Merry Christmas

"Merry Christmas," he said. "Merry Christmas," I said, twinkling with a smile, as I hung up the phone.

There's nothing like saying Merry Christmas to remind you that yes, it is that time of year. To tell the truth, despite the fact that I had just gone caroling prior to the phone call, it didn't really feel like Christmas. The weather was warm, I was still teaching swimming lessons in the afternoons, and I was so busy with the preparations for Christmas that I almost totally forgot about Christmas itself. This past week has been full of Christmas activities: wrapping gifts from the hogar on Sunday night, practicing for a Christmas Day talent show, making cookies for the kids, going caroling to the houses within the hogar, going caroling with the kids outside of the hogar, cutting out snowflakes to make the cards for each child in our house, wrapping the gifts from us on Wednesday night, and writing daily Secret Santa notes each day. Add the fact that I was gone most of Tuesday to get my visa from San Salvador, and you can imagine that I was pretty busy.

All this busy-ness helped distract me from the fact that Manuel is gone. (Manuel is often referred to as my Manuelito in my photos.) He left last Thursday afternoon, but I didn't find out about it until last Friday night. The sad thing is that it took me that long to notice that he was actually gone. I guess it's understandable, considering that I don't usually eat meals with the boys, he's not in my work group, and he's not in this rotation of swimming class. But still, I don't like the fact that the last time I remember talking to Manuel it was to tell him that he couldn't come to the pool the following Sunday because he didn't get out of the pool on time. And that was a good four days before he left. I nearly cried when I heard the news. Why hadn't I known? Why didn't anybody tell me? Why didn't we do something to say goodbye to him? It was just so sad. But little Teresa, bless her heart, she's the one who told me about it, and when she saw that I was about to cry, she comforted me and talked to me about it. I found out later that night that Manuel will be coming back to visit today, so that helped make things easier to bear. But this has helped me realize one thing: make the most of every day you have with these kids because they're not going to be here forever and neither are you. You never know when they're going to step out of your life and never come back.

Last night I thought of Manuel again as we handed out gifts. His gifts were there with the others, just waiting until he could come back to get them. The kids were so excited to get their gifts. Mami and Papi had all of the kids sit in a circle, and told them all to applaud as each person received a gift and to say "Thank you" and give hugs to all the adults when they got a gift. Alexis and I handed out the gifts that had been bought by the hogar and then handed out the gifts we had put together ourselves. Little Jimmy, Mami and Papi's youngest son, was certain that he wasn't getting anything because the hogar doesn't buy gifts for the children of the Mamis and Papis. Papi even told Alexis that Jimmy could help hand out the gifts. But Alexis wouldn't hear of it. She just kept telling Jimmy to sit in the circle, assuring him that he had a gift. And as all the kids were given their gifts from the hogar, Jimmy remained doubtful. But when he saw that he had received TWO gifts, he was excited. (Hmm, many devotional parallels to be made here...) It was so fun to see to kids get their gifts. For the most part, they were very thankful. Moises even gave me an extra-long hug and a kiss on the cheek. He made my heart melt, the little sweetie. After opening the gifts, we blew up some fire-crackers (scared me half to death, so I lit some myself just to say that I did) and then I went over to House 1 to celebrate with Elizabeth. We read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 as well as Matthew, lit Christmas candles, opened a few small gifts, and played Go Fish and Old Maid. It was nice.

So here I am, lucky as can be, still glowing with the happiness of Christmas, and yet I get to go home in a few days and experience it all again. I am really looking forward to it. To you, I wish that all your Christmases may be as joyful and as full of love as mine has been. Merry Christmas.

