Well, even though I was only back at El Alfarero for four days, I think that it is fair to say that it was not an easy four days. The Saturday that I was gone was a particularly dramatic day, as after the girl who left on Friday (lets call her Jane) confessed that she had been bringing drugs into the home a lot more confessions came up. Salustio and Yany found drugs stashed in at least five places around the home, including in the rooms and on the volleyball court. It turns out that four girls had been taking drugs up to three times a day, one of them ever since she arrived in the home over a year ago. Jane had been selling drugs on for her dealer in school, and exchange for this he gave her drugs for her own personal use which she then shared with the four other girls. It turns out that even on the nights when one of us was sleeping in their room they were smoking drugs, completely without us ever noticing - the drug that they were smoking has no particularly distinct smell, and if we were sleeping then they were careful not to do anything to wake us up. Although looking in retrospect, there were nights in that room where I woke up every hour seemingly for no reason: I'm now beginning to think that there may have been a reason for that that I didn't quite twig in my half asleep state. Basically what Jane has done is jumped ship, leaving four drug addicts behind her: it all becomes even more poignant when you realise that she has not yet turned fourteen, and also left ten habitual drug users in her class at school.
It is unbelievabley disapointing, especially for Yany and Salustio who have been here for so much time, because despite all the time and energy that has been put in for them, the girls quite consiously deceived us. One of the girls who was using would literally be dead if the ministry hadn't paid for her operation and taken care of her during her recovery. Jane had been in the home for two years, and Yany and Salustio had placed quite a lot of trust in her, which she just threw back in their face. Although I obviously still do really love the girls and want to help them, this has left us all with little desire to organise activities and do things to help them. Especially since despite the fact that only five girls were taking drugs, its fair to say that all of the other girls knew about it, and some of them actively helped them to hide the drugs and conceal their behaviour.
Obviously, all actions have consequences, and the discìpline for the three girls that remain is quite strong: none of them will go to school next year for the entire year, they will only learn from the teachers that come to the home. The reasoning behind this is obvious: the ones who were already in school were taking drugs in school, and the ones who weren't are not trustworthy to go to a place where there will be temptation to take drugs. As a discipline for all the girls, we as a home are not going to go to Kids Games, a sports day event that they normally go to every year.
In other news (sorry that I can't bring you anything happy!) Another girl (we'll call her Val) left the home on Tuesday with her one year old son, to go to live with her grandmother. In some ways it was actually a good thing that she wanted to go, because if not we were going to have to throw her out of the home because of her unbelievable manipulative behaviour with the other girls. But on the other hand, we are not sure how long she will stay with her grandmother, as she alawys struggled to control Val, and was the victim of her manipulative behaviour. What Val used to do, was if her grandmother told her to do something she didn't want to do, like wash her babies nappies, she would go tell her uncles (her grandmothers sons) that her grandmother was beating her and wasn't giving her anything to eat, which they would react to by going to her house and beating her grandmother. Clearly not a great situation for her, but she's willing to take Val back, if only to ensure that her son is well taken care of.
To close, I would like to tell you all that I am sick! This has not been the happiest of blogs, so I might as well finish on a piece of unhappy news. I've had a stuffed up cold for the last few days, and I had a fever last night. It is rubbish, but don't worry, I am taking plenty of paracetomal! It does make everything seem a little more rubbish though, when having a cold takes away all your enery. You need to send me loving messages to cheer me up!
