the wail

It's amazing how much can happen in a week.

On Tuesday I was frustrated with myself because I had been impatient with the kids. I was annoyed with how they always asked me what time it was and when were we going to the pool, how long were we going to be there, and how many more minutes until we left. Now, this annoyance with the constant questions, especially the constant questions about time, began for me when I started working at camp. Those little questions were the very things that would drive me batty, so I eventually found ways to deal with the questions, telling the kids to ask another kid who had just asked me the same question, or some other similar answer. Also, the problem seemed to leave with the the Adventure campers, leaving me the second half of the summer to forget about such things. The problem had only arisen a few times before while here in El Salvador, and I had written it off as something that didn't need to be solved. But there it was again, staring me in the face. So to combat this problem, I decided to make signs for each of the houses, stating the hours of the pool. I did this on Wednesday afternoon during the kids' homework time when they didn't need any of my help. This helped me stay awake (eliminating a crankiness factor that was present the previous day) and it was fun. So that day, the pool was good. I cracked down on the people running and fighting, having them sit out for two minutes for breaking the rules just once, instead of giving them a warning like I had previous times. It worked and I was happy.

But Thursday, oh wretched Thursday. When I got to the pool, it was locked. I sent the kids to go look for the man who has the key to the pool, but he wasn't at home, which annoyed me, because we had an agreement about which days I was going to use the pool. I was to go and find him when I needed the gate unlocked and he was going to be in one of two places. He wasn't, and I didn't like it. After shooing the kids away from the holes in the fence, telling them that it was wrong to get into the pool that way, they decided that they wanted to wait for him at his house. While waiting, they remembered: Don Fidel has the keys too, and he works at ECAS, the school. So I went to go ask him for the keys. When I got to his office, I launched into my explaination about how I had talked to the other guy last week and he wasn't there, so could I please use his key. I'd barely taken a breath when Don Fidel stopped me. He told me that the day before, the kids had broken the net used to fish leaves out of the pool, which cost $12. At first, I thought he was saying something about trash around the pool, so I explained apologetically that yes, the kids had been eating mangoes near the pool and that I had had them clean it up, but that they hadn't done a very good job. He looked at me funny and just repeated the statement. Then I understood. He asked me who had been watching the kids. "I was," I said. And who was going to pay for the damage? "I will," I said. He seemed a little taken aback that I hadn't hemmed and hawed, looking to pass the buck to someone else, but the truth is, I was responsible for the kids because I was watching them, and these kids rarely see more than a dollar at a time because they always spend whatever money they have almost immediately, so $12 is nearly an impossibility for them. Don Fidel finally gave me the key and told me to return it after we were finished. I gathered the kids together with sadness for their disrespect, and I talked to them before we went into the pool about what had happened and how we needed to respect things that aren't ours. Of course, it didn't help my mood that as I was gathering the kids, one of them threw a rock through the fence and hit the pool storage shed. There wasn't any damage done, but I was annoyed at the kid for being so inconsiderate. But then, things went pretty well at the pool from then on, except for the end. It was time for everyone to get out of the pool and I counted down from ten like I always do, and, like always, there were many kids standing there in the pool, watching me and waiting until I got to a certain magical number (like, say, 3 or 2) before they began to get out of the water. Then, in all of their scramblings out of the pool, things got left behind. This time, I think it was a ball. The owner of the ball stood on the edge of the pool and pleaded with me to let them get the ball, and at least two other voices volunteered to get the ball as well. I chose one of the kids to retrieve it and it was done. But then, another ball suddenly appeared in the water. More voices begged to go get it, but this time I told them that we were going to leave the ball, that if they touched the water they could not return to the pool on Sunday. In their desperation they made a bargain with me. Actually, it wasn't really a bargain. One boy simply accepted the consequences, telling me that he would get the ball and not come to the pool on Sunday. So I allowed him to get in. While he was in the water, another ball flew in. I asked him to get that one too. Meanwhile, most of the kids were still standing around the pool, some of them right on the edge, and troublemakers would push those ones into the pool, trying to get the other person in trouble. I kept telling them to leave, but nobody would budge. They just stood there, looking at me. I was losing my patience. Eventually, through some miracle, the crowd started to subside and there were no more balls in the pool. Two boys were over in a corner where their shirts were and they had a ball with them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a ball go flying into the deep end. There's no way that was an accident. They smiled and sheepishly pointed at each other, then at the ball, asking to retrieve it. I said no. I had had it with them. They would just have to live without their ball. They tried to bargain with me, saying that they wouldn't come to the pool on Sunday, but I wouldn't have it. So instead, they started throwing rocks at the ball to make it float toward the side of the pool. This made me especially mad because at the beginning of the summer, Don Fidel had told me that he didn't like the kids from the Hogar swimming in the pool because they put rocks in it. At the time I thought, "No, not my kids, they don't do that." I shared this with the boys, concluding aloud that I had thought wrong. They ignored me, continuing to throw rocks and paddle the water to get the ball to float closer to them. In time, they had the ball. But they still wouldn't leave immediately, and neither would three other girls. But in time, they left, and I felt drained. I had been shaken to my core, mad and frustrated like I haven't been in ages. I didn't want to do the pool for the kids ever again. They didn't deserve it, they didn't need it, why should I put up with this disrespect when I don't have to? But, thankfully, after a long evening of decompressing (drinking tea, breathing deeply, and singing in worship) and a talk with Peter, I realized that I didn't want to punish everyone for the transgressions of the few. So today I went back to the pool with the kids (minus the delinquents, of course) and everything went a lot better. I made it clear from the beginning that they were expected to leave the pool area and not just the pool before I got to the number "Zero" in my count-down. When it came time to leave, they exitted on time. I was very happy. Also, I found out of Friday night that another one of the SMs, Mandy, had witnessed the time at the pool when I had felt as though I had totally lost my temper. She said that she thought I had handled the situation very well and that I was extremely patient. She had no idea that at that very moment, I had felt as though I was at my worst! That was encouraging.

