Wow! It's May. It's hard to believe. The days are long, but the months and weeks are short. Last week, we celebrated mother's day here in the hogar. All of the women were celebrated as mother figures for Mother's Day. We were treated like queens with a day at the pool, manicures, a fancy dinner, and a fiesta of course. The cards and hugs from the kids were heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time.
A Blanket Story
When I was in middle school, my cousin Madeline (shout out to Miss Madeline who is now a 1st grade teacher) made me one of those tie-fleece blankets. It was a beautiful blanket of double-layered lime green, blue, and yellow fleece. I loved it. For years, I pulled it out of storage every winter, curled up in my bed, and thought of my cousin. I speak in past tense because sadly the beautiful blanket met its end last night.
Three days ago began the season of winter here in Honduras. It is also called the rainy season. The rainy season occurs twice a year. It brings a respite from the heat, lots of rain (duh), and a certain type of insect that clings to everything. I was so excited when the the temperature dropped by twenty degrees (90 to 70), but I was quickly brought back to reality when I asked a Honduran how long winter lasts. Her response: 15 days. Yes, winter lasts an entire 15 days, and then we'll be back to the heat that we know all too well. :)
Anyhow, winter makes for beautiful days and cooler nights. Blankets are necessary at night and so I have been using Madeline's blanket. Last night, however, I had ¨turno,¨ which means I slept in the room with the kids. I arrived at turno with my pillow and blanket. It was a little chaotic, which is pretty normal in a room of twenty boys between the ages of 6-12. All of the padrinos (workers directly in charge of the children) tried to settle the boys as much as possible, said goodnight and left.
Suddenly, one of the littlest guys, Josecito, was at my side crying because he was cold. He was sleeping in only a t-shirt and had no blanket. We looked through his belongings for a blanket, but couldn't find one. I tried to find more clothing for him, but failed again. Josecito has a chronic bed-wetting problem, and it could have been that his bedding was being washed. I don't really know. After twenty minutes of searching for options, he was getting pretty upset because he was exhausted in addition to being cold. I realized what I had to do. I knew that I couldn't sleep with a double-layered fleece blanket while a child slept in the same cold room without any covers.
I started to separate the layers of my beautiful blanket, untying the knots that Madeline had tied together ten years ago. And yet another character enters this story: Jose, not to be confused with Josecito. Jose is a new kid. He has been here for three whole days. Jose saw me untying the knots and plopped down on my bed to help me. We worked together for about forty minutes to untie all those knots, (you sure tied those knots well, Madeline). Our fingers were aching, but we persisted. During the untying, Jose and I struck up a conversation. He told me that he liked the hogar of Amigos ¨a little bit." The part that he didn't like was that his mom wasn't here. He said he almost cried yesterday because he missed her so much, and then he asked so earnestly, ¨But she can come, right? She can come visit me here?¨ I assured him that this was definitely possible. In my head, I silently added "but she probably won't.¨ Wow, have I become so jaded? When we finished untying the blanket, Jose gave me a hug and said, ¨Buenas Noches tia/ Good night aunt.¨ Before coming to Amigos, Jose was at the state-run home where all of the adults are called tio or tia (uncle or aunt). Knowing that Jose was at the state-run home before Amigos further lowered the probability of a visit from his mother in my mind. All of our kids are here for a reason. I don't know Jose's background or his mother's story. I can only hope that she will visit him one day. In the meantime, we'll do our best to love him unconditionally and to help him learn and grow in a happy and safe place.
And now, Josecito has half of my blanket and Jose has half of my heart. I think that I want to give Jose the other half of my blanket when I leave Amigos (I actually do need to keep it for a while longer to keep myself warm at night- I'm not that saintly yet ;)). There are so many different ways to look at this small incident in the course of so many other similar incidents. You never know how far the small good that you do for somebody will travel. I'm sure Madeline never imagined when she made the blanket for me that it would one day warm a small boy without parents in a foreign country. Likewise, I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to be an ¨aunt" to a little boy missing his mom.
Please keep our little guys in your prayers. It's not easy for them.
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