Parenting

Being a parent is really hard work.

This isn´t really news, I know. About half of the population of you kind folks who read my ramblings are maybe parents yourselves, well aware of this information due to first hand experience.  Maybe my own parents are secretly finding it quite funny that I now understand their side of the story when it comes to trying to keep a straight head amongst the antics of  several young hooligans!

Hanging out with my twelve hijos (sons) brings me incredible joy each day… but it can also be a little tiring sometimes. Parents have to cook a lot, I am learning.  They àlso often get woken up in the middle of the night. They also have the privlege of cleaning up excessive amounts of vomit and diarreah. They get whined at. They aren´t always listened to.  They sometimes feel like all they ever do is clean up after their kids. And children are expensive! They are always growing and needing new clothes. School fees, doctors, dentists, not to mention bills of every sort and variety can be quite daunting. School projects that keep us up in to all hours of the morning painting, cutting, pasting together… all part of the parenting experience, I guess. Then, there is the headache of disipline.  There are so many books to read, so many formulas, so many different ideas about disipline that someone always thinks you are doing a bad job, no matter how you approach things. The gap between cultural values here and my North American idealism is so huge. And even just consistency, which I think is key, is hard. 

The other day it got so intense that I understood, for a miniute, why some people abuse their kids. I wanted to lock a certain little boy in his room for about a month. Do not worry, dear readers, I most certainly did not. But I understood for a second how someone could do such a thing. I think I am learning that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. I think that most parents do the best job they know how to do.  Unfortunately, many of the kids are here at the home because their parents didn´t know how to be good parents. And while the situations that so many of them come from make me extremely angry, I can also see how these things really can be generational, cyclical, how closely our parenting styles reflect those of our parents. Without even meaning to, I find myself using the same strategies and even saying the exact same things I heard at home! I now understand how my mum feels when she says¨Whenever you play like that someone gets hurt¨ when we said not to worry, we were only playfighting. Or, ¨If you are going to roughouse, you have to go outside.¨ Or ¨ Two wrongs don´t make a right.¨ Or ¨Why do I have to tell you to do everything multiple times ? I don´t like nagging, please just _____ !¨ To me, it´s humerous to find myself using the same language I heard growing up, and understanding these dynamics from a different perspective… but for someone who didn´t have a positive experience growing up, I can imagine how easy it would be to fall into the cycles of abuse that they knew as children, especially if they are young parents – a phenomenon that is certainly not of short supply here. Even though I  love, love, love my twelve little boys more than anything, I am more than ready to go home at the end of the day (well, the days I don´t sleep over)  and leave the craziness of the orphanage behind for at least a few hours. I cannot imagine what it would like to actually have children of my own at this age, as so many girls do.

Well, I´d better go – rest time is over and the boys don´t have homework so they want to watch television… which means once again I´m off to give my best attempt at expressing my concerns over what they are wanting to watch without sounding like a nag! Humm… Before I do though, a quick shout out to mom and dad -  I miss you and love you and appreciate you both so much! And to all of you who are living in the same continent as the people who raised you… go hug them!

Esperanza

Esperanza is one of my favourite spanish words. It means hope.

 There are a lot of things I hope for… so many dreams,  things I would love to be and do , and also about changes I would love to see in the world. This year, I have been really blessed that most of my hopes I had for my time here have happened. I have a great relationship with my host family, my co-workers and the kids at the orphanage. I have learned a lot. I am so blessed.

One of the things I am learning is about realistic expectations to put on myself. With just a few months left, how can I use this time to it´s full potential, get as much as possible out of the experience and give every possible thing that I can to the fantastic organizations for which I am working?  I think that I am fufilling my job description, yet am not quite satisfied with myself. I feel like there is so much more that could be… so many dreams for the orphanage yet to be accomplished like teaching dance classes, or drama, making the website better, getting more sponsors, facilitating life changing learning for the american work groups that volunteer at the orphanage, creating a performance with the older girls as a product of our group therapy session about healing from abuse…  the possibilities are endless! Then, there are also my vague, deeper goals of being an instrument of our creator´s amazing love, and helping to make Talita Cumi a place with a culture of peace,  a place where conflict is dealt with restoratively and everyone is treated with respect. 

