No Hay Malcriados

On our first day in El Bichito- I was in for a surprise! The kids were less than well-behaved. In fact, they were quite naughty. Fighting in line. Blaming others. Lying left and right without feeling bad about it.

A co-worker came to me a few days later and asked me to identify which kids were perpetually malcriados. Naughty. Ill-behaved.

Eh..... that's kinda a hard question. I don't want to single out and say that one kid is always naughty.....

So I just didn't give him any names.

During the next week we had a huge change of system. We had explicit rules. And we kept track, told kids when we wrote them down for behavior and reminded them the next day when they came. And holy kamoley! All the kids followed through. After fighting the system for about 3 days, they realized we meant business and so all 62 kids decided to quietly read and be good. The exact same kids that were bouncing off the walls and kicking soccer balls in the room and using books to hit each other on the head, were now reading. Not only reading, but actually enjoying reading.

See? I told you. None of the kids were actually perpetually, inherently, malcriado.

Time to go on a teacher rant. The problem with a lot of kids' behavior is their expectations, how high their expectations are, and whether or not the person in charge of them follows through on those expectations by delivering consequences consistently. Kids are good. They are way more fresh from heaven than the rest of us. Less corrupted. More pure. Kids keep the world good and hopeful. Kids love pleasing adults, and if adults have expectations that can be clearly met, praised, and they can let the kids know that, kids will do anything for praise.

My favorite example of this is Wilder. The first day Wilder was THE BIGGEST TATTLE-TALE you ever did meet. Everything around him was chaos, and as soon as I would walk up to the situation, he blamed everyone else around him. Oh my goodness. Always cutting in line. It seemed much more important to him to blame someone else and get them in trouble than to be left alone by the teacher. If he was going to be given a stink eye, he was gonna make sure someone else got in way bigger trouble. Yikes.

I seriously considered labeling Wilder in my head as malcriado. I never wanted to do that to any kid, but I mean, what at all was well-behaved about Wilder? But, I thought, is it fair to label anyone like that in my head?

The problem with labels in your head, is that they change the way you treat that child. I didn't want to treat Wilder differently and with less trust and respect just because he was always bad. But.... was that fair? No.... I don't think so.....

So I didn't. I decided to give him a few more days and keep treating him like he was inherently good, even though it really didn't seem like it.

And what do you know??? But after 3 days, not only did he read well, but when he had the chance to go play soccer, his favorite thing to do, he wanted to stay behind and help another kid with his homework. WHAT?!?! "Wilder, what are you doing?" "I'm just helping him with his homework." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? That is AWESOME!!! You? I thought you were the naughty kid. But that's not naughty at all. That's golden. So... you must not be naughty by nature. Maybe by situation, or by the time of day, but.. not inherently. Inherently, you are good. Just needed expectations, and a chance.

He has never been a problem again. I think he may have attention deficit disorder, or something, because paying attention is so much harder than other kids. but he tries. And he's good. He takes care of his little brother. He follows through on all his expectations.

My favorite part is after he finishes, when he'll ask me, "I did good, right? I read good? I knew the answer for English? I played soccer well?"

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we see clearly the reason why he was such a problem in the first place- blaming other kids. He wants to please people, and do a good job.

There are no naughty children.

No hay malcriados.

The Biggest Lesson

Someone asked me recently what was the most important thing I had learned this time- being abroad.

Hmmm......

This has got to be it: That God is ALWAYS in charge.

So, working at El Bichito- the after school homework/lunch center for poor mountain kids in Puylucana, Peru was not my original plan. No- I was coming to Peru to take care of orphans! Child care. There's just something romantic about the idea of orphans that draws me to them. Rocking cute infant babies in your arms, letting them fall asleep on your chest. Being able to fill the hole of a mom they never had. Being able to call them "your kids" because they are no one else's. Showing them love they do not know. I loved it in Romania and I wanted to love it again- but this time with the beautiful South American children- with ojos abiertos and dark beautiful skin.