Thursday 20 November 2008
Sunday 16 November 2008
New things
Well, I seem to somehow have built up quite a collection of things to say, a mixture of good things and bad things, in the eight days that have passed between my last day off and this one. Before updating you all on the rather long list of things that have happened in that reasonabley short space of time, I want to share one more wee thought. I was thinking of the normal perception of what is missions, what is development work overseas, and what the average British person would think of when they imagine what I am doing here. What the images would be that would role through their mind. So often what we associate with 'charity' work are those kind of videos that they show every year for Comic Relief, with smiling African children who are ever so grateful for all the help that they have received. You know, they receive a pencil and a toothbrush and keep them in some treasured place, thanking God for them every day and bein affectionate and loving with the person who gave it to them. And perhaps nothing could be further from the reality of working in a home for street girls. The truth is, that just as we are not always super grateful for the unbelievable help that we receive from our families and from our governments, neither are the girls who live in the home always grateful for what they have received. They can be aggressive and incredibley rude to the people who live with them 24 hours a day without pay, they lose the things that we give to them (especially pencils!), they demand and expect more than what is already given to them. Of course they are wonderful girls with many gifts and talents and good points, but in no way are they easy - but I don't believe that help should be denied to them for being ungrateful when I have had everything I needed without even thinking to stop and write a letter to the government to thank them for paying for my education and health care.
Well, enough of the semi-deepness and on to other things! One of the biggest bits of news is that the construction work which has been being planned for a while at the home is finally started. If I remember correctly, the new building will have a kitchen, a food store, bigger classroom and a new toilet block, office and dining area. The dormitories are also going to be extended, and the old classroom and office will be there as more mother and baby rooms. The work seems to be getting on fairly well, as they start with digging the foundations. The main challenge comes from having men around all the time, and trying to stop the girls from flirting with them.
The main piece of sad news, is that of the three new girls I told you about last blog, two have already left. The one who is still here is getting on reasonabley well, she has quite a strong personality with a huge dislike of being told what to do, but her faults are correctable. On top of these two girls having left, two of the older girls also left. One left after being extremely unsettled when her brother ran away from El Camino (the boys home): she has gone back to her mothers home, but it is not an ideal situation that she has there. Probably the worst departure took place just before I left for my day off on Friday, when I girl who had been in the home for two whole years suddenly decided that she wanted to leave, and on top of this confessed that she had been bringing drugs into the home and giving them to the other girls. After two years, you would generally think that she was going to be ok, and would stay until a time that it was appropriate for her to return to her family, or to move on and do her own thing. But this is something that they've learned over the years at El Alfarero, that incredibely quickly the girls will be willing to throw everything away: the years they've spent at school, all the things they have at the home that they won't have if they return to their troubled families or to the streets, the friends that they have made, the things that they have learned. She threw it all away for drugs and boys, and she's only thirteen: that makes me sad. Another girl almost left that same morning, because she was so angry at one of the other girls for telling Salustio that she'd been making herself throw up in the toilet.
The weekend that Sandra and I spent alone when Yanyt and Salustio went away for their free day was as difficult as it normally is, but not too unbelievabley dramatic. The real drama began on Sunday evening when most of the girls went to a special service in the city to present a dance, and I drew the short straw to stay with the four girls who had to stay as a punishment for fighting over the weekend. They were unbelievabley badly behaved! As part of their discipline, they had to clean up the birthday meal that we'd had before that, and two of the girls just flatly refused to help so i had to force them. The four girls formed themselves into two groups of two who were fighting against each other, two of whom were actually behaving reasonabley well, and two of whom were not. So after all their anger and bad behaviour I left them to calm down for a bit, I spoke to both of them individually and then there were tears because they both missed their families! (I really don't understand why on earth they miss their abusive families, but there you go). Just when everything had calmed down nicely, the two other girls developed horrific stomach pains (too much birthday cake.....) and one of them was sick twice! When I had finally managed to put them all to bed, I went into the kitchen and found a poo on the worksurface! So there was all the drama in the space of a few short hours. :-) I'm thinking that the poo was the stray cat that has been wandering about the home lately.
Well I think that that was all the main news really. Yesterday I went over to the reintigration house to spend the day with Erica and her family, and went to see her son play football. It was all very jolly but I still can't understand why other people get quite so excited about sport! I can never bring myself to yell or anything, and I get quite easily distracted! Oooh, I forget, there is one other piece of big news: there is now officially no school until February... Terrifying! Any suggestions for things that we could do would be greatly appreciated!
