beginning of my SALT journey, similar to trying to walk on a belt, I tried to balance home life and Perquín. It was an exhausting and impossible effort. You cannot be in two places at once and I found when I failed to balance the two I fell on the side more familiar to me.  Calling home, writing letters, looking at pictures, BLOGGING, there was nothing wrong with it at the time other then I was not truly present in Perquín and that was where I needed to be!

 

I actually have no proof of me trying to slack line although I am sure it's not hard for any of you to believe I can't do it. But here is me helping little Franklin. 

 But there has been a shift and I have found myself more content on the Perquín side of the slackline. When I am upset I have people here in Perquín I can describe my frustrations to, when I want to talk there’s always someone there, and when I am bored looking for something to do it does not take me long to fill up my time. I feel at home and comfortable with my host family and coworkers. I have become less dependent on familiar things that remind me of Canada and have become more present and engaged in Perquín life.

My birthday came and went. My companeros through me a surprise party! Were missing a few people in this picture but the cake is there. It was a pretty beautiful cake. 

The journey to get to this point was hard and at times lonely.  Leaving everything you know for a year is a challenging but incredibly rewarding and enriching experience. Having made it to the homestretch and looking back on my journey and how it has enhanced my life, spiritually, educationally, mentally, etc., I would most certainly encourage anyone to highly consider a long-term mission.

Seeing Hannah and Rach have many of the same frustrations as I had when I first arrived in Perquín made me realize just how much I have learned this year. And what beautiful friends I have!

SO here are some of the cool things that have been happening in Perquín

I AM HELPFUL!

Technically I have always been helpful in one way or another. Drawings for the kids NEED to be drawn and homework NEEDS to be assigned. I have definitely seen that over the year I have gotten faster at my work, and am able to enforce rules, which takes a little pressure of the teachers. One of the teachers was unable to come to El Centro for a whole week and I took over her class. I taught the class lessons, prepared material, lead stories, ect. It was a bit of an epiphany for me on how far I have come since October. I arrived a stranger who did not know a thing. Since October I have found a place in El Centro and feel needed and loved.

Daily duties… giving the children there leche. 

I can make jokes!!

I did not take me long to accept that I would NOT be leaving Perquín fluent in Spanish.  I struggled and continue to struggle with the fact that I feel like such a different person in this language. I can’t seem to express a lot of things I want to in the moment. In result I am not a very funny person and with my look of concentration while trying to understand things I can be perceived as quite serious. “Poco a poco” or “little by little” is what I am constantly told. I can’t say every thought that comes into my head nor understand every part of a conversation but I have come to a point where I feel my personality is starting to shine through the cracks of the ceramic pot labeled language barrier.

 One night Mitchel and Ronald were showing me pictures from Semmana Santa when we came upon a picture of a cow. I said oh look what a nice picture of Ronald to which he replied “that’s not me it’s my brother” “and as quick as I would in English I said “Ronald why didn’t you tell me you have a twin brother”. It is that sort of back and forth interaction that I miss in my own language. So when it happens in Spanish it’s a great encouragement.

 

One of the funniest things I can say is when Michel asks me what I ate for lunch and I reply…food obviously.  We always get a kick out of that one. But this is likely what I ate…a typical meal of platanos with frijoles liquado. 

I make decisions!

There comes a point where you become less dependent on your host families plans and have actual invitations to do things. I must say for the first 4 months I never thought I would get to a point where I was not following my host family around like a lost puppy. But sure enough I no longer count on the plans of my host family to fill up my time.

 Life in Perquín is still not without its challenges… although can life exist without challenges? God has given me strength to overcome the hurdles of the adjustment period, and will not leave me now that things have gotten easier. It is incredible to look back and see him working through the highs and lows, through the experience’s I have had, and the people I have met this past year. We have a pretty awesome God don’t you agree?

After working with these little bundles of joy for nearly 8 months I must say I agree….