Thursday, 7 March 2013

El barrio Part 3, a different perspective | Evan and Nick


Evan- 
On Monday, Joel, Brooke, Teresa, Erica (our chaperone) and I, were told that we were going to be teaching at a school called Nueva Creation. We were pretty excited, and also pretty scared at the same time. But we had no idea what we were going to experience that day. We were the last group to leave, since our bus was late, so we got to the school at about 10:30 in the morning, which is also recess time for the students. The craziest thing that happened when we got inside the school was when all the kids ran up to us screaming ERICA! ERICA! (They remembered her from last years trip). It was a really amazing time and we took lots of photos with the children. We even joined in a local basketball game, and I have no shame in saying that I was terrible at it. 
At 10:45 we started teaching. Joel and I were in one room, while Teresa and Brooke were in another. We were lucky enough to have gotten the kindergarten kids, who are very forgiving of our bad Spanish. We did simple stuff such as numbers and the alphabet, with some colors thrown in for fun. Our saving grace was the game Chico, Chica. In this game, it’s basically guys versus girls, and they compete to get the most points by circling the correct letter/number we say. It’s more or less organized chaos…
Then came siesta, and our adventure through the village surrounding the school. Erica took us to see the houses where the compassion children lived. And it was the poorest place I have ever seen. The children came pouring out of the shacks and came to hold our hands, or at the very least try to touch us or get us to notice them. We started out with with three children, then we had ten, then thirty, and so on... We were the biggest attraction for them, which made me feel very strange inside. It was an eye opening, heart breaking, and faith moving experience. We saw kids running around in bare feet on roads covered in broken glass and sharp rocks. One girl had a small battery hooked up to an electric motor, and held it against her hand to feel the vibration. That was her entertainment. One girl wore a T-shirt around her waist like a skirt, and many boys ran around with no clothes on at all. The houses were made of mismatched pieces of plywood, road signs, car doors, hubcaps, and more. The list just goes on and on… Their fences were made of mostly barbed wire, with the occasional use of a roll of film and shoelaces. The river that flowed beside the road was polluted with all kinds of garbage and oil. In fact it was fenced off and parents didn’t like it when we walked too close to it with their children. 
The part of the trip that hit me hardest was when I was on the way back to the school. I was holding hands with two boys, when one of their mothers called him to come inside. We were getting closer to the school so I asked the other kid where his mother was, he just pointed up to the sky and said a slur of Spanish, but I only had to hear him say Jesus to understand what he was talking about. At that moment everything hit me like a ton of bricks. The shacks, the garbage, the smell, the kids in no clothes, everything. I felt guilty for having more than enough, even just for having flip-flops on my feet. I took all of it in, and I know everyone else did too, because their faces showed it all. At one point a kid asked Joel for water, and he had to refuse. There just wouldn’t be enough for everybody. We left, some of us with tears in our eyes, others with just a vacant expression. We got back to the school, and were able to bury our feelings long enough to enjoy the last bit of teaching.
When we arrived back at the base, the feelings flooded us again, and during circle time, all four of us broke down in tears. Explaining to the rest of the group what happened that day was really hard on all of us. It was probably the most quiet circle time has ever been. Some felt bad they weren’t there with us, and others felt bad that they had a great day. But we all served God that day, in many forms, and just because we had a sad experience, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good experience as well. We are all in this together, and no one served more than the other that day. I am thankful to the people that talked about it with us, and encouraged us and gave us strength. I am thankful for the people who cried with us, and the people who were able to make us laugh. When we needed help it was there, and when we needed space it was there as well. I am grateful for everyone on this trip, and that day brought us closer together as a group.


Nick-
My Monday was drastically different from Evan’s. I can definitely say that it was more fun, but I don’t think it was better. My group (Jason, Adam, Mark, Addy, Val, Allyson, Kristen, Peter and Miraya) and I, started a preschool in a nearby village. I was a bit nervous about the prospect of starting a school from scratch, but mostly I was happy I didn’t have to teach older kids. When we got to the building where the school was I expected little kids running around, freaking out when they saw us, or yelling GRINGOS! What I didn’t expect was seeing 30 kids in desks with their hands folded, staring up at us with large, expectant eyes. 





















Allyson, Kristen, Val and Addy watching how to teach.
It didn’t last long. After some awkward introductions, and some pretty choppy Spanish, we decided to whip out the colouring books. Bad idea. For the next 2 hours, (the rest of the preschool time), it was just a crazy colouring time. We loved it. I didn’t really know what to do so I decided to introduce myself to a very adorable little boy. It was one of the better decisions of my life. The boys name was Wanji, but he didn’t tell me that, I had to ask someone else. He was too busy laughing at my Spanish, asking me to fight, snapping crayons in half and even biting Adam on the arm (since Monday he has bitten me in the butt, and the hand, and bitten Mark and Jason as well). Anyways, after preschool was done we spent the afternoon leveling out an area to build a playground for the kids. It was fun, and since then we have built a little play area out of only tires and one piece of wood. 

Pedro and Adam contemplating...
The church's neighbourhood.































 

Eblockie transplanting a plantain tree


Back to Monday, once we got back to the group we chilled for a bit, took showers, got some coke from the local stores, and everything seemed normal. It wasn’t. I was leaving one of the guy bedrooms when I looked up and saw Rachael hugging some girls who had obviously been crying, so I ducked back in the room. At this point I had no idea what was going on, because all Joel and Evan had said about their days at this point was, “it was pretty good”. I asked a couple of the other guys, and no one had any idea about what was going on. A bit later that night Rachael told us that some girls were having a hard time with the intense poverty they saw that day, particularly the girls who taught at the school. Fast forward to circle time, Joel was doing his thorn, he told a story of how a boy asked him for water and he couldn’t give him any, and then just started crying. I was sitting beside Joel, and almost started crying as well. All around the circle, people who had been to the school that day had started crying as well, and no one spoke for a while. The thing that moved me the most though, was Mark. It looked like the sight of Joel crying had moved him in a very strong way, he wasn’t crying, but by the look on his face I could tell he was genuinely loving Joel in that moment, that he was terribly distressed by what his brother was going through. The twins don’t usually love on each other, they mostly just chirp, and this made me cry. During the time where everyone was crying, Rachael prayed, and then circle time went on, there were a lot of more cries, but there were also some laughs as well. After circle time there was a very stunted version of prayer partners, some people wanted to be alone and some wanted to be with people who shared their experience so Rachael basically let anything go. Me and Evan met for a bit, but I will admit I really didn’t know what to say, and after a little Evan decided he couldn’t do it that night, so we went our separate ways. Monday was good. 

1 comment:

  1. Looks like hard work - glad you are having time to contemplate as well.

    ReplyDelete