But it didn't work out. Long story short- the management for the orphanage changed and the new directors don't want to accommodate volunteers. The excuse was a paperwork problem. The problem was a miscommunication in a train of 6 people.

I was so dissapointed. No. This is not what I paid money to come and volunteer and do. No. No. No. And now I was going to have to go work with school kids. What? That is not what I signed up for. This is not what I paid money for. This is not why I am not working this summer and earning money I need. No. No. No.

And then, like a sun slowly rising on a dark world, throughout the course of my time here, I began to see exactly what God had in store for me. This was not a mistake at all. This was a shortcut to all the things I really needed in my life. He had it all planned out... perfectly. It's kinda scary how perfect it is, in fact.

My major is elementary education. I needed experience teaching students and managing students. I need practice with classroom management. For parenting sake, for a classroom's sake. And I got a class full of 80 kids who are unruly, used to getting away with things and lying. They all hated reading, avoided homework, and were not good at respecting the authority of a teacher. They were all ready to be molded into whatever I wanted to mold them into, depending on how I manage them and motivate them. Perfect for me to grow. It's not my paid job, so if I mess up, I don't lose my salary, but... it was all in my hands, ready to be experimented with and perfected. I got 80 pieces of playdough, and God told me I could just go and start experimenting! It took about a week of trying different ideas before I settled into a system that worked well. Now all the kids come every day, are respectful, love reading, love English class, and are polite. Es un milagro.

 My minor is contemporary dance, and I want to teach dance but have also never had my own classroom. There are about 4-5 girls here who love dancing and with whom I am able to teach ballet- french words- to Spanish students. :) They feel like princesses, I love it, and God granted me another opportunity I needed.

My other minor is teaching english as a second language. Guess what I do most of the time here? Teach English to Spanish-speaking kids. Adults too at night. It's perfect practice.

Boys. My biggest fear is what to do with middle school boys. With my brother and his friends especially, I just can't connect to them very well. I need experience and help. Guess what our biggest group of kids is? 6th grade boys. So much time to practice. I have gotten much better!

I need practice speaking spanish. One of the biggest problems in child education in the US is the fault of communication between the teachers and the Spanish-speaking parents. I want to be able to communicate with Spanish speakers. I needed practice. Well, you can't really practice speaking spanish to orphan babies. I lived in Romania for 3 months and I never really got the language because I just sang English lullabies and they never talked back. But to school age kids, that's all they wanna do- is talk to you. And to adults, and coworkers, and the JAS- young single adults- we are talking all the time. My Spanish fluency has really improved. Thank you God.

I needed practice setting up a classroom. Boom. All the supplies were in one room.

We had an entire floor- the 3rd floor empty. We made posters, labeled books, moved and made benches for all the kids. Boom. My first classroom breathed it's first breath. And man was I excited.

I needed practice setting up a system that would perpetually encourage kids to read and learn simply because of the way it was set up, that could be perpetuated across other volunteers. Granted. We worked on it a lot, and the system holds up and keeps the kids motivated and accountable. Children's literacy gets me so excited.

This sounds bad- but it's true- I needed practice working with people who are dishonest and lazy. How could I encourage them to work as a team and contribute? I needed to practice getting along with them and maintaining good relationships. Need granted. People who were almost enemies when we arrived are now some of our dearest friends.

I have always been timid in sharing my faith, and I needed practice not being so ashamed. Here, we work with the LDS missionaries a lot to help them visit people. We met a really nice girl down the street who is always asking so many questions from the missionaries about God and we love inviting her over to learn English, have fun, and have missionary lessons. I have learned to value my faith in a whole new light when I can see someone else desiring it so much. This perhaps is my greatest joy- recognizing the joy in missionary work. I needed this, and I got it.

And perhaps there are needs of the community that only God knows, but that He is granting for them through my service. Perhaps God wanted me to play the piano for the ward and for Hanna to teach the Young Women how to lead music. Perhaps something else we taught them, they needed. I don't know. It's all in His hands.
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Besides my needs, I had a few wants too. Wishes. Desires, that were also granted.

