Always Wins

I’m not sure what it is but I have had a really hard time blogging lately.

I’ve started about three million and a half and finished about nada (that’s Spanish for nothing, I know I’m practically a walking dictionary.).

I think it’s partly that there is just so much to say that every time I see a blank paper (or screen I guess. That just sounds so digital.) I don’t even know where to begin. Words just honestly don’t do my experience here justice.

Or maybe it’s just the reality that this life has become so incredibly normal to me. The unexpected is expected. Things never go as planned. Creepy weird strange people eating cockroaches are everywhere. Two days without electricity and water is a little more than normal, but you just find a few extra candles and smell a little worse and life goes on. Children make you laugh hysterically or cry because they say hurtful things or you don’t feel like you’re doing enough and then an hour later cry because you just love them so much and can’t bear the thought of leaving them all too soon. 

I think back to over eight months ago when I was on the plane ride leaving America and wondering about all that lay ahead.

And now I think of all the experiences I have had, all the children I have come to love, all the rice I have eaten. And I feel the exact same and yet not the same at all.

I remember when I came in March I was sleeping under a mosquito net. Out of nowhere, a beetle started flying around my face. I, without any pose or class at all, started screaming like my end was coming and flailing around like a desperate penguin. Victoria, the student missionary here at the time, came running in and turned on the light. She asked what was going on, rather concerned.

With great embarrassment, I confessed it was me and I was trying to survive a beetle attack. Of one beetle. I left out the fact I was twenty.

She reached into my net, caught the beetle with her hand, and said, After months of being here, you’ll get used to it.

Last night there was a gross creepy beetle in my tent. There’s a creepy beetle in my tent, I said to Dani. She looked over. I hate those ones, she said. I grabbed it with my hand and threw it out of my tent and thought

Yeah. I got used to it.

Also I can’t believe I used to be so afraid of little beetles.

I have a pair of orange Old Navy flipflops here (you know. The ones with that life-changing deal where you can get two for $5) that have lasted me so long. I wear them all the time. I always shower with them. (If you dare shower without flipflops in my bathroom, I’ll buy you a car.) The other day they finally bit the dust. The thing came out of the thing on the right one and now they don’t work that well.

Don’t worry. I still use them. I just slide around the house. They’re actually really convenient as shower flipflops. I can just lift my right foot straight up and scrub the bottom of my foot and no one will ever know. But when I leave the bathroom? I have to slowly bring my right foot up as to not drag a pile of gross dirty bathroom water into my cuerpo (that’s Spanish for body. Also does water pile?).

Due to the lack of water and electricity and mainly self-motivation, my pile of laundry has officially reached the heavens. Which is why I also resorted to using a skirt as a towel. The reality is when you’re ten feet tall like me, your long skirts actually resemble more of a curtain. And you know, curtains and towels are similar enough.

All to say, when I’m showering with broken two dollar and fifty cent flipflops and skirt towel curtains, I start to wonder about things.

Mainly the fact that I’m not wondering about things.

The good thing is I have a sunburn that looks like the sun literally ate my legs. It’s finally fading. But it did make me question if I will have the world’s most embarrassing and dramatic tanline for the rest of my life. Also I learned that when you go to the Island of the Sun, you should probably wear sunscreen.

What’s even better is I have finally joined my boys with the foot fungus. I mean yeah I’ve had the one between my toes for months. But I have now also gotten the one on the bottoms of my feet.

I really probably shouldn’t post that for the world to see. But you know. Honesty is the best policy. And that’s honest, folks. I wouldn’t lie about that.

I KNOW I AM RAMBLING. All I am saying is that there’s probably a whole lot of interesting that goes on. But to me? It’s my life. It’s reality. It’s Rurrenabaque, Bolivia.

And I love it.

I wouldn’t trade it.

I wouldn’t undo it.

Because that would mean giving up telling my boys goodnight. That would mean giving up those moments in the classroom when something clicks. That would mean giving up the Friday night hug circle.

That would mean giving up this time with these children. These moments that have, in all sincerity, altered my life forever.

Last semester every Saturday night we would watch a movie together in the Big House. It was super fun as all the kids would watch the movie and all of us volunteers would hang out in the kitchen eating more popcorn than I dare admit.

Since our projecter broke, this semester every Saturday night has been movie night in the houses. Dani and I put a movie on for our boys and usually a bunch of other boys who join in, and then watch one separately in our room. It has been super fun and relaxing, but I have missed everyone altogether like it used to be.

Last night the kitchen crew was making popcorn. None of the houses had started their movie yet, so we were all just hanging around in the big house. Just like it used to be.

And my word. I couldn’t get myself to leave.

David came to visit. He was here last semester but this semester he has been going to school to town. I knew I missed him but after him here yesterday, I just miss him so much more.

It was so sweet seeing him back with his brothers and his friends. Everywhere he went, there was a crowd around him. He is such a leader.

I sat down by him on the step and we talked for a really long time. He told me about his life in town and asked me about mine. And it made me think about back when I met him. He was the first kid I saw after getting here in July. He seemed so little and his language so foreign. I had no idea he would become my friend.

Afterward I was sitting on the bench. A group of kids had gone with Jonathan and the volunteers who are here working on the roofs of our school buildings to Azunta for worship. Jahel was with them.

After they got back, Jahel walked into the big house and when he saw me sitting on the bench, his face completely lit up.

He came running over and wrapped his arms around me in a giant hug. He had a half eaten mangerine orange in his hand and an entire orange in his other. He gave them both to me. I brought these for my mom.

And then I went home. I went home to my ten little boys. My computer charger wasn’t working and they all sat there so patiently helping me tape it and try it different ways and finally it started charging and their little eyes got so wide with excitement because they got to watch their movie after all.

And then the popcorn came and they got in a perfect little line to get their little bowl.

Okay. That makes it sound like everything with them is a peaceful experience. Keep in mind Byron is probably screaming things and Fermin is throwing bugs on people and Limber will not let go of me and a few are tattling and everyone else is making havoc of their own. But other than that it’s all perfectly silent.

There are times here when I really question what I’m doing, or if I am doing anything. In all honestly this week has been really difficult with that.. There were so many moments when I just sat in my room and thought

Am I doing anything at all?

But the reason I don’t write as much about that is because the love I have for these kids and the love I feel from these kids is so much stronger. It’s so much bigger. It’s so much more powerful than any doubts I feel.

It’s always what I remember.

It always wins.