under construction

As I write this, I am sitting in an office surrounded by white dust. The white dust has set up shop on the computer keyboard and found a home on the mouse ball. This is due to the fact that our office is in the process of remodeling. There is also dust in my ears and I continue to pick dirt and twigs out of my hair, along with the occasional hormiga (ant). These things, however, are not the result of a construction project. Rather, they come from cleaning the coconut trees. Today was my first experience with such a job, and it is dirty. All I do is pull the dead stuff off of the tree, but each removed portion rains down debris and exposes the homes of many insects. Most of these insects are ants, but I even saw a fully-grown cockroach scurry away from my advances. Eww. But the most exciting part is that most of this was accomplished from atop a ladder. I entertained myself by pretending I was working on a ship, perched upon the top-gallant spar, holding on to the mast (tree) with one hand and working with the other. I moved deliberately and with care. When ants crawled up my arms and over my face, I had to calmly brush them away, lest I fall to the ground. All-in-all, not a bad experience.
A few weeks ago I was blessed with a visit from my Uncle Joedy. He was in the area doing pre-trip preparations for a mission trip in the spring and was able to drop by in order to deliver a care package from my parents. It was really good to see him, even though it was only for a few minutes, and he set in motion a reconstruction of my point of view. In less than two weeks I will be home for a short visit. Before Joedy´s visit, I had thought that returning to El Salvador would be a breeze. But as he left, I suddenly realized that even though I love getting care packages, I love seeing my loved ones more. Knowing that, it will be extremely difficult to return after the New Year.

on the first day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me...nothing! Well, really, today was NOT the first day of Christmas, even though I thought it was this morning. I did the math (25-13=12) and thought, "Oh, today is the first day of Christmas. I've never noticed that before!" Yet, ironically, a few minutes after I thought this thought, Alexis (who must be telepathic, or at least have neural pathways that are very similar to mine) mused, "Hey, tomorrow is the first day of Christmas." I was a bit surprised at the comment, especially because it meant that my earlier observation was wrong. After a look at the calendar, I saw that yes, Alexis was right. Oh bother. Anyway, tonight I discovered that I had received a package from the Women's Deans of Walla Walla College. I opened it and discovered a few small, wrapped gifts, as well as a card. I asked aloud, "Should I open them?" as I reached for the parcels. Elizabeth reprimanded me slightly, and I realized that I should, indeed, save SOMEthing to open on Christmas Eve. I have already enjoyed the contents of my Christmas box put together by Jessica Eddlemon, my brother, boyfriend, and various other friends, and since I'm not expecting much else to come in the mail before Christmas, I shall save this package until then.
Today has been a good day and I have been happy, but today is the exception as of late. About a week ago Alexis was talking to one of the older kids, and it came out that apparently, our Tia thinks that we are lazy. There were other accusations of this sort that came to our attention when Mami Yani talked to Alexis about making a calendar to schedule the days that each of us wake up the girls. At that time, Mami was very apologetic, saying that the tias from other houses had said that all of their missionaries helped wake the kids up in the morning, and said that the kids had complained that we didn't like to play with them. Anyway, since that time, I've been trying to make an effort to play with the kids more in addition to the more-busy summer schedule that we have. So this new information that our Tia thought we were lazy came across as offensive. Just because I don't work in the kitchen anymore doesn't mean I work hard. And just because I work at the pool and it SEEMS to be all fun and games doesn't mean it is so, because it's not easy to hold kids' attention long enough to teach them how to swim in the relatively cold water. It is this sort of attitude that has overshadowed my existence for the past week or so. I feel guilty if I need to clean my room because I'm not with the kids and I'll be out of the sight of the parents and tia. From that they might think I'm slacking off when really, I'm just doing the necessary things to keep my life in order. In addition to that, I have been having increasingly more opportunities to perform special music, meaning that I need to practice more as well. This causes me to be away from the kids even more, and I fear that the adults in the house may resent my absence. I feel silently judged daily and this puts my nerves on edge.
In other news, I have lice again. I am decidedly less worried about them and have decided to forego the lice shampoo treatment. This means that I comb my hair out thouroughly with a lice comb after every shower. So far I've only found two live lice, and those were just today. Before that, the kids found a few eggs, but nothing more. I believe this bout with lice is far less severe than that other occurrance. But even if I had found the lice to be abundant, I doubt my attitude toward them would have changed. I think that having lice is a lot like having kids (or at least, what I've heard about kids) in that the more times you have 'em, the less of a big deal they are.