I just wanted to see a more traditional culture, and live in a poorer place to experience poverty. I've always desired this my whole life- to live in poverty for just a while. To know it by experience. Not essential to my growth, perhaps, but it was a wish of my heart, and we got transferred from big city Trujillo with 2 million people to little pueblo Puylucana with 1000 people where most adults are illiterate, most people don't brush their teeth, they wash their clothes by hand in the river and the people build their own houses out of dirt. Wish granted. Not only is it what I personally wanted, but it's also 10 times safer for two traveleing gringas than a big city like Trujillo with much more crime.

Perhaps there are more things I have yet to fully realize that God also wanted me to see, know, learn.

Perhaps God wanted to teach me that, in some situations, children with single parents who have nothing to do during the day are at more risk than orphans who have constant caregivers watching over them 24/7, employed by the state.

Perhaps he wanted me to see that education is another key to success, just like a nuclear family is. (But it is not anywhere as near as important as family!!)

Perhaps he wanted those kids to experience the joy of reading, the joy of education, and He knew that I might be the person for the job.

Perhaps he wanted me to experience stepping back, saying "I'll Go Where You Want me to go, Dear Lord,", and really meaning it. I wanted to rock baby orphans. But that didn't happen. Here I am in an after-school center, in Puylucana. I didn't want to go to Puylucana. But here I am. So yeah- I'll go here.

And you know what? Besides all those other things I have learned, needed, and experienced, when it comes down to it- I just love these kids. They are so cute, so sweet, so smart. They are the most selfless and generous children I have ever met, and they take care of each other and their siblings with a care I do not see as much in the United States.

And even with their quirks- their lying and complaining- I just like them, they make me laugh, and none of them are inherently bad or perpetually naughty. Children come with a rare innocence that I am only starting to recognize through my new adult eyes. King Benjamin knew what he was talking about when he said everyone should becometh as a little child. These kids are good. They're my friends. And I will really miss them.

Dallin H. Oaks, said, "Seek always for the broader view of the majestic work of God."

And for the 5th time in my life, when major life decisions and turning points in my life have arose, God's way is better than my way.

Tuesday, 2 more days, is our last day with the kids. And I can for sure say that this is definitely the most valuable and important lesson I have learned in Peru: He is ALWAYS in charge.

So, stop worrying when it doesn't all go exactly according to your plan. Just step back. Enjoy watching the miracles of God unfold. Let your jaw drop at how perfect it turns out. Let your little tiny self soak in the majesty of a bigger plan- a bigger purpose- bigger and better than you or anything you could have planned.

And in the meantime, serve with grace, consciously choose to have a blast, 

and enjoy being a small part of those miracles.

The Problem with Reading...

It's more fun than TV!

Every day after lunch we let the kids watch 20 minutes of a movie in English before we start reading. 

The problem is, many kids claim their book as soon as they get in the room, and they start reading while the TV is still rolling! 

Reading is just more fun and novel for them! It makes my heart happy.

El Rey Leon

Every day after lunch while we are waiting for everyone to finish eating, we watch an English movie upstairs. This helps us corral all the niños in an organized way, but it also doesn´t matter when they arrive. This helps us to all start reading at the same time afterwards.

This week we have been watching El Rey Leon- The Lion King, but in English. Today we watched the scene where the stampede in the gorge kills Mufasa and Simba sees his father die. The kids usually understand mas o menos what's going on, but today they understood it all.

I always hold my laptop in my lap so they can all see the screen, and I watch the best movie- them. :)

But today it was so sad. Their eyes were so terrified. So pitiful. They saw Simba's suffering, and it hurt them too.

It was one of the saddest sights I have ever seen- 50 Peruvian mountain kids, worried and afraid and sorrowful for the absense of Simba's father in his life and the pain at his parting. They didn't need it to be in Spanish and they didn't need translation. Death is life, family is life, and they knew it.

Life is the same for all of us. Things that make someone cry, like losing a parent, usually hurt just as bad for the next person.

