Day 3

Today was a great day!  How do you like that opening?  Pretty exciting, huh?  Really pulls you in, right?  Well, maybe not, but it's the truth.  Today was a great day.  As simple as that.

I awoke this morning with a sense of purpose.  I am beginning to feel at peace with my decision to leave materiality behind and give back to humanity, the world and God.  I am saddened to think it took me this long to figure it all out...assuming that I've actually figured it out.  In any event, when my alarm went off today, I dozed in and out for a little while, until it hit me: I have something phenomenal to do today!  I get to help others and bask in the warmth of children's love!  Yay me!

The morning seemed a bit cold by my look outside, so I donned a pair of jeans and short sleeve shirt and grabbed a fleece just in case.  Well, I was wrong.  It was mugg-y!  I'm given to understand that it's fairly rare for it to be humid here, particularly at this time of year, so this surprised me.  In any event, I later changed into shorts and dropped the fleece.  The low clouds hung around the hillsides like a shroud of angel cotton.  So peaceful.  We caught a few breaks of blue sky today, but not a lot.

I participated in my first morning coffee with the rest of the volunteers today.  First of all, let me just say that morning coffee is at 8:00 a.m.  Any of you who know me well enough know that I am NOT a morning person.  You may have even had to "help" me out of bed in the morning, which is not a fun process.  I don't envy anyone who has had to wake me up for any reason.  In fact, I am aware that there is a certain group of you who basically have drawn straws to find out who gets the unlucky job of waking the Heather Beast.  LOL.  Anyway, I am happy to report that no one had to get me out of bed except me!  I was actually excited to start my day here!  What's worse, or possibly just symptomatic of the type of personal hell I was living in while practicing law, is that I haven't been this excited to wake up in a really, really long time.

At coffee, we sat around, shot the bull, drank some coffee (and let me tell ya, I was relieved to discover they have coffee every morning) and went over the day's duties.  DJ sort of presides over the meetings.  DJ and his wife, Lynette, are the American administrators (there are Mexican directors who are ultimately in charge, but DJ and Lynette handle most things, all the volunteers and other outreach services).  At the morning meeting today, we talked about things that need to get done, upcoming events, planning, website development, an upcoming trip to Chicago for one of the orphans with a rare brain tumor and other things.  I felt a little bit like a wall flower, but I contributed where I could.  Regardless, it feels nice to be part of something greater than myself.

After the meeting, Kylie, Michael and I cleaned out and inventoried the DoFo store.  DoFo takes pride in making sure that visitors know that the money made at the store goes directly back to the kids and orphanage.  This surprised me that they feel the need to clarify what seems to be such an obvious point.  Well, apparently it's not so obvious.  Apparently other orphanages pocket that money as their pay or something...like side money...that never goes back into the orphanage.  So weird!  Really?  Who "steals" from orphans?  The concept just seems so...no sé (I don't know)...wrong!

After that, a little break to check email and relax until the kids got back from school.  Oh!    Here are some interesting little differences between school in America and school down here.  First, the kindergardeners and grade schoolers go to school first.  Then the middle schoolers go a little later and finish a little later.  The high schoolers don't go to school until around noon.  Further, if any teacher doesn't show up, they just cancel school!  No substitutes.  How crazy is that?!  I can only imagine what kind of anarchy would occur if that were the case in America!!

After the kids got back and lunch was over, I spent some time bonding with some of the younger kids.  Emma came back up to me today.  Once again, she greeted me with "Mi amiga!"  I got hugs from Filipe, Jesus and Rosa too.  Raoul came to say hello again today too.  He's a sweet boy of about 6 or 7, and both he and Giovanni (a boy of about 10) help me with my Spanish.  I met Angelica, Karem, Angelina, Daniel, Valentine, Sandra, David and Julie today too.  Wow!  What love!  Sandra and Emma took turns braiding my hair.  For a while there, I had this really adorable (ahem...not!) spiky looking thing on top of my head that made me look like something of a cross between Alfalfa and a unicorn.  What's worse is that it actually hurt!  I don't know how many times Emma wrapped my hair tie around my little patch of bangs, but it was nearly impossible to get the darn thing out.  I kept saying ouch, but I think the little girls had very little sympathy.  Their hair, after all, was tightly braided and/or coiled and it looked a little painful.  I'm sure that inside those girls were thinking, "what a wussy gringo!"

This is Emma.  Remember, she's the one who yesterday called me "amiga" and wanted me to push her on the swing.  Today, she wanted to braid my hair.  She can be a bit of a handful, but she's mostly sweet and wants to play.

Meet Raoul.  Raoul speaks fairly good English and can definitely help us gringos.  :)

This is David.  He's a little prankster.

And this is Daniel. Daniel doesn't talk.  He tries to communicate with his hands.  The people here aren't really sure why, but they think he was abused before he came here.

Raoul claims that this puppy is his and that he named the puppy "Lucky."

Here is Emma braiding my hair, while Kylie looks on.

Meet Karem (like Karen, but the "r" is pronounced with as a "d").  She's a sweet girl and a bit of a squealer.  More aptly nicknamed, the shreeker.

This is little Angelica.  She is so sweet.  She just wants to cuddle and talk.  She's full of smiles.

And again, this is Karem.

The kids got pizza and ice cream for dinner tonight.  That doesn't sound like much, but to these kids it was like manna from Heaven.  A mini van pulled up and out hopped about 3-4 men.  They brought a pizza oven and set up shop to make pizzas for the kids.   I swear they must've made at least 100 pizzas.  There is a group of volunteers here from New Orleans and one of the things they wanted to do was to serve the pizza and ice cream and eat with the kids.  Us "staff volunteers" (not that I really qualify since I'll only be here for a month) helped facilitate the group's wish.  Some of the other kids were taking whole pizza boxes back to their tables to have seconds and thirds.  I'm tellin' ya, tonight's dinner was SPECIAL!  They loved it.  I mean, the kids were CHANTING!  "Pizza, pizza, pizza!"  Can you imagine any of your kids, nieces, nephews, friends' kids, whatnot getting so excited over a little pizza?!  Probably not.

After dinner, the volunteers met at DJ and Lynette's house for "Gringo Night."  LOL.  No joke.  All the American volunteers that live and work down here get together every Wednesday for dinner and fellowship.  So cool.  I met some of the volunteers at the church.  I met two girls helping to feed the poor in Tijuana.  I got to talk to Sarah and her husband (the ones who run the dental and medical clinic in town).  What's strange to me is how intrigued they all were by my story.  I'm not going to lie, it made me not only feel good, but it increased my sense of confidence that I made the right decision.  Nina, one of the girls serving in Tijuana, offered to come get me so that I could see the work she and her friend Evi (not sure if that's how you spell it) are doing.  I will be taking her up on that offer!
How is this possible?  Two and three days ago, I was bawling my eyes out while saying goodbye to everyone, terrified of the journey upon which I was about to embark, and anxious about how it would all come together.  Now I've been here two days and look at all the amazing things I'm witnessing and experiencing, and all the wonderfully inspiring people I am meeting.  This is truly God's divine hand.  One of the girls asked me tonight, how did I know that I was making the right decision and that it's what God wants for me?  I told her that I firmly believe that when all the doors are opening in the same direction, that's God showing me the road.  It's like the Yellow Brick Road, but made of faith.  You can't know for certain, but you can FEEL it.

Who knows what tomorrow has has in store for me, but I bet it will be incredible!  Off to bed I go...I'll study a little more Spanish and then la la land.  Dulces sueños (sweet dreams).