grasshopper

It's amazing how things can change so quickly. One minute I was daydreaming, thinking about how everything that had happened lately was so extremely ordinary, and the next minute I was wishing that I had never thought such a thing. This past Friday most of the SM's went to the beach with the volunteer group that was here from Nebraska. About half-way through our time there, I was lying on my towel, listening to Jack Johnson and feeling beachy, when I heard a bunch of commotion. I sat up and looked into the water. Through my headphones I could hear some girls near me saying something like, "...there were three, but now I only see two." I searched the ocean, seeking the subject of their conversation, and when I saw only a small boat a little ways off shore, I assumed that they were talking about the persons in that dinghy. But soon, I heard someone say, "Get Brittany!" The concern in their voice made me throw off my headphones and run for the water. Three SM's had been swept past the breakers in a rip-tide and only two had returned. I swam out into the ocean, knowing there was nothing I could do to help, even though I was the only certified lifeguard present. I went to the small group of people that Christina had been hanging out with, and asked a few questions. I was afraid that she had drowned or was trapped beneath the water in some way, but fortunately, Christina's fellow body-surfers hadn't seen her submerge. But then again, they hadn't seen her for quite some time, and though she had been above water the last time they saw her, there wasn't any guarantee that that was still the case. Because I had been on the beach and had seen a boat off-shore, I wasn't terribly worried that she might get swept all the way to China, but I was worried about her endurance swimming in the ocean. I stayed on the shore side of the breakers, worried that I would get swept out as well in my attempt to save her. For one thing, I didn't know for sure that she actually needed my help, and for another thing, I had nothing in the way of a buoyant life-saving aid. If she had drowned and needed my help, chances were slim that I would be able to find her, pull her to the surface, AND tow her to shore through the waves without any sort of help in the buoyancy department. So I stayed, and we waited, hoping to catch any glimpse of her that we could. Finally, we saw her: a head of wet hair and a white face, swimming slowly toward us as the waves passed her by. Her face betrayed exhaustion and mirrored the relief that we all felt. She made it safely to shore and we crowded around her, thanking God in prayer as she cried.
Days passed and the incident was forgotten, at least by me. That was when I wished for something exciting to happen. (This is where a little voice like that of Adventures in Odyssey's Mrs. Barclay was supposed to say, "Be careful what you wish for, it might come true." But alas, the wish was not clearly verbalized in my head, so the warning of Mrs. Barclay was not fully realized either.) My answer came in the form of a tragedy. After lunch on Tuesday, I opened my bedroom door to a sobbing Mami Yani. Papi Chepe's father had just died and the family was leaving immediately to go to the funeral. There were no extra house parents available to fill in, so Alexis and I instantly became mothers, with the help of the substitute Tia and an older girl from another house. To make a long, and very detailed story short, we survived. Actually, in looking back, we did pretty well. The house was in total disarray because the girls and boys had been in the process of switching rooms when Mami Yani left, and the next morning we discovered that there was only one shower curtain for the boys' bathroom. Through some form of logic that I may never understand, Moises refused to use the curtain-less shower because other people could see him, even though he was already running around the house buck-naked. Go figure. But anyway, on the whole, meals were relatively tranquil, with the major difficulty being the clean-up. Tia Lydia returned from her day off on Wednesday and helped with the parenting more, though seemingly against her will. She seemed unconcerned at the lack of house parents and told Alexis that she hoped to go to the funeral that day. Things continued at a slightly more-chaotic pace with Tia Lydia as the mother, and I was relieved when Mami and Papi returned unexpectedly this evening. I am so happy.
Also, to add a little zip to my life, I received my Christmas box from Walla Walla. I hate waiting, and since I'll be home a few days after Christmas anyway, I figured, "Why clump all the good stuff together? Let's spread the joy and open it now!" So I did, and I was definitely impressed. My favorite thing was a book containing notes from many of my friends with pictures to go along with their notes. I was so touched by all the nice things they had to say, but the note that really stuck out and taught me something was that of Katie Savage. In it, she reminded me of the Virtues of Life that I had made up and taught to her in high school: Be observant, don't carry excess baggage, and take your time. The virtues mirror the things that most other people had been telling me, instructing me to enjoy every minute of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, but when I read them this time, my own words came back to haunt me and caused the lesson to really hit home: This isn't just something to survive. I shouldn't just wait my life away, looking forward to the next big thing but ignoring the present. I need to live now and take advantage of the moments I'm given. Savor it. Soak it up. And that's hard to do sometimes. But hopefully, it will get easier with practice.
In other news, I am now lice-free. Yay.