It makes me want to be more compassionate towards others I don't understand. Some people do weird things I really disagree with- but at their core- they too are human. They want love, family, acceptance, public success. This motivates all of us. People that do weird things usually just have different means of achieving what I too am trying to achieve, they just attempt success differently than I do, usually because their culture or family or hard circumstances have trained them to fight their wars differently.

So let us be compassionate.

How to make people do things they really don't want to do:

This requires a story from Romania.

There was a little girl in Chloe and Madeline's room. She was handicapped. Very handicapped. She sat in a wheelchair all day where her stick-thin legs hung over the frame, and her head seemed too big for her body that was withering away. She could barely hold her head up, because she had no neck muscles, and nothing to look at, so her head just hung there, attached by a small neck, drooping over the front of her little body. A life long of never wanting to hold your head up robs you of all your neck muscles.

In the orphanage, Madeline and Chloe would work with her. Their goal for her was to hold her head up by herself. She could do it, but she just never wanted to try. But they would smile at her, and say "Keep your head up!" every time they caught her head hanging down. She was usually lazy and wouldn't hold her head up for the workers, but when Chloe and Madeline were watching, and told her, "Keep your head up!", she did better.

This little girl lived her life in the orphanage, except for the few occasions she would leave to go to the hospital because she was sick. Orphans get sick a lot. Perhaps because they do not have a lot to live for. Perhaps because of sanitation. Perhaps because of too many children within too few walls.

So, again, this little girl got sick. And had to go to the hospital.

In the afternoon, Chloe, Madeline, and Hannah went to the hospital to visit the orphans there and were surprised to find the girl they knew from the orphanage! The little girl immediately recognized them and started smiling. They went over to her, took her big but fragile 10 year old body out of the crib, and just held her. She was sick. She needed love. She needed rest.

As soon as they took her in their arms, however, without even being asked, this sick little girl started grunting, and soon enough- her head was up. Madeline told her, “Oh, little (girl), you don't have to hold your head up today. You're in the hospital, you're sick, you can just rest and get better today.”
But her head stayed up strong, because she wanted to be good for them.

Why is that? She doesn't like trying to hold up her head. After a lifetime in the orphanage, she had lost her neck muscles because she never wanted to hold up her head. It wasn't worth it to her. Even babies want to hold their head up. But she didn't. So why did she try so hard, without being asked, for Chloe and Madeline?

Because- THEY LOVE HER, and she knows it, so she wants to please them and be good for them. Hannah said she was really touched and she almost started crying.

That is the secret to making people do things they really don't want to do. Loving them.

Now Forget to Be Content

I was watching the Prince of Egypt, one of my favorite movies, and learned something.

It's during the part where Moses finds out that he is a Hebrew and yet has been living among the palace Egyptians all this time.

His mother sings some very deep and touching lyrics:

Now you know the truth, love

Now forget to be content.

When the gods sent you a blessing

you don't ask why it was sent.

Those lyrics really stood out to me. Moses didn't know before. He didn't know he should have been doing back-breaking labor with the Hebrews. But he shoulda. He was Hebrew. By blood.

He didn't realize how lavishly he lived.

Growing up, he didn't know he was so so lucky that his Egyptian mom found him in the river, but now that he knows, he is so much more grateful for what he has. 

Now you know the truth love, now forget to be content.
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There's a lot of truth in this world that I didn't know before, either.

Now you know the truth, love.

The truth about how many people wash their clothes.

The truth about many people's homes.

Looking off our roof onto our neighbor's home

The truth about what they do for a living (like sheer sheep).

The truth that people eat rice and lentils day after day because that is all they can afford.

The truth of how many children are abused.

How many children do not have parents.

Romanian orphanage

How many children with parents have no where to go after school because their parents are working.

Very common site in Peru. Kids waiting while their parents work.

How many children cannot ask their parents for homework help, because their parents don't know.

How few people can play the piano at church, because no one can afford a piano to practice on.

How few children own a book for pleasure reading.