I hope that everyone on the other side of the world where I used to live are doing really well, and I would love to hear some of your news. I'm sending love to you all. :-)
Well, enough of the semi-deepness and on to other things! One of the biggest bits of news is that the construction work which has been being planned for a while at the home is finally started. If I remember correctly, the new building will have a kitchen, a food store, bigger classroom and a new toilet block, office and dining area. The dormitories are also going to be extended, and the old classroom and office will be there as more mother and baby rooms. The work seems to be getting on fairly well, as they start with digging the foundations. The main challenge comes from having men around all the time, and trying to stop the girls from flirting with them.
The main piece of sad news, is that of the three new girls I told you about last blog, two have already left. The one who is still here is getting on reasonabley well, she has quite a strong personality with a huge dislike of being told what to do, but her faults are correctable. On top of these two girls having left, two of the older girls also left. One left after being extremely unsettled when her brother ran away from El Camino (the boys home): she has gone back to her mothers home, but it is not an ideal situation that she has there. Probably the worst departure took place just before I left for my day off on Friday, when I girl who had been in the home for two whole years suddenly decided that she wanted to leave, and on top of this confessed that she had been bringing drugs into the home and giving them to the other girls. After two years, you would generally think that she was going to be ok, and would stay until a time that it was appropriate for her to return to her family, or to move on and do her own thing. But this is something that they've learned over the years at El Alfarero, that incredibely quickly the girls will be willing to throw everything away: the years they've spent at school, all the things they have at the home that they won't have if they return to their troubled families or to the streets, the friends that they have made, the things that they have learned. She threw it all away for drugs and boys, and she's only thirteen: that makes me sad. Another girl almost left that same morning, because she was so angry at one of the other girls for telling Salustio that she'd been making herself throw up in the toilet.
The weekend that Sandra and I spent alone when Yanyt and Salustio went away for their free day was as difficult as it normally is, but not too unbelievabley dramatic. The real drama began on Sunday evening when most of the girls went to a special service in the city to present a dance, and I drew the short straw to stay with the four girls who had to stay as a punishment for fighting over the weekend. They were unbelievabley badly behaved! As part of their discipline, they had to clean up the birthday meal that we'd had before that, and two of the girls just flatly refused to help so i had to force them. The four girls formed themselves into two groups of two who were fighting against each other, two of whom were actually behaving reasonabley well, and two of whom were not. So after all their anger and bad behaviour I left them to calm down for a bit, I spoke to both of them individually and then there were tears because they both missed their families! (I really don't understand why on earth they miss their abusive families, but there you go). Just when everything had calmed down nicely, the two other girls developed horrific stomach pains (too much birthday cake.....) and one of them was sick twice! When I had finally managed to put them all to bed, I went into the kitchen and found a poo on the worksurface! So there was all the drama in the space of a few short hours. :-) I'm thinking that the poo was the stray cat that has been wandering about the home lately.
Well I think that that was all the main news really. Yesterday I went over to the reintigration house to spend the day with Erica and her family, and went to see her son play football. It was all very jolly but I still can't understand why other people get quite so excited about sport! I can never bring myself to yell or anything, and I get quite easily distracted! Oooh, I forget, there is one other piece of big news: there is now officially no school until February... Terrifying! Any suggestions for things that we could do would be greatly appreciated!