The gap between my dreams and imaginings and the actual reality is hard though. I´ve all these ideas, and some of them have come to fruition, but at the same time, I am exhausted  just by daily life. Recently, conflict within the staff has been very stressful and difficult, making it hard to focus on much else. So the dreams are on the back burner for awhile.  

 One of my co-workers often says ¨Oh, Kimberlee, you are so young and idealistic¨… as if this is a bad thing, or at the very least, quite naive. As if I should grow up and realize the world is the way it is and it is not going to get better.  I am young and idealistic, no doubt about it, and probably quite naive as well. But does that mean in growing up, I should chill out when it comes to hopes and dreams and idealism about what could be?  

Ephesians 3:20 says that God can do immesurably more than we can ask or imagine. This is nuts to me… because I can imagine A LOT.  Like less sexism, machismo, and sexual abuse. Like teens who get the chance to express themselves and have a voice to confront their pasts, maybe through drama. LIke a work environment where we use the conflict resolution stategies that we want the kids to learn.

I think it is really interesting that in Spanish, the verb Esperar which means to hope, also means to wait. So, we hope, and we wait. But how long can one wait without losing hope? Real, positive change takes time, I am learning, and lots of it. So we trust that things are happening, poco a poco, and just keep holding onto the esperanza, I guess.

The plan for tonight

What do Bolivians do for Easter, you ask? Well…

8pm to 2:30am – “Vigil” in my church. This is basically a very long church service, I am told. Oh boy.

3:ooam to 8am – “Vigil” with all of the christians of Santa Cruz in a very big stadium downtown. I am told there will be thousands of peope, lots of singing and hype, a concert, preaching, and lots of yelling “Jesus cristo vive!” (Jesus Christ lives!)

I am thinking twelve straight hours of spanish church might be a challenge…. it kind of takes sunrise service to a whole new level, no? But at the same time, I am rather excited. This will be a good friday like no other!

Enough

A little while ago, a relativly well-off bolivian asked me if I had seen the oscars. I replied that no, I hadn´t seen them, as we didn´t have a TV at my house, or rather that we did, but it was rather small, old, on the fritz and only got one channel. She seemed quite shocked. ¨Kimberlee, what? You are living with a poor family? Why?¨

Huh. I didn´t know what to say. Is our family poor? I´d never really labled us as such. We do live in one of the poorer and reputably more dangerous sections of the city. We don´t have a big TV, cable, a DVD player or anything like that. Everyone works, and my sisters have been working our family´s tienda (little corner store) since they were young children. Becky´s bed is really lumpy, we don´t eat really expensive food, and the floors are just grey concrete. But I would say we are far from poor. Besides from the fact of being rich in love and relationships and all that, we are also economically better off than most of the families on our street, than the kids I play soccer with in the street who always seem to be wearing the same dirty clothes. 

We are happy. We have everything we need.  Does poverty therefore depend on whether you look up or down, economically? Is it relative? In comparison to many people in the city or even to Talita Cumi, we don´t have a lot, but in comparison others on our street, and especially to the rest of Bolivia, which is considerbly more impovrished than the city of Santa Cruz, we are doing really well.

What IS a comparativly rich christian to do in an age of hunger? We´re all in to this born again thing as Christians, because Jesus told a guy thats what he should be. Does it then follow that we should sell everything and give it to the poor? Because Jesus said that to a guy once, too.  YIpes. There are parts of the bible that are dangerous to highlight, and yet the more I learn, the more convicted I become that neglecting poverty and injustice is a sin equal too, if not much bigger than the ones the chuch usually freaks out about. So, working against poverty is definetly one thing close to God´s heart, and mine. But maybe we can´t solve poverty untill we take a good look at wealth.  And then its back to the question of enough.