Most children at El Bichito do have have a book at home. Nor do they at school. Nor are there textbooks for everyone. The teacher just teaches out of her textbook and everyone else copies.

The truth that most kids can't go to college because they cannot afford it.

How few trips and vacations people can go on. They just can't afford it. Some people have never set foot outside their small village their entire life.

View from our roof

How the majority of Europeans drink. A lot. Get wasted. Often.

(And then stumble around on the streets and scare American girls visiting. :) )

How many prostitutes there are. How lavishly it is advertised. In Romania, most stores had bright pink, glowing signs. They even passed out flyers on people's windsheilds in Bucharest.

How many gypsies. Whose parents teach them, explicitly, how to lie, how to steal. Well.

And homeless.

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Now forget to be content.

Being content means it's good enough. I deserve it. I was born this blessed for a reason. No. I wasn't. Forget it. Forget to be content.

Content with my house.

My family.

My faith.

My friends. Good, clean friends.

My education.

 

Books from the time I was itty bitty.

(We had so many textbooks in high school we got rid of them and got new editions every 10 years. The library was full of books no one read. But literacy isn't as much of a problem, so we spent our time and money on things like... school spirit.?)

The ability to pursue my dreams. (ballet point shoes are expensive)

The ability to find a job quickly and work.

My apartment at college. Warm. Safe. Food and to spare.

My washing machine and dryer.

My money. 

Grandpa's money- treating us to rafting.

Money to save up, and go to theme parks. 

Most Romanians and Peruvians could never do that.

Money to buy save up and buy prom dresses. 

Healthy relationships where I am not abused.

Community money- to make available clean and cheap swimming pools.

So many Christmas presents the wrapping covers the floor.

Food and to spare- given to us for free by farmers who left it unpicked because it wasn't "good enough" for the American market.

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Moses's eyes changed after he found the truth. He didn't see the glory in the riches and the buildings. 

He just saw the suffering of those supporting it.

It was like that for me- but Romanians and Peruvians don't necessarily directly support the wealth of my family. But.... kinda.... I guess- all economies in the world are connected.

It's just hard to see and love and appreciate wealth- lots of cute clothes money to go out to eat all the time, money to go to college, when I knew people who only bought brown sugar and oil from the store. Everything else they grew or made themselves.

Forget to be content. I thought to myself, "Your life is not normal. Who's to say what normal is- but you are extremely blessed. Way more than you ever have or ever will deserve."

I do not believe that God sent me to a well-off, happy family in America because I was more faithful, more righteous in the previous life. I can't believe that. Because if I was born into a poor, broken family without good solid principles and examples of how people can live with high morals, self control, and loyalty in their lives and families, I can't say I would have made choices different from the choices of people I know who come from those backgrounds. But I do know that I will never know what that feels like. And I will always be thankful that I was so so so blessed
 beyond my deserving.

Now forget to be content.

Forgetting to be content means refusing to be okay with just saying, "Oh- yeah, I must have been more righteous in the preexistence. I deserve this.It's okay. It's supposed to be this way. Everyone else just isn't as good as I am." That's called pride. Read about it in Alma 31: 27-28. It also means refusing to say, "Well, this is bad, but I'm just one person. I can't do anything about this.
I guess I'll just do nothing."

Because you can do something! And it can matter! Mother Teresa said, "We outselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." Something small to you may be small to the world, but it may be the world to one other person.
So it's worth it.

I don't pretend to know what that one drop is for everyone. I don't even know exactly what it is for me, but I try to figure out a couple drops here and there and add them. I know for sure that everyone's drops are different. A couple drops I have decided to continue adding when I return to America:

1. Reading to my kids at a young age.

2. Getting married, and trying my hardest to maintain a healthy, nuclear family for my kids.

3. Providing shelter, food for my children.

4.. Maintaining my faith as a priority.

5. Giving away more money. I do not need it.

6. Hugging those I love a little tighter.

It's different for everyone. But I hope you can find drops too to show God
how grateful you are for everything we have been given.

Forget to be content.