Mellow Days & My Birthday

I actually had to go to my blog to figure out when I last updated.  Sheesh!  It's been a while!  Sorry about that.  Our internet has been less than stellar the last week or so.  The last two nights we've lost connection before 7 p.m..  

Anyway, so what have I been up to?  I've been enjoying some quite time and soaking up the love of the children and the sunshine of La Misíon.  Oh, yeah, and I've been working on my Spanish lessons.  I feel like I've learned a lot, yet I'm not sure I could carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation.  Communication is frustrating, but getting better and easier!  At least I'm working towards my goal (for those of you that don't know, I set a few simple goals for myself and this journey...one of them was to learn Spanish sufficiently to communicate.  I'd like to be fluent, but I'm not sure 6 months will enable that, as I leave South America -- assuming I make it that far -- around March 2013).

So, I showed my FB family a pic of my quiet place.  I spent Thursday and Friday morning there while working on my Spanish lessons, working on my book, chatting with people back home and other fun stuff.  I'll share that place with you too.  It's so peaceful (until the kids get back from school)...and right next to the coffee.  :)

Those two days gave me lots of time to reflect.  I've been doing a lot of sorting and filing information and emotions in my brain.  I can't say I've figured anything out per se, but I've certainly been thinking.  Back home, there was little time for quiet time.  I know, I know, "normal" people find time for quiet time in America, but I haven't really known how to do that.  I'm not sure if it previously made me uncomfortable, or if I just never made time for it.  I can tell you, however, that I manage to find tons of that time down here.  Life is slower here, which helps, but I also don't have a lot of the normal distractions.  I haven't watched TV or a movie since I left (although I can't say that I was much of a TV addict to begin with).  I am reading two books (Lead Like Jesus, which I've told you about, and The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner), writing my blog, learning Spanish, taking pictures and working on my book.  There is no way I would've had time for that in my old life...or maybe I didn't make time.  Whatever the culprit, I didn't do that sort of stuff until now.

Thursday was Kay's birthday.  That night, Michael and I took her to Ensenada, along the coast for a beautiful shoreline  sunset...we went out for Starbucks and McDonald's in Ensenada.  Don't laugh.  That's what she wanted!  She was happy as could be!

Friday was more of the same around the orphanage and more time for reflection and book writing.  [BTW, I really hope that this book turns out ok.  I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm mostly just writing.  That's why God made editors, right?  To help pull it all together.  God, I hope that's right!].

Jarilyn, Kay and I went to Felicia and Charlie's place Friday morning.  Felicia's birthday was Thursday, but we couldn't get over there on Thursday because Jarilyn was in the States.  Anyway, we brought Felicia some food, a present from Jarilyn and Sarah and some vegetables for Felicia's garden.  I even managed to get a picture of Felicia in front of her "waterfall."

Aaaaaaand, drumroll please.....Saturday was my birthday!!!  LOL.  I know it seems a little lame to be excited by a birthday at my age, but I still love it!  It's nice to have a day full of well wishes, hugs, smiles and a reason to celebrate.  Before I left America, I was a little sad that I would be spending my birthday "alone," without my family and friends.  I was, to be honest, a little worried that it would suck.  Well, I am happy to report that my birthday this year was, quite possibly, one of the best I've had.  At least it was one of the most memorable and it was happy and never something I will regret.

Ana, the one who went veggie picking with us, greeted me at my door with a happy birthday wish and a hug.  What a great start to my day!  At breakfast, DJ announced that it was my birthday.  All the kids sang to me.  I was perfectly touching.  Having over a 100 children sing to you is somehow precious in its own right.  After the song, many of the children came up to give me hugs and personal birthday wishes.  I was able to FaceTime with my brother for a while (he got to meet several of the children), which was a great treat!  Then I had to run off to get ready!  Get ready for what, you ask?

Every year, twice a year, some rich American comes down here and throws a party for the orphans.  This year one of those times fell on my birthday!  The American rents out a local resort (well, the beach and pool area) for DoFo and two or three other orphanages in the area.  There are swimming pools, bouncy houses, music, tons of food, horseback riding and paragliding! 

