Thursday, March 31, 2011

Music to My Ears

The honest truth I'm finding is that educational success on any level for children of all ages in an orphanage is as easy to come by as actually finding the Lucky Charms pot of gold underneath a rainbow in real life. Most are not on grade level, can't read, don't know basic math and have no motivation to work hard to improve.

Thus, the idea of reading for fun isn't usually present. So I decided to try something with my boys ages 8 to 12 who I take care of every Monday and for the past 2 weeks it's worked like a charm (no pun intended).

I sat them all down and told them that when I was their age, my mom used to make me and my siblings read everyday for one hour. The TV had to go off, no video games and you had no choice - you went to your room and you read for one hour whatever book you wanted. I went on to tell them that success in school begins with reading because if you can read well then you can do everything else well. Later you can go to high school and college but if you don't learn to read well - you'll never make it to high school and likely won't make very much money to support your family. (They don't know it yet but for an orphan, without any family to support them and help them arrive at a good job in this country or pay for high school tuition - the future doesn't look too bright.)

So when I said, "one hour" they all about jumped out the window. I'm going to work my way up to that length of time. For now it's just 15 minutes. They each pick a book from my bag, sit on their bed and read out loud till I say that 15 minutes is up. When that's done, I let them take turns playing my N64 for about 2 hours. Those boys would try to walk across the room on their hands to play my N64.

But hearing ten little boys reading out loud and giggling at what they are reading in their Captain Underpants books is honestly music to my ears. I love it.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Can't Escape Reality

My heart hurts just thinking about this and writing it down makes it more in my face.... but it is what it is so I'm going to share it so you can pray for my kids.

Yesterday, like every Tuesday, I was in charge of the youngest boys' dorm at Douglas. Things were going fine - the boys were crazy, it was like 100 degrees outside, no one took a nap until 3 year old David literally fell asleep after his bath on top of a bike in the middle of the living room at about 6 pm (early bedtime? I think so), homework was a struggle, same old same old. But then one of the workers at Douglas tells me about what happened in pre-school that day...

One of my 4 year old boys had attacked a little girl in his class and hit her and threw a chair at her. So I called this little 4 year old boy over to talk about his behavior. I was ready to talk about it and then put him in time-out for a good while (maybe 10 minutes which is like an eternity in a 4 year old's mind). So we started talking about it. He decided to just sit in my lap for the conversation which made me giggle almost because he knew he was in trouble but wasn't about to avoid me. He starts by telling me that the girl was saying bad things so he hit her. So I started talking about how we don't hit girls and when we are angry at someone we need to stop and breathe for a minute and go tell the teacher what the other kid did before attacking them because that only gets you in trouble. And then this Douglas worker told me what the little 4 year old said to him that made him so angry - the little girl told all the "orphanage boys" in her class that they had to sit at the table for the kids from "the orphanage" and that they couldn't sit with the "normal" kids. So naturally, my kid defended himself. Just hearing it made me furious. And so now I'm livid and supposed to tell my kid that it doesn't matter what others say to you - you aren't allowed to punch and hit people or bite people or throw chairs at them. I told him to tell her that he has a mom (even though he only sees her for like an hour or two on Sundays) and that if she says anything nasty again like that to tell the teacher to help you because she is saying ugly things.

Apparently this has been going on for some time now and it's not just this little girl. The kids in their class call them the "orphan kids" from "the orphanage" and make fun of them. I shouldn't be shocked or surprised. They do live in an orphanage. But I've met their mothers. For crying out loud - most days I feel like their mother. They are 4 year olds! And yet this is their reality and other kids rub it in to make it worse. I wont' be encouraging my kids to throw chairs at anyone but when I heard the whole story I was actually proud of my kid for putting that 4 year old girl in her place. Is that wrong? I didn't tell him that though.

Pray for my pre-schoolers and that kids at school would stop making fun of the orphan.

Friday, March 25, 2011

My 15 year old scissors

I had a good chuckle this past week in the palapa at Casa Hogar Douglas. I was cutting hair with my sweet $20 hair clippers from walmart for whatever boys needed a hair cut. Since this past summer, my hair cutting skills have gone from like a D+ to more like a B-. What is "cool" here in Mexico to a little boy is a little different than in the states and I'm conforming to this culture despite my distaste for the style. Between Monday and Tuesday I gave 7 boys between the ages of 4 and 13 a haircut and each one was rather different - partly because they wanted different looks and partly because I was experimenting in my methods.

At one point, I decided to shave the sides with my electric clippers and trim the top with just my scissors to keep it a little longer on top and not look so "bald" or "pelon" as they say in spanish. And I started laughing when I realized that my children's scissors that I was using to cut this sweet child's hair were the school scissors that I've had since perhaps 4th grade. My mom never let us buy new school supplies every year because it was a waste of resources if you could just use the same ones over again. Mom - those $1.50 scissors have gone a long way. Some 15 years later they are serving to give orphan boys a hair cut. And believe it or not - after seeing my finished products - there is a line forming from others who think I know what I'm doing.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Magic Words

This past summer when I lived at Casa Hogar Douglas and was in charge of the 14 youngest boys there - bedtime was pretty much my daily nightmare. At that point in the day, I had been up trying to maintain my sanity and the safety of 14 boys for about 14 hours. I didn't speak enough spanish and I didn't have control. I was not at all intimidating to the boys. Thus, Betty - another B2B staff member who happens to be Mexican and fluent in spanish would usually arrive right at bedtime and tell my boys to get in bed and go to sleep. She was always so good at it and I was always incredibly thankful for her help because sometimes I would try to fall asleep on the floor right along with the boys from my own exhaustion.

These days things are different. They split up some of my boys and sent the 4 oldest upstairs to another dorm which only left 10 downstairs in the youngest dorm. There is a HUGE difference between 14 and 10. I don't live there all the time anymore. Now I come on Mondays to cover for the workers of the medium boys - ages 8 to 12. And on Tuesdays I cover for the workers in the youngest boys dorm - ages 3 to 8 - so that those workers can take a day off. This past summer - I had a lot of help in this - some incredible interns were right alongside me - laughing at the silly things the boys would do and crying right along with me when we had lost control and couldn't take it anymore.

But now I fly solo. If you had told me this summer that one day I would take care of all those boys by myself for 12 to 15 solid hours - I would have told you, "not in a million years." I've been reminded every single week since then that God doesn't call the equipped. God equips the called. And that is exactly what He has done. He is transforming me every week into someone who: speaks Spanish, has patience, loves children, multitasks professionally, disciplines, establishes boundaries, and can put 10 little boys to sleep in spanish all by herself. THAT'S NUTS!! But God is doing it.

At bedtime, I now have some "magic words." I've started pulling them aside one at a time to put them to bed individually instead of all at once. They are pretty much never treated like individuals so I decided to give this a try. And it's working beautifully. I pick them up one at time from the couch and we read a story, brush our teeth, go to the potty, and then I pray over them individually and thank god for creating them and making them so perfect and beautiful and intelligent and we ask god to give them good dreams and then I pull out my magic words... I tell them the honest truth which is that I love them so much and that my favorite day of the week is the day that I get to take care of them and be with them all day. I hug them and kiss their little faces and you can see it in their eyes - they just melt when they hear that. But it's the truth. Their little hearts melt and they feel loved and wanted and they close their eyes and go to sleep literally smiling - without fighting me - without protesting - without trying to get out of bed. It's beautiful.