The questions keep going. Who am I to judge?  Maybe I am terribly judgemental of others in this respect… is simple living something that I choose when I have a family and home of my own, but untill then just live quietly and keep my mouth shut about? I get irked at missionaries who live in comparative luxury compared to the average bolivian, but maybe this is wrong. I have been convicted lately by the thought that it costs them far less to live like that here than what I am going to be paying for university and a place to live when I return to Canada. Its so easy to justify what we have, as well as what we need. Where is the line? Is it different for everyone? I guess, maybe it is something that everyone needs to think about seriously, and prayerfully.  And in the end, enough is a balance. Easy to say but harder to do, because balance is always a point of tension.

Check out www.globalrichlist.com, and pray with me about it.

Love and miss you all!

a list (or two or three)

Among many things, I am a list maker. And so therefore, with internet access here at Talita Cumi, a feeling that a blog is really rather due, and no pressing topics in need of recording, I suppose I´ll make some lists.  Maybe they will give some insight into daily life here in santa cruz.

Or maybe, this might be a little dry, actually…

Anyways.

 Talita Cumi To-Do List

- Get the older girls to stop goofing off in the showers and go to bed.   

- Email the group leader of the team thats coming in June to talk about making possibly making the trip about  learning as well as building a wall and evangelizing. I just figure that since every short term missions trip comes back talking about how they learned more than they could have given, why not go in with learning as one of the goals?

- Plan peace lesson or group therapy session for tomorrow about respecting both cultural diversity and the diversity of our group in the boys house that five teenage boys will enjoy and be prompted to engage in meaningful conversation about. (Humm…. What potiental! Wouldn´t it be interesting to get into the camba-colla stereotypes here?)

- Plan super awesome fun and yet incredibly informative and helpful lesson on conflict resolution strategies for friday afternoon  for the older girls drama therapy group, one of my favourite parts of the week.

- Re-do ¨Designs by Fanny¨logo. Anybody want to buy some jewlery made by one of our girls who has special needs? Its pretty cool stuff!

- Update text for new website. NEED to get on this.

- Jan-March sponsorship letters. Right.

Cool things done of late list:

-  Lomas de Arena (Hills of Sand).  Just about half an hour out of the city are some pretty awesome sand dunes we got to visit last weekend. Burn-your-feet hot and incredibly tiring to climb up the  dunes, but jumping down them and the spectacular view at sunset made all the sweat totally worth it. We went for a swim later in what were rumored to possibly be crocodile infested waters! None were sighted however,and all limbs are still intact. Not to worry, mum.

- Something that is cool quite literally is that a friend chopped of my hair. It´s now collar bone length… which I know is still long but it was over a foot of hair. It feels nice and light, but all the girls at the orphanage were devestated.  ¨ ¿Tiaaaaaa Porrrrrque?¨ , they whine. ¨Before you were like an exotic princess barbie, but now you are just an ordinary gringa. Why, tia, why?¨ Hahah! Anything that makes me stand out less is a good thing, in my books.

- Well, I  learned how to decapitate a chicken (dead and plucked, but whole… this is harder than it sounds, lets just say you have to saw).  Not my favourite job, but I feel kind of proud to have joined the ranks of the other chicken-hacking tias on meat days instead of  hiding in my office work. Now, my host dad says the next step is to learn how to kill them…

- Dance classes! The place was in the center of the city, kind of grungy and I was a bit nervous, but man could those people DANCE! LIke, actually amazing. I felt like the girl in that movie, dd havanna nights… only before she gets really good, the part when she´s still the awkward white girl that can´t move. But the three times I´ve went were SO much fun.  Cuban salsa is actually amazing. Yep.

- I´m sleeping on the girls side this week! My first time looking after them at night and I must say they have certainly caused less trouble than my boys typically do, though those three have been giggling in the shower for over half an hour…. its okay though. They´re having fun and its not that late.

 Upcoming exciting things List:

- Dinner with new friends on friday. I´ve found myself a group of cool gringo university students on an exchange thinger, and am going to talk in english all night long! Yeeeah!

- Attending my first Quinceñera on Saturday night! A girls coming of age birthday here is 15, and its a HUGE deal, a big formal dinner, almost as special and important as a wedding! Our pastor´s daughter is turning 15 and the whole church is invited! Should be fun!

- Guitar shopping this weekend!

So, yep.  Some  recent fun, soon to be had fun, and things to be done! Hope everyone at home is doing well! I will see you in just a couple of months now. Nuts, isn´t it?