I hope that everyone on the other side of the world where I used to live are doing really well, and I would love to hear some of your news. I'm sending love to you all. :-)
Sunday 2 November 2008
Thoughts
I thought that I would centre this blog, as well as telling you about the recent events in El Alfarero, to focus more on what I have been thinking about and what I have been learning. To put it another way, what God has been teaching me. Theres two bits of the Bible that have come to have a greater significance for me in the last few weeks:
‘Enter through the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the raod is wide that leads to hell, and many people enter through that gate. But the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to true life. Only a few people find that road.’ Matthew 7v13
‘Sell your processions and give to the poor. Get for yourselves purses that will not wear out, the treasure in heaven that never runs out, where thieves can’t steal and moths can’t destroy. Your heart will be where your treasure is.’ Luke 12v33-34
One of the things that I’m being reminded of, as things are not always easy for me living here, is the importance of sacrifice. This life is really not that long in the light of eternity, and I don’t want to fritter it away. A lot of the things that I have been missing from home are essentially shadows and dust when compared with what it might actually mean to build up treasures in heaven. Mining gold and silver from the earth, as many Bolivians know, takes much sweat and toil, but the end result is worth it. Treasures that you don’t have to work for, that don’t involve sacrificial love, are almost never as powerful.
So many people, Christians or not, spend their whole lives avoiding the narrow way because it is just so much more difficult. But the narrow way is the only way that will lead to true life – Jesus said that those who give up their lives for him, will find true life – I left my whole life behind in Scotland, and I like to think that what I’m doing is finding true life.
Anyhoo. Enough of the (hopefully) wise thoughts, moving on to another wee update on how life is chez El Alfarero. One of the main changes that there has been in the home over the last week no more, has been the arrival of three new girls! Unfortunately, none of the three girls made it to the reception house because it was always been occupied by boys at the time, but it has still been very interesting for me to see how things operate when new girls arrive. The three girls have very distinct personalities – one of them I really don’t know anything about yet as she arrived late on Friday night, and I left for my free day early on Sunday morning. So I shall find out when I get back how the weekend went: please try and remember this in your prayers, as we’re up to 17 girls again now, and Salustio says that whenever the home starts to fill up people start to leave again.
One of the good (great) things about the last week has been that I am beginning to feel a little bit more connected with the other people who live at the home. I’ve had a few good chats which allowed me to open up slightly more to them, and I’m beginning to feel that we are working more as a team. On top of this, after having been at the home for six weeks now, I feel that I’m ready to begin making comments about the way the home is run. I’m glad to have stayed fairly silent for so long, because there are things that at the beginning I didn’t understand or disagreed with that I know understand the reasons for and can see are for the best.
The main issue I can see with the home, and I’ve discussed this with Sandra, is the lack of actual consequences when they do something wrong. This came up particularly one evening when Sandra and I were on our own with the girls, and during the reading the girls were just horrifically badly behaved. Sandra ended up having to pull the youngest girl away because everyone was hitting her – and despite the older girl’s conviction that she is the root of all the problems at the home, their behaviour did not improve when we took her away. About an hour after all this, two of the older girls started fighting over practically nothing – fists and all! It is the first time in my life so far that I have had to pull one grown woman off another one – although I did have some help in it! And what were the consequences of all this misbehaviour? Essentially nothing, except for a lecture in the morning. So I have begun to think of potential things that we could to discipline the girls, privelidges that we could withdraw that I can suggest to Yanyt and Salustio: after all, real love is not afraid to correct bad behaviour.
I have had a fairly good weekend off so far, I’ve been avoiding my slightly horrific habit of spending all of my time off sitting about in Casa Alfa, as it is quite tempting to be lethargic! I went to Sandra’s house yesterday to visit her family, which was much fun, and then we went out for ice cream with her friend. Mmm. On my days off I try to sneak in a little bit of western food, as I really am eating very traditional things at the home. Despite the fat and carbs content of this food, I have somehow managed to lose half a stone since arriving – very weird. In other good news, I have an extra day off this weekend as Monday is a national holiday for the day of the dead.
Another highlight of the week was going to Patty’s house for the meeting of the senoritas (hee hee I am one of those!) who work with Operation Restoration. It is definitely making a difference having people around who I feel like I can start to call friends: because it is not good for man (or woman) to be alone.