So, yesterday, all of us traveled the couple miles to the resort and had a day of frolicking in the gorgeous sun and sand!  I went horseback riding for the first time in probably two decades!  That was fun.  Well, it was amusing.  Well, it was amusing until Miguel thought it was funny to click his cheek to spur my horse into a gallop!  That freaked me out a bit, but I got it under control.  Only to have Miguel sneak up on us again and spur on my horse again!  It was a bit scary at the time, but I look back and laugh.  Good times.  

Cesar embraced the Mexican tradition of throwing birthday people into the pool...and away I went, flip flops and all!  Fortunately Marina and Conchita (two of the dorm moms at the orphanage) had warned me the day before, so I was prepared with my swimsuit on underneath my clothes.  Cesar was pretty afraid that I'd get even, but it actually felt good.  Besides, you can't really get mad at a tradition, right?!  This is Cesar:

What fun and what a great way to celebrate!  Couldn't have asked for much more!  At the end of the fiesta, everyone sang happy birthday to me, Kay and a few other people who had birthdays this past week.

After we got back to the orphanage and relaxed a bit, Kay, Jarilyn and Kylie took me out for a nice dinner at an Italian joint in Rosarito. It was GREAT!  We sat outside on the greatest patio that was draped in lights.  They had a fun band singing some American classics who also sang me a happy birthday (in English).

I came home and went straight to bed!  That was nice.  It was my birthday, and I wanted to sleep.  So I did. :)

This morning brought about a new day and a new sunrise.  :)  Kylie and I picked up Felicia and Charlie again!  Yay!  Glad they decided to come to church with us again.  It was a great service.  :)  After church and lunch, we had the dedication for the new dorm for the little boys!  It's done and they are all moved in!  Yay!  It's so perfect too.  There is a little door that they can use, miniature bunk beds and lots of color!  I would totally live there if I was under three feet tall!!

 Well, off to another adventure!

September 25th and 26th

Not much has happened around here the last couple days. Kylie and I got a new roommate for a week.  Her name is Kay.  She's from Fresno, but originally from Louisiana.  Her being an LSU fan and me being a Duck have generated some interesting conversations.  LOL.  Oh, wait, AND, although she's not a die hard football fan, she roots for the Saints...and of course I am a Falcons fanatic.  Also interesting.

Yesterday was fairly uneventful but gave me lots of time to write.  I love writing.  It is so relaxing for me to put thoughts to paper.  In some cases, it's like micro-therapy...like I'm talking to someone else about all the thoughts swirling around in my head.  It's almost like I'm forced to pin down my thoughts and stop the swirling.

I played with the kids on the merry-go-round again for a bit yesterday.  Always a good time.  :)  I think at one point there were at least 12-15 of them on it, all screaming for me to push it faster and faster.

We got some more of those forms filled out that I mentioned in one of my earlier posts...the forms that explain their current age, likes and dislikes.

The kids seem to be latching onto me a little more lately.  Makes sense...I've been here longer.  Today, Karem wanted to be held and held and held, both this morning when I saw her and after lunch.  She is just adorable.  I just realized that she is here all by herself.  Most of the kids have siblings here and about a handful of them have no siblings here.  Karem is one of that handful.  :(  I bet this place can feel a little more lonely when you have no "real" siblings here.

Tonight was Gringo night.  Pizza night!  We all brought various toppings and made our own miniature pizzas.  So fun!  GREAT meal!  Such a nice treat after a week of beans and rice.  :)

Able to upload this because I'm at DJ and Lynette's and using their WiFi during Gringo Night!  LOL.

The Last Three Days

It is currently Tuesday, September 25th. I haven't posted in a few days because of internet problems, so I think I have to update you on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Saturday was a day of real excitement around here!  Most of the older kids participated in a soccer (football, as it's called down here) tournament in Ensenada.  Ensenada is about 45 minutes south of here.  It's a fairly big city of about 300,000 people and sits on the Pacific Ocean.  There are surrounding hills from which one can get a good view of the sprawling city.

While in Ensenada, we had some errands to run for the orphanage so I didn't get to watch much of the soccer tournament.  I was able to chat with some of the kids during one of their breaks.  You may notice that the the backs of their jerseys say "Puerta de Fe," which translates to "Door of Faith."