The other side

Last week at Talita Cumi, an older couple from Canada came to give us a series of workshops to help teach us about disipline and homework strategies. I got pretty excited about this, because all of our kids are constantly struggling with their homework, and I am forever trying to find the balance between disipline strategies of my culture and that of Bolivian culture, trying to find out what works and what I believe to be the best for child development, and how I reconcile strategies here with my ideals about restoritive justice, etc.

Anyways, the point of the story is that these workshops proved very intersting. I feel like I learned a lot – they departed some really useful information on the intended topics, but I also learned a bit about how it feels to be on the recieving end of development,  about the complexity of cross cultural interactions when it comes to ideas about child rearing, and how these ideas are presented.  Although this couple came with the best of intentions, and presented information that I agree with, to be honest, something about the week seemed a bit off to me. It could have been that I had been doing a bit of a TC sleepover marathon that week, and the whole working 5am to 10pm thing was getting to me, but listening to these presentations, I was definetly feeling irked. Annoyed. Like I wanted to get out of the room or start an argument with one of the presentators.   Weird, no?

Maybe I was  feeling territorial over my boys, like I wanted to be the one to help them, and didn’t want people encroaching on my territory?  NGOs  have been known to fight with each other over issues of territory and who’s helping who so it’s not like thats not a possiblity for me to have those feelings too… but I really don’t think that was it.  I want all the help I can get for my boys. I think there was something subtle about the presentation that I felt uncomfortable with, something that made me knaw on my pencil a lot more than usual.  A slight attitude  of superiority mixed with a  lack of knowledge about our context, is I guess what it was. Not even really bad stuff (there are plenty of historical examples, unfortunately of how much westerners have messed things up horribly under the banner of development or foreign aid or even missions) but just little stuff.  They talked about their visit to El Salvador as if it somehow was the same context as Bolvia since we also speak spanish.  They went on and on about the development of children under two when we don’t have any kids at the home that young, and didn’t want to seem to listen to this fact, just get through the presentation even though it didn’t apply.  They went off preachy sounding tangents, or went over the same basic information again and again.  They taught us new ways of teaching  math concepts when our ways seem to be working just fine. They made a list of good and bad ways to displine kids and put a lot of things that are commonplace in this culture on the bad side, without giving the tia’s a chance to talk about what works for them, and why. It bugged me a bit, and so I wondered if this bugged the other tias, and if they were going to say something. But none of them did. They sat their in silence and nodded for a week. This made me wonder if they are used to this sort of thing, that it happens a fair bit and they just go along with it because culturally, they just wouldn’t challenge a white north american man, even though I know they all think his ideas about displine would never work.

I don’t know what to do with these thoughts, since I am reminded of Jesus’ teachings about getting a plank out of your eye before you can get the speck out of someone elses, and I wonder what things I might be doing that aren’t actually helping, or if there are things that I do that make my co-workers think that I think that I am superior to them. I certainly hope not, and am trying my best to live this cross cultural experience with humility, knowing that although I don’t have to agree with the way things are done, it is best to ask “I wonder why they do it that way” instead of  labeling it as dumb when I don’t understand. The importance of listening and being open to learning seems so basic, but I think it is profound on so many levels. I like how, with more and more time here, I am learning to see things from the other side, the other perspective.  I will never be Bolivian, will never be able to claim these traditions as my own even if I wanted to, but I think that one of the most beautiful things that I am recieving this year is little by little,  the gift of being able to see the world through a new lense. In some small way I think that is a little bit of peace building.

Update.

Yes. Writing an update. The last thing on todays to-do list.