Wednesday night, Mami Yani had found out that her mother had died. She came to our room at around 11:00, crying and sobbing. In her absence, the new tia, Tia Elsie was to act as house mother. Things actually went pretty smoothly, except for the part where the kids took major advantage of her, making lots of noise, lot listening, fighting with each other, but nobody died and the names of the perpetrators were noted for the day when Mami and Papi would return to the house. Friday we went to the funeral, my first here in El Salvador. After lunch we all piled on the bus and drove to an Adventist church in Santa Tecla, about half an hour away. I saw Mami and hugged her, passing on the message that Mami Tita was praying for her. The casket was at the front of the church, and occasionally people would go up and look at the deceased, lifting a small wooden door to peer at the glassed-in figure. Once the kids realized that they, too, could look inside, they crowded around the head of the casket, jostling each other for a good position. I cringed, and fortunately, they were sent away so as not to create a spectacle out of the dead. We sang a few hymns a cappella and there was a short homily given by the pastor. I caught words here and there about "the hope we have in Heaven" and how "we will all be reunited when Jesus comes," but I couldn't help drifting off into the recesses of my mind, finding sorrowful sympathy in my memories of Brandon Moor's funeral last year. The sun streaming through the window lulled me into a melancholy sleep, and I awoke at random intervals, feeling sheepish for sleeping at such a time. After the service, we once again loaded up the bus and made our way to the cemetery. Once there, we walked through the graves, tall, colorful and ornate, making our way to a back corner where the graves were covered with simpler tiles and whose head-stones rose no higher than four feet above the ground. We gathered in the shade for another short service, singing a few more hymns and hearing a few more words from a different pastor. Then the flowers were taken off of the coffin and there was a time for the family to pay their last respects. Tia Elsie was holding a large arrangement of flowers and crying, so I stepped forward to take the flowers from her, hoping that it would help in some way. I stood there solemnly with the flowers and listened as Mami Yani wailed, clutching the coffin, pressing her face against the glass cover, saying, "Mummy, Mummy!!" and sobbing uncontrollably. It was so odd, to have just heard words of hope from the pastor yet still hear Mami weep with such despair. I can only recall having heard such a hopeless cry once before, and I remember thinking how dark it must be to be on their side of the world. I thought a similar thought then at Abuela Yani's grave, almost a full year after the first such thought crossed my mind, and I was filled with such pity for Mami Yani.