The Boys are Back in Town

 

Here is what I recently posted on the Cap Corps volunteer blog:

To see other posts from Cap Corps volunteers go to: capcorpsmw.blogspot.com

The Boys are Back in Town

I have had that song stuck in my head for the first week that the boys of Ciudad de los Niños in Lima, Peru were back from summer vacation.  The New Year brought about many changes here for the Cap Corps volunteers at Ciudad de los Niños.  The practical changes were three of our community finished with their commitment, which left us with two and I have changed the house that I work in.  The spiritual changes within me were even greater.  During summer vacation I was able to refocus on God and center myself on working towards His will rather than my own.

The first six months of my commitment were spent in constant questioning of why everything seemed so hard.  Summer vacation allowed me to realize still how selfish I had been in my service in Peru.  Going in as a volunteer I had the mindset that I was going to serve people, but as soon as I got down here, I became slightly self-righteous, and thought I could change the manner in which certain things were handled.  Talk about a very naïve perspective and something that was covered in orientation which obviously did not sink in quite deep enough!

Ciudad de los Niños is not a place where you can be selfish, at all.  Everything that anybody does here is done out of love.  A selfless love, a love that serves the boys that live here.  For me, it has been a great lesson on love and selflessness.  Acting out of love and with love has become even more prevalent in the past 2 weeks as I have worked with two new co-workers, Flor and Maribel.  Flor has been working here at Ciudad for 14 years and Maribel 2 years. These two women are such great examples of how to interact with the boys with love but still give the boys exactly what they need, and that ranges from discipline and hearing ‘no,’ to hugs and tickles. 

The boys themselves are also a wonderful example of how to love.  It does not matter how mad you get at them, give them 10 minutes and you are back on good terms and are tickling them or giving a hug.  Whenever I consider the background stories of the boys, which range from no parents, one parent, household violence etc., it always astounds me how much love they still have to give.  I have become much more aware of how as I have grown older I do not give out as much love as I did when I was younger.  I think that sometimes as adults we become too damaged by the world and become selfish and protect ourselves rather than constant give love and of ourselves. 

As I am hitting a third of the way through my commitment, I have learned a great deal. The greatest lesson that I have learned so far is the goodness of God, in the fullest sense.  He is good and loving. I do not think that I can honesty say that I understood that before I came down here nor do I think that I can completely explain how I see it now, or show you how to find it, but I now know how true that statement is.

May God bless you all as much as He has blessed me in my time here at Ciudad de los Niños.

Bendiciones,

Jeanette

Updates of the first couple of weeks back with the boys:

-         as stated earlier, I am in a new household. I moved up an age group and am now working with 8-12 year olds. 

-         Boys stink…literally.  They smell really bad, even at a young age.  A lot of the boys have been coming up to me, very closely after playing fútbol, and they smell really bad, I have to push them away from me.

-         School starts on March 1^st. Should be interesting! I’ll be working with 3^rd graders during homework time.

-         We put up a pool that had been donated in the past in our garden and the boys had a blast swimming. It was fun to see them have so much fun, but it was tiring to try to make sure that 33 boys did not kill themselves while in a circular approx 8ft diameter pool.

-         Currently we are only 2 Cap Corps volunteers here, 3 left. Alyssa and Michael completed their 18  month contract and are back in the states and Mike who I came down here with at the same time decided that it was time for him to be back in the US.  It is now very quite here with only 2 of us.

Funny stories:

-         After getting out of the pool one day, we were sitting in our towels drying off in the sun on our cancha (concrete futbol patio) and the boys gathered around me and started examining me and my legs quite closely.  They then began to pinch my thighs and say “mucha grasa hermana” (that’s a lot of fat, hermana). As that was happening some of them were looking at my not so recently shaved calves and started trying to pull out the very short leg hair.  Much to my surprise some of them succeeded! All I can say is that these boys are very honest and make me laugh, are teaching me to be comfortable in my body more so than anybody else ever has.

-         I was recently sick, and not the only one either, but I was better than Flor a co-worker so I toughed it out and stayed with the boys all day. I took it easy not walking or working much during the day. In the early evening one of the boys comes up to me, takes my hand and says “we need to go to the doctor” and I ask “Are you feeling ok?”  He responds “yes, but you are sick, so you need to go.”  I say “No, I’ll be ok.”  “No, Hermana, you are sick, you need to go to the doctor and I will accompany you.”  Then he leads me by the hand out the door to the doctors office on site….MELTED my heart. Who knew a 24 yr old would need a 9 year old to tell her what she needed?!?!?

What I’ve learned:

-         Kids sometimes are wise beyond their years

-         I guess I have a lot of fat on my legs?!?!? 

-         Kids are always good for a laugh….even when you are trying to be serious and build authority.

-         MY YOUNGER SISTER IS COMING TO VISIT!!! Look for an update about her trip down here mid-March.