Someone's Watching A Soccer Game In The Next Room And Some Team Just Scored A Gooooooooooooooooooooooooal

DAY FOUR

Griselda is ecstatic that Journey and I like fresh fruit. And eggs. Apparently most volunteers that stay with her aren’t big fans of either, so she’s super excited that she can give us all the fresh fruit and variations of egg-based meals that Guatemala has to offer. We’ve had eggs wrapped in tortillas (once with turkey in it, like an omelet) for the past two nights, and it’s honestly my new favorite meal. 

On a side-note, culture wise, I’ve figured out a few new things. One is that in Guatemala, “v”s, “m”s, and “p”s all sound like “b”s. Another is that you call women “señoras” and not “mujeres”, because the latter implies that the woman you’re talking about is a prostitute. And, finally, “no me importa” is a really rude phrase here. So right now I’m in a really awkward position where I’m trying to convey that I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of person and really it doesn’t matter to me what happens, but I run the risk of sounding like a jerk about it.

Anyway, onto today; I got to teach at the shelter! 

This morning, I sat in on a lesson about the difference between healthy romantic relationship and an unhealthy one; I hate that this is something they have to hit home so hard with these girls, since they’re so young. But when the teacher’s asked if anyone had ever been in a bad relationship, almost everyone in the room raised their hand. One girl stood up and told us the story about how she ended up at Hogar Temporal. I didn’t catch all of it, but it involved having inappropriate pictures taken against her will and posted publicly, being pressured into sex, being threatened with a gun, and losing contact with her family because she thought it was more important to be with the boy that was abusing her, since she thought he was the love of her life. It was horrible to listen to. She was crying by the end, and so were a few other girls who must have seen some of themselves in her story.

After that, when classes started back up after a short break, one of the teachers brought me into a room and announced that I was American, spoke English, and would be teaching them all English today. She handed me a marker and pointed at the white board. It was a little nerve-wracking to be thrust into a situation like that totally unprepared, but the girls were actually very helpful - they knew what they wanted to learn. We went over basic phrases like “hello” and “my name is”, numbers, days of the week, months, colors, and animals. They especially liked learning about animals, and, at the end of my “lesson”, everyone could tell me what their favorite animal was in English. It was a ton of fun! I really loved being able to interact with and teach the girls like that. I hope get to do it again tomorrow!

Speaking of favorite animals: dogs. Specifically, a dog, and even more specifically, one beagle puppy in particular. He’s for sale in a shop that we have to pass everyday on the way to the orphanage. He can’t be more than two months old. They keep him in this tiny cage, with no newspapers or rags or towels at the bottom, and they keep him in there all the time. The store was closed when we walked by this morning, but we could hear him crying inside. One of the other volunteers says he’s been there for almost a month, and he had a brother who was adopted a couple of weeks ago, leaving him completely alone. Journey and I die a little inside every time we think about him… so, we’re thinking about hatching a scheme to find him a loving home in the U.S. (Note: not my home - don’t worry, Mom!) We think the whole thing (buying him, getting him shots if he’s old enough, getting him supplies, and bringing him home via carry-on) would be less than $500. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might be seeing an advertisement for this puppy in the coming days. Or you could leave an offer in the comments below. Just saying.

Also, Spanish lessons went well again. There was more reading aloud, more playing card games, and more talking about politics. Today’s political topic was the U.S. presidential election, and the different candidates (mostly the Republicans, since they seem to make the news here more). Everything’s going great!

Alright. That was my day. It was good, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.