Time Flies

Oh Dios Mio!!!
I cannot believe that it  is already mid-November and the boys will in about 3 weeks be done with their school year! That also means I'll be close to hitting the 6 month point in my work here. scary.
So many things have happened since I last posted, it is hard to know where to begin.
Noche de Talentos was a huge success. All the boys (at least the majority) really enjoyed watching/performing.  If you would like to see some footage of some of the acts, it's on youtube. Search "noche de talentos 2010 cdln."  All the work that we volunteers put in was definitely worthwhile.  Some of the most nervous boys before they went on stage ended up being (in my opinion---which is completely biased) some of the best performers of the night.  The boost in their self esteem, the inmense amount of relief and pride that was apparent when they exited the stage was one of my favorite parts of the night.
Some highlight performances:
A mime act done by a 12 year old called "chicle" or "gum." It was amazing to see him totally take command of the stage, and we added some music from Charlie Chapman's The Kid which fit perfectly. He won first place in the theatrical category.
One of the older boys wrote a love poem and read it out loud.  A day before the show he asked if we could find some sad romantic music that could play in the background.  Michael had some George Winston that fit really well. He had never heard the music before the performance, but you could not tell because he paused in all the right places.  I don't know how else to describe it other than that I got goosebumps it was so amazing. He got second place after the mime.
The youngest boys (4/5 yr olds) totally stole the show by dancing to Usher's 'Yeah' with some 'Thriller' moves. If you look anything up on  youtube, definitely look that up, it's number 2.
Another highlight of that event was taking all of the first place winners to a nice lunch at a restaurant on the coast. It was a buffet, which we thought was a very good idea for a bunch teenage boys. None of them had ever been to that area of Lima or to a buffet. It was one of the best moments to see their faces as we explained to them that they could go back for as many plates/as much food as they wanted. Needless to say, we were there for a while :) The enjoyed the experience to the fullest extent possible. After lunch we hung out on the beach for a while.  Days like that make all the hard days worth it.  It is a blessing to be able to see teenage boys that have had to grow up way to fast play on the beach, throw rocks and have an afternoon of no worries or pressures.

The week immediately after Noche de Talentos was the 55th Anniversary celebration for Ciudad. Each house performed an act as well as a peruvian dish to sell. The volunteers also put on a skit (it's on facebook). It was a fun day/weekend, but also tiring from all the preparation.  The host family that Mike and I stayed with during our first three weeks during language school came to visit us during the anniversary celebration.  The Benavides family has been a huge blessing in my life here.  They are some of the most loving, generous people I have encountered ever.

A week or two ago, the Peruvian Air Force put on a big fundraiser for Ciudad.  They bused all of the kids and entire staff over to the base and paired each kid with a cadet (there's about 300 boys).  It was a great day to see a lot of the kids get inspired to something higher than finishing high school.  The cadets for the most part were great too, not just with the little kids, but also with the teenage boys.  Each cadet had money to spend on food and activities with their boy they were assigned, and each kid also received a gift from the cadet at the beginning of the day.  There was a small paintball course, which a lot of the older boys really enjoyed, and of course they had to try to make it through the obstacle course they have for the cadets.  The little ones were happy to eat ice cream cones at 10:30am, have their faces painted, jump on trampolines and play on giant inflatable games.  Even though we were there for about 12 hours, the day was a great success and I do believe that they will do it again next year.
On the daily life front, things have been hard.  I would like to lie and say that everything is going swimmingly, but it's hard.  I still have no doubt to the fact that God means for me to be here, but there have been many times in the past month that have made it extremely difficult.  The basics of all the difficulties is a lack of communication and teamwork in the house that I am working in, which then trickles its way down to the boys and their behavior.  I have come home crying or once I cried in front of some boys because it is frustrating to be in a situations where you feel like you have no authority and feel completely helpless.  I have been learning a lot about humility and accepting the situation as it is and doing the best you can.  It's a daily challenge.
Not that everything has been going horribly. I've been working with some boys with reading comprehension for a while and have started seeing some improvements, which has been encouraging to me and the boys (especially when they realize it's easier now).  Reading to the boys has become one of my new ways of getting about 7 or 8 boys to stop fighting, listen to me and be tranquilos.  It was a great day when I made the discovery that they are all hungry to be read to, constantly. It has become my go to when I can't get any of them to listen to me and they are at the point of beating each other up.

Living in community with the other volunteers has been a complete blessing as well.  Especially after hard days it is nice to come back to our apartment and vent about what went wrong, laugh about whatever funny thing happened during the day, or just to know that there are other people experiencing the exact same thing as you.

Things I have learned:
I like being in control of situations more than I thought, and I am really, really, really bad at accepting situations I cannot control.
When I feel like I'm not in control, I don't act the way I want or like. It's a major bummer each day I come back and realize that I have once again failed.
Failing is good.
time flies....I can't believe it's a week away from advent!
I love fresh mangos. LOVE THEM! it's awesome to be able to buy them whenever I want for cheap!
My body no longer likes greasy food, at all. It rejects it.  We made hamburgers, onion rings and sweet potato fries the other night for community dinner...let's just say we're not going do that again any time soon.

Once again, thanks for all the continued support and prayers. I hope you are all well and have just as many blessings in your daily life like I do.