day 13: tuani and catch phrase
what a day.
indeed, what a day.
i got to sleep in a bit (only to find that most of the house, except the runners of the house, did too) and then had breakfast, which was surprisingly european: toast with jam and nutella and fruit. after my body was in a diabetic shock this weekend from the chocolate castle, i figured it was best if i weened myself off slowly. very slowly. it should take about 10 years at this pace.
emily (la vieja, the PD) and i planned math, we had the “chick-fil-a” lunch of fried chicken and rice and beans, and then drove to el farito. today was surprisingly hot, but as always, farito was the calm and cool place to be. i tagged on to andrew and lindsay’s all star table (erik, maycol, and mikalin (sp?)) for literacy—i even played the “how many spanish words do you know” game with them. it was tight.
next up was math- i had to juggle ulises and cristian while emily la vieja worked with armando. i’m learning that armando is full of personality, but is also hindered by a few learning disabilities… maybe dyslexia coupled with a short attention span? who knows… or as he would say, “quien sabe?” anyway, math was fun and productive, reinforcing general subtraction technique. long story short: kids love to color and always, under any condition or subject, expect to have coloring involved. cristian was a bit emotional today, but as michael (the pd) reminded me, her mom just gave birth to a baby boy this morning so any weird behavior is expected.
during the time off after math, from 4-5, laura and i went to go play soccer in the field behind el farito. it was plowed this weekend, so we just played in the dirt street instead. armando scraped his head and another little boy scraped his arm (both from diving into a pile of branches), but all in all, a great little fun adventure for all. hardly any injuries (awesome) and a lot of laughs. arjel came, too, and wanted to be spun around— but being 4 feet tall and around 75 lbs, it’s super hard to manage him.
first highlight of the day was after soccer, when i walked home with maycol and he asked if i like juice. i replied yes, and so he got me a can of pear juice… way too freaking cute. i didn’t know if it was ok, but luckily tina (the pd) was walking down the street and she said it’s perfectly alright if the kids want to give me something. maycol’s a really sweet kid and i’m glad to know him… and not just for the occasional pear juice. haha i felt very “tuani” aka “cool” with the kids down here for being the cool older gringo that plays with the kids. maycol just reinforced that idea.
beginner’s english was sweet- we continued directions. the nicas were laughing at their english accents and we ended the lesson with articulation and pronounciation with J and G, like Joke and juggle, gone, grey, and goggles. hahaha it was funny to hear their accent and their adoption of spanish sounds into the english language. it made me realize how bad my accent in spanish must be. while hiking out, we got to see the casas de gabe and fabri (two of the nicayuda guys). really sweet, fun familes.
we had dinner at holly and kathy augusts’ tonight- they are the missionary family who has built a majority of the facilities that manna uses. it’s a great relationship because although mission groups come through and help on their land, manna has provided constant activities on a lot of their stuff. we had nachos, chile, and queso for dinner (very american, and great). i got to sit with tressa and michael and andrew and robert, which was tight. tressa answered a lot of questions (including some about her personality) which opened up for some great conversation.
after dinner, we played catch phrase, where i learned one thing: we have a lot of very competitive people on this trip. IT IS AWESOME. we played three games of catch phrase, with my team winning (holla atcha team 2!) and we had some freaking AMAZING laughs. at one point (phrase: “come to papa”) we all started laughing so hard, some started crying. i wanted to throw up because my abs hurt so bad from laughing and being way too full of food. amira made some toffee and kathy made some brownies. manna, while sometimes resembling fat camp (hiking, smaller portions, lots of hydration and protein), broke the norm tonight with buckets of fatty, sweet food. haha so good. the past two weeks have been incredibly blessed and i’m so glad to know my team- a good majority of them i can call my good friends, and special bonds have been formed with a select few that i’m STOKED about. tonight was just one of those moments that reinforced how lucky i am to be here and how amazing my team is. i love them all dearly and i’m so thankful that we have two weeks left!! (i just wrote that because some of them read this on their off hours… psych. it’s from the heart. but yes, some do read this)
one thing that had been on my heart all day today was freedom. i read in the morning news that 52 bonded children were rescued from the sweatshop industry in delhi. over 50,000 children are still enslaved with at least 36 children being trafficked every day… just in delhi. the kids we work with all are full of so much potential and joy- it’s hard to imagine how ANYONE would want to literally spoil that for a monetary gain. i want these traffickers to meet people like eric and armando, who are ridiculously amazing, and the people of nicayuda, who have made so much of their lives even though they are only 17 years old. while at el farito today, i was so thankful that these children are free—because in some third world countries, they might not have been. even in managua, it’s not uncommon for a family to sell a child- like in chureca, families used to sell their young virgin daughters to the trashmen so they could have first dibs on sorting trash. talk about terrible living conditions. and because of programs like manna, communities are lifting themselves out of low standards and looking for a better way of life.
paz,
