On Sunday I went to the older boys' soccer game and laughed as a heard of cows meandered down the path the team was taking their half time break on. Kyla picked cactus fruit and we spent the second half of the game picking tiny thorns from her fingers.
The past two days have been great. I've been trying to focus on spending a day with the girls, then a day with the boys. It's hard to get quality time with everyone, but that doesn't keep me from trying. On Monday I climbed trees with Paola and Luis, my dear friends (12 and 15, brother and sister), and we had such a great time. We climbed this enormous fairy tale tree at the far side of the corn field and sat high in it's branches feeling the wind in our hair and talking for over an hour. I can't believe we've never climbed that tree before. It's like an oasis or sanctuary, a safe place to go and just think and have time alone.
Monday night I put all the girls names in a bowl and randomly chose names for selecting clothes from the donations I brought. Much thanks to my friend Mercedes who gave me a ton of cute clothes before I left Tulum to donate to the girls. Each girl got to go through the clothes twice taking an item they wanted. It was an hour of giggling and fun and various stages of dress and undress and trying on clothes that weren't even close to the right size and needing teamwork to untangle each other. Afterward the girls were in good moods, still swapping clothes and lounging around in their dorms. I played tag with some of the littler girls and we raced around the cabana until we all were out of breath and exhausted from so much fun.
Yesterday I went into town with Kyla and had a much needed cup of coffee. I've gone through caffeine withdrawal again and my headaches are gone, but I just feel half awake for about the first 5 hours of the day! While in town I got workbooks and coloring books for the little boys to help make learning fun and be able to do some projects with them. That afternoon we all sat around a table outside and colored, and worked on numbers and some word games. I tried to teach them the song, "Head and Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and I think their favorite part was watching me do it alone, making a fool of myself! Ha, I didn't mind, and I'm going to continue teaching them a little bit of English and I just know they will be singing along with me before long! After my time with the little ones, I helped some middle school boys with email and computer stuff. It's been fun to show them some basic computer things and I'm hoping to help them learn how to type. Kyla downloaded a typing program a few weeks ago, I just need to ask her which one and do a little research myself.
Luis and I hung out again. He helped me with my Spanish language workbook and I helped him chase sheep into their pen. Now that's a hilarious event. First of all chasing sheep is just fun. They 'baaaaah, and gallop and most of them head in the right direction. Getting them into the shed was a whole other thing. Sheep really are stupid creatures. I don't feel bad saying that, because I think they are wonderful, cute, and funny, but boy, getting them to go into their shed really was impossible. It's like crowd control with a crowd that just doesn't get it. They would move as one, but it was like a giant wiggly amoeba that we had to direct through a small door. I was standing in a pile of sheep poop, laughing so hard I was almost crying as sheep were bleating and confused and looking worried..... oh, my, I can't wait to help again today. By the way, we never did get them into their shed. Only into the pen.
Hugo, the dancing machine, borrowed my laptop to watch Micheal Jackson's "Live in Bucharest" DVD and learn new moves. On Saturday I saw him teaching a group of 7 girls a whole choreographed dance. I don't know if they will be performing it, but I sure hope so! It was great to see him teach too, he was so good with them and so confident. In the past couple of months he's grown even more confident in his performance, so that now he's dancing any chance he gets. So last night he danced for about 2 1/2 hours. I have him on video.
After finishing Avatar last night with the older kids, I headed back to my room where the first thing I did was trap a huge cockroach and return it to the great outdoors. Honestly, they are too big to kill. It would be like stepping on a mouse or something. I fell asleep reading my new book, " Helping Abused and Traumatized Children". So far my biggest help to them is just letting them know that they are important to me and that I love them and think they are special. I have a little girl date today with a nine year old who really misses her mom. She's been pretty sad these past few days and I promised her some one on one time today.
That about sums it up for now. I'm really glad to be back.
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