The tournament started at 10 a.m. and finished about 3 or 4 p.m.  The orphanage had several teams playing in the tournament.  In order to play, the teams had already beat out several other teams from the local area!  Very cool.  We took four vans and about 70  people to the tournament (don't ask how we fit that many people).  Our teen boys came in 3rd place and our teen girls won the tournament in their age bracket!!!  So very cool for these kids!  Depending upon the rest of the tournaments throughout the country, our girls could end up playing in another tournament and eventually move on up soccer ladder to the national championships!  (I think I have that right).  Unfortunately, Saturday's win doesn't ensure that the girls will actually make it to the next level.  Apparently they compare the other teams not based solely upon wins, but upon overall score.  So, if another team that won a tournament scored more goals, they would be the one to go to the next level.  Seems weird to me, but I guess that's the way they do it.

Our MVP:

The girl champs:

The excited girls on the way home practically screamed the entire trip (which was a bit of a fiasco in its own right):

We got back from Ensenada around 6 or 6:30 pm.  What an exhausting day!  After some dinner and an attempt to get on the internet (unsuccessful), I decided to head to bed and catch up on my sleep.  Getting up Friday at 4:15 a.m. and then Saturday at 6:30 a.m. took its toll on me.
Sunday we had church again.  Once again, Kylie and I picked up Felicia and Charlie  The service was great!  This time, DJ translated the entire service into English, so that certainly helped.  After the service, we took Felicia and Charlie home.

On the way home, they told us about their struggle to collect the money they are owed from the sale of their last house.  They apparently paid about $1,200 for wood to construct their old house.  They agreed to sell it to another family, payable over time for a total of $300!  Can you imagine selling your house for $300?!?!?!  Sadly and unfairly, the family isn't paying as they're supposed to pay.  So far, Felicia and Charlie have only received $56 for their house.  Remember, these are people that need every spare bit of change.  So sad!  I wish there was a way to intercede and help them get their money, but I just don't know how.  It's a tragic tale for a couple who are new to God; I know their faith is shaken.  How could God let this happen to them?  I am reminded that God doesn't always give us what we want, but what we need.  I suspect that what Felicia, in particular, needs is not necessarily money (which sounds strange given how poor she is).  She's very angry that the other family isn't paying and has threatened to burn the house down if they don't pay.  When I suggested that she couldn't do that, her response was, "Why not?  It's our wood!"  I pray that whatever lesson The Lord is teaching her is one that she can understand.  No one should go through life that angry.  What's worse is that I have a hard time being around those types of people and could offer no comfort to either Felicia or Charlie.  For the girl who seems to always have something to say, I was rather quiet.  I know that part of my silence is to avoid having her anger directed at me.  I've learned that lesson!   But I don't know how to help and it's frustrating!!!  I know there's a lesson in there for me too and I pray that it is revealed soon.

When we dropped of Felicia and Charlie, they said that they may not go to church anymore.  When we asked why, the indicated that there is a group that brings a bible study much closer to their home.  I hope that's true and that they don't stop going because they're angry with God or the church.  At least this time I remembered to get a picture of their "waterfall":

After church, it was sort of a lazy day around the orphanage.  I was able to get a lot of work done on my book.  (For those that don't know, I'm writing a book about my journey and the process of self-discovery I'm going through.  Because I have a blog and the book, there's a lot of the in-depth stuff that I don't include in my blog.  I'm sure you understand.  :)  Anyway, at least I got some writing done during the internet down time).

Monday brought a pretty incredible day for me and the orphanage!  Jarilyn and I took a couple people to a small town called Bonfil about 2.5 hours from here.  The drive was absolutely beautiful.  Jarilyn and I question whether the hills/mountains are, in fact, hills or mountains.  (Some of you won't be too surprised to learn that I googled it today because it was bugging me.  Did you know that the U.S. and England both used to consider that anything over 1,000 feet as a mountain and they dropped the hard and fast measurement about 60-70 years ago?).

One of the women we took to Bonfil is a cook here named Ellie (sp?).  Her brother (Eric) and sister-in-law (Esperanza) work on a farm in Bonfil that was willing to donate some vegetables to the orphanage, so we packed up and headed out for a day of farming.  What fun!  Now, I know I couldn't do it for a living, but it was tons of fun!

At the first farm, we picked zucchini for about 20-30 minutes.  They let us have that zucchini and then some.  Afterwards we drove to another farm and convinced the farmer to let us pick some of his crops.  We got two kinds of peppers/chilies, tomatoes and tomatillos.  It was a good thing we went that day because the farmer was actually getting ready to cut down the rest of the plants, as harvest is over.

