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. :-)