Well, life’s been going rapidingo (thats camba spanish for “really fast”) here in Santa Cruz as per usual. Although there are some interesting life ponderings I’ve been meaning to blog about lately, I’m afraid I’m not quite up to thinking at that level in this present moment. My excuse is that morning is going to come pretty early (4:45!)  in order to get everything ready for my twelve boys to head off to school tomorrow.  Therefore, instead of insightful reflection on what it means to be mennonite, the bolivian education system, different books I’ve been reading about disipline strategies, my real motives in service, or an anaylisis of the uses of Bolivia’s infamous coca leaf, may I offer to you a quick list of some things that I have done of late? Lets put it this way -  I guess if you were to fastforward through my life of the last little bit, you might see Tia Kim:

…Ironing her boy’s uniforms dry because it’s rainy season, their pants are all soggy from washing them yesterday and they have to leave for school in twenty miniutes…Listening to a workshop with the other tias on disipline strategies… being frustrated at the gap between theory, ideas and dreams, and actual reality… Sitting on the micro, looking out the window on the way to work/standing on the micro, elbows out to defend sacred spot near the window on the way to work/hopelessly squished between the zillions of people that somehow managed to get packed into the micro on the way home from work… watching a movie with her host sisters… trying to sell things in her family’s little store but confusing the word “empanada” (a type of snack) with the word for diaper… sleeping under a sweet bug net… getting a really wonderful care package that makes her dance for joy…. making her host family their very first proper chocolate chip cookies and eating entirely too many… reading Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne…. reading lots of other inspiring and thought provoking things…. journaling a lot about said things read…. Making a giant wall display for Talita Cumi Birthdays… writing lots of emails about our sponsorship program (questions? Just email kimberlee@talitacumi.org!) …  writing names on backpacks, pencils, notebooks, binders, pens, socks and uniforms… helping with piles and piles and piles of homework… waking up smelling smoke and then putting out a small fire in the boys house (yikes!)… buying some cool jewlery from a small old man with a gigantic smile…. taking the kids to a free art exhibit in the city… losing her bank card and getting a new one… practicing guitar a bit… trying to sleep on a 12 our bus ride to Santiago de chiquitos to visit a friend… hiking three hours there and three back with friends in VERY hot sun to get to some absolutely gorgeous and therefore absolutely worth it swimming holes… jumping into swimming hole with camera in pocket and being devistated at stupidity of this act, but later thrilled when camera dried out successfully… eating home made ice cream… climbing up a mountain to see the view in the early morning with a group of six phenomenal women…  going to a cool violin concert in the middle of the bolivian countryside… …coming back after 12 hour bus ride to find her host uncle has died, and she has missed the funeral… crashing into bed without talking to anyone… making friends with new volunteers… trying to get Jorge to eat his vegetables …  yelling entirely too much at rambuncious children who will not calm down and go to sleep no matter what I try… wondering how on earth parents do it… finally getting the house quiet… going to church… at last, singing along with ease at church… listening to the beautiful prayers of incredibly earnest children before bed… going for runs in the morning…. deciding maybe that was a silly idea and its better to conserve energy… playing basketball with neighbourhood youth at night… eating an incredible amount of not-so-good-for-you food, such as deep fried pancakes (their called fritos, and quite good)… snuggling up and reading to normally wild kids who won’t admit it but love a good snuggle and a story… getting power cord for laptop fixed AGAIN due to crazy host-dog… trying to think of something new to make the boys for dinner… talking to a dear friend on skype and getting excited to live together next year, yet wanting time here to slow down and maybe even last forever here as well…  realizing that this fastforward blog entry might not have saved time afterall, and it is probably best to get to sleep…

So, yes. Thats my update, or a bit of what I’ve been up to lately. Challenges, joys, dreams, frustrations and exuberations… a continuous parade of  ordinary and routine but also unique experiences and things to learn. I really am so blessed. If I am getting redundant  on this point I apologize, but I can’t really get past it! Here’s something I wonder though – is this to be another experience where I get out of it more than I could ever give? That seems almost a little frustrating and counterproductive because I don’t want this year to be about me, and here I am benefitting from it hugely anyways! Regardless, I am so thankful. Although I’ll always stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd,  do long division differently, make awkward language mistakes, and generally be a gringa, I fit in too. Though I wonder about my effectivness, I do belong. As I think about it, I realize it feels so good!  Life is ordinary, routine, normal and yet I still sometimes look at the palm tree outside my window and can’t help but marvel at the fact that I am indeed looking at a palm tree. A palm tree in Bolivia, because I live here. How about that eh? Yep. So blessed.