Remember the Big Picture

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10/25/10

So, I guess I haven’t written anything since before we went on our volunteer retreat last week. We really enjoyed it! It really helped me to take a step back and think about our experiences here so far. One of the questions we had to reflect on was, “Why did you come to volunteer at NPH Guatemala?”

It sounds simple enough, but honestly for several weeks I’d just been going to work every day thinking: “I have to do this and then this and that and …” … and in that mindset I forgot the big picture.

After we got home (yes, I am calling NPH home now; I noticed that the other week. It’s a bit strange to think of it as home but for now it is … I’ve been here for almost four months which is craziness. And what a difference between now and how homesick I was at first …) from the retreat I wrote myself a note that says: “Don’t forget the big picture: you’re here to spend time with the kids and experience Guatemalan culture.” (Except the note is in Spanish.)

Thinking about that has been helpful. I haven’t been stressing out about little things as much, even though I do have more work to do (right now I’m working with 15 kids – they want me to evaluate 9 more. Final reports on each child are due soon and I want to add 5 more kids to my schedule) which I’m grateful for. Remembering that I’m here to spend time with the kids is really beneficial – it’s easy to get caught up thinking about yourself all the time. And it’s cool to feel like a part of something bigger.

So, why did I come to Guatemala?

I wanted to help children and have an intercultural experience. One of my life goals is to work with children, because they make me happy and I love to help them. And, I love speaking Spanish. Other cultures fascinate me, especially Latin American ones. Something I really like about living here is that life is simpler. I’m not running around to a zillion activities every day and studying all night. We have time to breathe. And just … be.

So, here I am!

We also had to write about one thing that we enjoy about our job. For me this is tiempo individual – individual time with the kids. One of the reasons I want to be a speech-language pathologist is so that I can work one-on-one with kids, and I am getting to do just that! And it’s especially cool to do that here at NPH, because the kids barely get any individual attention. The home is wonderful, but there are so many children that they can’t possibly all have individual attention. So, I really love getting to spend time with kids and being able to see them as individuals.

My supervisor Veronica also came with us on the volunteer retreat. She was one of the leaders. I was really happy she came because it was nice to get to know her outside of work. Before working as the head of the Psychology department, she was the speech pathologist here at NPH! Actually she started the program because it didn’t exist before she came. Veronica lives in Jocotenango, which is a nice-looking town about 20 minutes away from NPH.

On the Thursday night of the retreat, a bunch of us went out for drinks. Veronica came too! It was a lot of fun. Of course, I really wanted to dance and no one else did. But finally Cassie came and danced with me. Then we started a dance party because everyone else came and danced too!

10/26/10

One thing that makes me really happy is the progress of one of my kids Alberto (not his real name). He has autism and doesn’t use many words. One of his goals is to say “Hola” when he sees another person. So, whenever we walk to and from therapy, I always prompt him – “Diga ‘hola’” when we walk past someone else.

My friend Katie told me the other day that Alberto came up to her and said, “Hola,”!!!!! I was so excited that he did it when I wasn’t even there. That means that he’s learning!! Little successes like that are so exciting.

Then today we had a carnival for the kids called Kermes. Alberto came up to me and said, “Hola.”!!!!!!! Then I gave him a piggyback ride and it was adorable.

Last night, my roommates Josh, Ruth, Mike and I had my supervisor Veronica, the volunteer coordinator Erika, and her husband Sandro over for dinner. (Side note: I LOVE my roommates! They’re so much fun and down to earth. We joke around all the time and they’re always so nice and understanding. Becoming friends with them and my friend Cassie has been really great, and made the NPH experience all the more better.) It was a lot of fun! Again, we got to see Veronica, Erika and Sandro outside of work. We each made a dish (I made a really good salad). Josh is a chef, so he made delicious steak and some brussel sprout side dish. Afterward we went outside for a bonfire, which was fun too.

10/27/10

Today we had a welcoming mass for the children who came back from Minnesota (kids in the orchestra went to stay with families in Minnesota and perform for three weeks). It was really sweet. I was happy because I really felt (for possibly the first time) a sense of family that NPH has here.