After our afternoon in the fields, we went back to Eric and Esperanza's house and picked some pears, pomegranates, figs and some other weird fruit that doesn't appear to have an English translation.

We also visited Ellie's grandmother (who must be in her 90s) and Esperanza's parents.  I got to see a bit of Bonfil and experience a little life there.  Wow.  Just wow.  What a great lesson in humility and thanks.  The pictures don't do this place much justice and can't impart to you the overwhelming sense of community and care of the place.

I'll give you an example, there are 35 families in Bonfil.  They have all agreed to put in 10 pesos for 6 years.  Every two months, they draw a family's name from their list and that family gets the pesos collected in those two months for a project on their home (either a new home or a remodel) and the whole community of families must help with the construction.  Once a family's name is drawn, they cannot receive again and they must continue to put their pesos in for the other families.  Now THAT'S community.

Some of the people dry their chillies on their roofs:

Below is Esperanza and Eric's kitchen.  As you can see, it is quite simple, but perfectly sufficient.  The walls are made of plywood and plastered on the outside.  There are no frills, just necessity.  When things fall into disrepair, they fix it with whatever is available.

It's this sort of humble life that angers me a little bit about complaining people.  No, now that I think of it, it makes me really angry.  I realize life is different in the States, but most people I know have no idea what poor really means.  Most people I know have no idea that when they're complaining about the fact that they can't afford a nicer place to live, this is the epitome of the right to complain (and I realize that I will travel to other places that will have even less than the people here).

On the drive home, we passed a military checkpoint.  It's part of Mexico's war on drug-related crimes.  I thought this sign was so funy that I just have to share it.  It took us a while to figure out what they were saying.  How many misspellings and weird translations can you find?  ;)

Well, I'm off!  Hopefully I'll be able to load another update tonight or tomorrow!

Friday - Crazy busy day

Is it really possible to feel so inspired and completely powerless all at the same time when you're supposed to be there to help?  Answer: yep.  Today goes down in the history books as one of those days that handed me just about every kind of spiritual and emotional teeter-totter one person could experience in less than 12 hours.

4:15 a.m. comes pretty darn early, especially when you're not used to it.  I'm not used to it.  Even getting up at 7:15 every day since I got here has seemed early, but subtract three hours and it's like I'm the bad guy in some zombie movie.  God did not program me to be a morning person.  Try as I might, mornings are just not my thing.  I've certainly gotten better since being here, but I don't even think 4:15 qualifies as morning.  I'm pretty sure that's still nighttime.  Yep.  Pretty sure.  It is in my world, anyway.

I digress.  So another missionary (Rusty) picked me up at 5:15 a.m. (hence the 4:15 a.m. shrieking, jarring, make-me-want-to-hit-something alarm) to head to The Breakfast Club (which is in Tijuana -- about an hour from here).  The Breakfast Club is a church in a former garbage dump that feeds the people (particularly the kids) who live in the dump.  Sounds unreal, huh?  OK, I'll give you a little background.  For years, the Mexican government disposed of its trash in an area of Tijuana.  Several years ago, people starting going to the dump to salvage the trash and sell it to earn money.  Eventually, the people started building their homes ON the trash because of the cost to travel to and from the dump to "harvest" their "crop."  The site ceased to be a dump about two years ago.  I'm told that now the inhabitants have to travel to the new dump site to collect things to sell.  The new dumpsite is a car ride away (many do not have reliable transportation or any at all) and there is a man or someone there who charges for people to enter the new dump and bring things out.  So, now these poor people have to pay to get to the new dump, pay to enter the dump, rummage through trash hoping to find something to sell, pay to exit the dump and pay to travel back home.  It feels so defeating to witness such poverty.  Our best guess is that these families somehow live on roughly $20-$40/week (roughly $257-$515 pesos under today's exchange rates).  Granted, things are cheaper than in America, but still!  That's nothing!

So there are these families, some of which have 3, 4, 5 or more children, living on top of rubbish.  Last year, during a rain storm, one of the families' houses washed away.  They use whatever they can find to construct a house.  Their retaining walls are made of tires.  Their walls are frequently several pieces of board haphazardly nailed together.  Their roofs are not shingled or anything of the sort...they are typically covered with blue tarps.  In fact, blue tarps are the hot commodity in the dump.

