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This week has been a busy one also. Monday was domestic violence group, which proved to be interesting as always. I think that as soon as you start to consider something as part of the routine, it surprises you all over again, and for different reasons. Maybe it’s my fault for starting to get comfortable in life here, maybe there is not such thing as being comfortable in life here. Group, which is scheduled to start at 2, generally gets underway at about 2:30 or 3 if we are lucky, because well, that’s when people get around to coming. This week one of the women showed up at about 2:15, our thoughts… success! Well, in actuality, she came to talk to us about a problem that she was having. She proceeded to ask us, point blank, what she could do to feed her eight children. Now I was hoping that I was loosing the point of the conversation in translation, because of course this was asked of us in Spanish, but come to find out, once she repeated it, and I replayed it in my head about a hundred times, this was what she was asking. My immediate reaction was to think about how much money I had on me and where the nearest pulperia was so I could buy her food for her family. I restrained myself and soon my head took over (funny how the heart always is first to react in these situations). What would be the point in just running out and buying food to give her for her family? As the other women of the group entered they overheard the conversation and jumped in. What could she do? Does she have a skill or a job? No. Is there now a man in her life that is helping her? No. What did the Gringas have to say about this situation? Nothing.
We simply told her that we weren’t sure how to respond to the question, and after a few moments of awkward silence, began our discussion for the day about self-esteem and faith. Now, I certainly do not write this for donations or for sympathy, after all, I am the one that signed up to put myself in these situations, I merely describe these events for the comment I am making. That unfortunately, for good or bad, little is shocking me anymore. Months ago, or while I was living in the states, had someone said something to this effect to me, I would have stopped what I was doing and probably cried, and ran out to buy presents for this woman. Now, it has merely become part of life. There are people everywhere here that simply don’t have food, and don’t know what to do about it. It did strike me, and certainly it has been on my mind since, but only in that I have been reminded of it over and over again in many of the situations I have encountered since the event. One of my community members told me a story about a woman we are friendly with that made the comment to someone else (my community member overheard it) that she and her family haven’t eaten in over a day and a half, and then saw him and made a joked about it. I guess if we didn’t laugh we might cry, right? I would love to be shocked by it, but I guess the lessons you learn also come at a bit of a cost as well.
Well, we also have been doing baseball (they actually listened for a whole hour this week), and I can see an improvement. Although its nothing huge, but kids are answering more questions, and seem to be coming more consistanty, which is half the battle. Next week we scrimmage against the other team in town. Should be interesting to see it all come together. At least when we have both of the teams we coach play each other it will be a good place to see our deficiencies as coaches.
Take care.