‘Enter through the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the raod is wide that leads to hell, and many people enter through that gate. But the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to true life. Only a few people find that road.’ Matthew 7v13
‘Sell your processions and give to the poor. Get for yourselves purses that will not wear out, the treasure in heaven that never runs out, where thieves can’t steal and moths can’t destroy. Your heart will be where your treasure is.’ Luke 12v33-34
One of the things that I’m being reminded of, as things are not always easy for me living here, is the importance of sacrifice. This life is really not that long in the light of eternity, and I don’t want to fritter it away. A lot of the things that I have been missing from home are essentially shadows and dust when compared with what it might actually mean to build up treasures in heaven. Mining gold and silver from the earth, as many Bolivians know, takes much sweat and toil, but the end result is worth it. Treasures that you don’t have to work for, that don’t involve sacrificial love, are almost never as powerful.
So many people, Christians or not, spend their whole lives avoiding the narrow way because it is just so much more difficult. But the narrow way is the only way that will lead to true life – Jesus said that those who give up their lives for him, will find true life – I left my whole life behind in Scotland, and I like to think that what I’m doing is finding true life.
Anyhoo. Enough of the (hopefully) wise thoughts, moving on to another wee update on how life is chez El Alfarero. One of the main changes that there has been in the home over the last week no more, has been the arrival of three new girls! Unfortunately, none of the three girls made it to the reception house because it was always been occupied by boys at the time, but it has still been very interesting for me to see how things operate when new girls arrive. The three girls have very distinct personalities – one of them I really don’t know anything about yet as she arrived late on Friday night, and I left for my free day early on Sunday morning. So I shall find out when I get back how the weekend went: please try and remember this in your prayers, as we’re up to 17 girls again now, and Salustio says that whenever the home starts to fill up people start to leave again.
One of the good (great) things about the last week has been that I am beginning to feel a little bit more connected with the other people who live at the home. I’ve had a few good chats which allowed me to open up slightly more to them, and I’m beginning to feel that we are working more as a team. On top of this, after having been at the home for six weeks now, I feel that I’m ready to begin making comments about the way the home is run. I’m glad to have stayed fairly silent for so long, because there are things that at the beginning I didn’t understand or disagreed with that I know understand the reasons for and can see are for the best.
The main issue I can see with the home, and I’ve discussed this with Sandra, is the lack of actual consequences when they do something wrong. This came up particularly one evening when Sandra and I were on our own with the girls, and during the reading the girls were just horrifically badly behaved. Sandra ended up having to pull the youngest girl away because everyone was hitting her – and despite the older girl’s conviction that she is the root of all the problems at the home, their behaviour did not improve when we took her away. About an hour after all this, two of the older girls started fighting over practically nothing – fists and all! It is the first time in my life so far that I have had to pull one grown woman off another one – although I did have some help in it! And what were the consequences of all this misbehaviour? Essentially nothing, except for a lecture in the morning. So I have begun to think of potential things that we could to discipline the girls, privelidges that we could withdraw that I can suggest to Yanyt and Salustio: after all, real love is not afraid to correct bad behaviour.
I have had a fairly good weekend off so far, I’ve been avoiding my slightly horrific habit of spending all of my time off sitting about in Casa Alfa, as it is quite tempting to be lethargic! I went to Sandra’s house yesterday to visit her family, which was much fun, and then we went out for ice cream with her friend. Mmm. On my days off I try to sneak in a little bit of western food, as I really am eating very traditional things at the home. Despite the fat and carbs content of this food, I have somehow managed to lose half a stone since arriving – very weird. In other good news, I have an extra day off this weekend as Monday is a national holiday for the day of the dead.
Another highlight of the week was going to Patty’s house for the meeting of the senoritas (hee hee I am one of those!) who work with Operation Restoration. It is definitely making a difference having people around who I feel like I can start to call friends: because it is not good for man (or woman) to be alone.
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