At the Breakfast Club, which is run out of a church and staffed by volunteers, they feed anywhere from 100-250 people each morning (I think those numbers are about right).  They do it to ensure that the children get a hot meal each day.  The adults are kind of secondary -- the focus is making sure the kids get a good meal.  The doors open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 9:00 a.m.  People trickle in throughout that time period.  The kids are frequently dressed and ready for school...the kids that go to school anyway.

The children are generally filthy.  Many are living in homes that we would call storage sheds with many siblings, without three meals a day.  To make matters worse, there are these little mini marts in the dump (they are frequently in a shack not much bigger than an outhouse) that sell nothing but candy, soda and other foods completely devoid of all nutritional value.  Many of the kids have teeth problems at a very early age.  Some aren't able to go to school because their parents can't afford the uniform or the school supplies.  In Mexico, every child must have a uniform (and it can't be last year's uniform) and the correct school supplies.  No uniform = no school.  No school supplies = no school.

There are dogs everywhere and most of them don't look too good.  Most of them have something called mange (sp?) and they bite at themselves until they have no fur.  It's a huge problem down here and it breaks my heart as much as the impoverished children.  They hang around looking for scraps and from what I could tell aren't very successful scroungers.

Today, a portion of one of the DoFo groups went up to the Breakfast Club to help prepare and serve the meal.  There were quite a few of them, so there wasn't much for me to do but observe and interact with the people.  I'm OK with that.  Meeting the people and talking to them is reward in and of itself.  Oh, before I forget to mention it: some of the people living in the dump have become so moved by the generosity of the volunteers that they have started volunteering at the Breakfast Club.  Thus, there are locals volunteering their time to feed their own people.  IMHO, just an example of God's work at its finest.  Here are these people that have nothing, and yet they want to give back too.  Their time is all they can offer, so they do it freely and graciously.  

Watching all of this made me feel proud to be a part of it, and completely and utterly powerless to change the cards in life that these kids are dealt.  I saw a group of teenagers there who each appeared to be up to no good in the grand scheme of life. As one person put it, "they would rather be somebody in a place like this than to get out and be a nobody in the big world."  So sad. 

After the Breakfast Club, Rusty and I went to "The Blue Tarp School" or Dave Lynch's School.  David Lynch was a school teacher in Long Island who moved to the Tijuana dumps and began teaching over three decades ago.  There was no building for a school.  Dave draped a blue tarp over the trash and began teaching the children of the dump.  Now there is a school and a community center.  

This is the school:

One of the gentlemen I met at Gringo Night is currently in charge of the community center and kindergarden school (if I understand everything correctly).  The community center prepares lunches for the kindergarden children four days a week; some of the volunteers are mothers of the children.  

Here are two of the women I met today.  The one on the left has three children; the one on the right has five, including that baby she's holding.  

Ironically, or perhaps the better word is divinely, I was standing outside the community center waiting for my ride, asking God to show me how I could help these people, when Rusty came out trailed by these two women.  Rusty said, "well Heather, we get to do some real work.  We have to run to the store because she needs diapers and milk."  So, seven of us (me, Rusty, the two women, the baby, one of the daughters and another kid) climbed into a mid-sized SUV and off we went to the store.  Rusty and I split the tab (or at least we each chipped in...I'm not sure that I gave enough) for diapers, two baby bottles, some baby formula and some baby wipes.  I was thankful to be able to help.  Sadly, it only leaves me wishing there is more I can do.  Even if I gave them all of my money, it wouldn't be enough to break the horrible cycle.

The community center has a computer room for the community to use...take a look at those old computers...yet the people are grateful.

There is a library of sort for the kids.  They don't have very many books, but they are working on it.  At least some volunteers have been helping to make the community center more vibrant, workable and usable.

Rusty and I finished and were back in La Misíon around 1 p.m.  It was really an amazing day!  So gut-wrenching and so rewarding to be a part of it all.  I am going back to the Breakfast Club again before I leave.

This is just a summary of a portion of my giving today, but there is so much more.  I had heartfelt, fascinating and rewarding conversations with Rusty.  I once again felt the miraculousness of the vast ocean stretching along the coastline on my drive back to the orphanage.  I had great local tacos at a taco stand in Rosarito.  I came back to the orphanage and got to hang with the kids here for a bit and get some hugs.

Despite the heartbreak and poverty, there's not one moment of today that I would change.  I thank God for showing this to me and allowing it to move me in ways that only He can do.