And I felt included in it! The best moment for me was when I saw Toni, one of the preschoolers that I work with. He leapt into my arms multiple times. He is so incredibly adorable. So is Pati, one of the older girls. I went over to say hi to her and Isabel, and Pati gave me the biggest hug.

Also, I really like my relationship with Isabel. We don’t have therapy together, but she’s in the section of kids that I visit twice a week. But we have a cool friendship. The weird thing is that she’s only a year younger than me – but her mental age is much younger. We talk and sing together when I walk to her house with her after dinner. She uses a walker (she has microcephaly, I think). We talk about our families and everything. Here, I usually don’t ask about the children’s families unless they bring it up. Some of them don’t have family, and others are here because their families can’t take care of them or abused them. But, Isabel told me that her mom died and her dad didn’t want to take care of her. (Also, many of the children with disabilities are here because their families can’t or don’t know how to care of them.)

On another note, one of the tías who used to work with the kids with Special Needs was fired last week – because I wrote a report about her. She was the one who I saw hit one of the children a few times. While this was a difficult situation, I felt so relieved after they told her to leave. The kids are much better off now.

Last week I also got to attend the graduation ceremony for Jose and Alis from Voces de Silencio, a school for the deaf. (They’re both going to start school again in January there.) You should check the school out at www.friendsofthedeaf.org. They’re a non-profit and looking for donations if you’re interested. The school is in Antigua and started in January with only two kids. Now they have 12!

The ceremony was really cool. They did sign language to a few songs, including the Guatemalan national anthem and Imagine (which was in English). I was so proud of them! This week I’m going to start working with Jose, because I feel like I know enough Guatemalan sign language. My supervisor Veronica is still giving us classes.

29/10/10

It is weird to think that Halloween is in two days and that for the first time I am not celebrating that – rather, Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). I’m really excited to see how they celebrate it here!

Also, I want to see more of Guatemala. What I do know, I like. But, the difficult part about working at NPH is that we also live at NPH. Sometimes, I don’t leave NPH for a few days. And it is it’s own community, much different from daily life in a Guatemalan pueblo. I feel like I am still unfamiliar with much of the country, and I want to explore more; there is so much to see! However, I am going to run out of money long before July, which presents a problem. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out some more and see some of the sights that I want to look at.

Last night we went to the festival of Mashimon in the nearby town of San Andres Itzapa. Mashimaon as a sacreligious “saint” (although maybe saint isn’t the correct word because Mashimon is not Catholic, and apparently not a Mayan god either) that Guatemalans invented so they could have someone to heal them and absolve their sins. Specifically, Mashimon absolves the sins of smoking and drinking. The statue has a pipe which people blow smoke into. (I thought it was a strange-looking statue.) He’s a man with black hair wearing a black suit – smoking a pipe and sitting on a chair. I was surprised that the statue was in a church (people say it’s witchcraft). The church was full of candles and there was a line out the door of people waiting to see him. I took a picture but it didn’t turn out because of the lighting.

Then we danced for awhile, which was really fun. Except one time we looked behind us on the dance floor and this woman had stripped down to only her BRA AND THONG in the middle of the dance floor. When I looked away to the other side, there was a group of about thirty men gawking (probably drooling) at this spectacle. Needless to say, we quickly moved away from that situation.

Today was the graduation for our kids! It was really special. The kids who graduated were so proud. They looked great in their caps and gowns. And the other children were really supportive of their friends. I found myself thinking back to my college graduation – although really recent, it also seems long ago and somewhat like a dream. My life here is a lot different from my life at Augustana College. Today I was talking to Jessie, one of my good high school friends, online. She’s teaching English in Mexico this year. “I’ve been here for two months and I feel like I’m still adjusting. Do you ever feel like that?” she asked me. “Definitely!” I answered. “I’ve been here for almost four months and still feel like that sometimes. Culture shock is like an emotional roller coaster.” And it really is.