First off I have been very blessed to have help from one of my very best friends, Sarah Catherine Thetford, and her boyfriend, Richy, here at Jovenes the past month and a half. I know this picture is far away, but we were more concerned about getting as much of the scenery in the picture than us being close to the camera.
Scat, Richy, and myself have been working ourselves like dogs the past few weeks, but it may be better to just say “working a normal day” that the employees here work day-to-day. It’s consisted of 2 weeks of waking up everyday at 4:30AM and doing the following:
4:30- wake up, get ourselves ready
5:00- wake up the boys, get them showered, teeth brushed, dressed, beds made, and hair gelled
6:00-taking all 18 boys to breakfast
6:15- getting the juice boxes filled, snacks in lunchbox deal
6:30- all boys (except 6) on the bus and ready to leave for school with backpacks/lunchboxes
7:00- one of the 3 of us take the 6 boys who attend bilingual school to their campus to drop them off
7:30/8:00- start cleaning (sigh)
8-10:30- CLEAN: sweeping everything, mopping everything, washing pee-stained bed sheets & PJs, & cleaning pee smelling bathrooms (the worst job I’ve ever had)
11:30- eat lunch with the high schoolers & prepare bilingual school lunches to take to campus
12:00- take lunches & deliver to Alison Bilingual school
12:20-12:40- their lunch... we wait until they finish, pick up dishes, and head home
12:30- boys from public school arrive, change clothes, wash hands, and eat lunch
1:00- play time
2:00- public school homework sessions
2:30- head to Alison to pick up 6 boys at bilingual school
3:00- return home, change their clothes, continue washing clothes
4:30-5:30- Alison boys' homework session
5:30- heat up/prepare dinner
6:00- serve dinner to yellow house boys
6:30-8 - the boys play and finish HW if they hadn't already finished earlier in the day
8:00- bed time
8:30- I die.
All of this day-to-day routine doesn’t include soccer games, after-school activities, or anything else that usually pops up last minute. We had Lindy here for the first week of this, and the second week it was just us 3. While at the end of everyday I laid my head down on my pillow counting the hours until I had to wake up to repeat the day again, I remembered the fact that these employees are here day in and day out and probably not getting paid nearly enough. This also goes without mentioning the families these employees have waiting on them to return each night. I seriously don’t know how they do it. These workers here are truly SERVANTS. They’re saints. I don’t know how they do it. All I can say is thank God for their presence here in JEC- it does not go unnoticed.
On a lighter note - I went to cross the border yesterday to renew my permission to be in the country. Of course we waited for the last day possible (it expired yesterday, the 23rd) which made me super nervous. Luckily - everyone here is usually super lax about all this stuff, so I just paid a heavy $3 and didn’t even have to pass the border. Elvin, the house parent in the yellow house, drove me in his tiny truck, and two of my best buds from my green house, Julio and Ochoa, went with us. Since we saved so much time by not crossing into Nicaragua, we treated ourselves to a delicious, sit-down meal in Danli, a city which is close to the border.
This is a picture of Kevin, who just turned 18 this past week. He has decided to go back to living with his father, who lives in a poor area about 8 hours from Teguc. While some of these kids have parents, the parents have chosen to give them up or simply cannot afford taking care of them. Kevin is a case of the later. Since he is now 18, he is not bound to be here, and he has chosen to go look for work and live with his father to help support his family. I wish him all the luck in the world. Kevin gave me a spiral notebook of love poems a few weeks ago and told me he would miss me. The poems were all hand written by his truly. Quite the gesture.
Hope you are all well in TN or wherever you are - I can officially announce my arrival date is December 13th. Can’t wait to see you all over the holidays. You have been missed.
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