“The most terrible poverty is the feeling of loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved”-Madre Teresa
Nothing can compare to hearing “I love you”. Its joy easily surpasses eating my fantasy meal of juicy buffalo burgers, fresh berries and cold microbrew beers, which flavor my dreams every night. It exceeds the rush of buying a plane ticket to come home to visit for my cousin’s wedding (Yes I will be home July 2-10th!). And the other night, a girl in my hogar gave me a hug and in a glimpse of vulnerability she said it: “I love you Holly”. In a house of teenage girls, where blunt guffaws are ruthless punches of crude Honduran jokes, curses and demands to be left alone, these words are gold. More than “I love you”, underneath her words whispered the truth of what she also meant: “I trust you to care about me”.
And for a moment I could not see anything but happiness- I felt connection, friendship and a part of the community. It was not only the idea that she loved ME, although I certainly was overjoyed to hear it, but it was the idea that she loved at all. Never have I learned more about the complexity, delicacy and fear of love, than in my daily life over the past five months with hundreds of orphans. This lesson is not one necessarily defined by positive encounters-it is more tasting the undertones of frustration and sadness that so many children suffer the burdens of their pasts and reject offers of companionship. In the face of trying to be a “sister” to 24 young teenage girls, I have found struggle, and this struggle has shown me just how selfless love must be.
I see a different side of love by recognizing its challengers, and even traitors: abuse, death, abandonment, loneliness, and its co-pilot effects: anger, grief, aggressiveness, self-isolation, rudeness, etc. For many of the kids, despite being so young, their innocence is marinated in disappointment. They reject the youthful idea of love and instead turn to “self-preservation” mode. And it makes sense- for them love has meant weakness, vulnerability and pain. When a girl in my hogar won’t talk to me, EVER, I know I can’t take it personally. I see right through her snug, calloused shell of anger and fear-she has instinctually separated herself from the threat of even more hurt than she has already experienced. In times like these, I have challenged myself to find peace in the most basic form of love and service: solidarity. The act of being, living..simply accompanying others.
So sometimes all I can do is be here: I haul my mattress at 3 am to the buses for a spring break camping trip with the girls, I wake up at 3 am for Easter Sunday mass, I smile even when the girls tell me not to talk to them and then the next day when they want help with their homework, I pretend the day before did not even happen. I drink the tap water because that’s what the kids drink, I have learned just how rico beans can be, I listen to the other volunteers when they have hard days, and though these sentences all start with “I”..I am really working to make sure that success is not only defined by what “I” do, because I have increasingly learned that individuals do not do well alone, and shouldn’t be left alone even if they want to be. Though solidarity is a pure form of expressing companionship for others, it is hard to admit to yourself that sometimes you can’t do any more than just be here.Two weeks ago, a 10 year old girl named Stephany fell and ripped a hole through her face. She was sent to the public hospital “Hospital Escuela” in the city for emergency plastic surgery. Our clinic was understaffed, so I went to spend the entire day with her in her hospital room. Spending a day in a developing country public hospital is its own experience: it is there that the suffering of the poor is as its peak of despair, and the inefficiency of a third world country just keeps feeding on itself. It is sweaty, it is poverty, it is the fear that a person may likely die waiting to be seen by a doctor, it is crowded and smelly and dirty- everything a hospital should not be.
But my day with this girl, who had no family to be there with her, was much more personal. While I tore bread in to small pieces that she could eat through her swollen lips, carried her IV bag so she could use the public bathroom, helped her shower even though she didn’t want to, and hunted down the doctors to force them to change her face bandages and keep us updated, I felt with Stephany just how alone and scared a kid without family could be in this world. She was depending on ME to tell her that it was ok- to feed her even. But I knew that she was not allowing herself to hope for anything else, she had no expectations of being cared for. She was silent, afraid and felt completely alone and small.
Of course I thought of my mom- the supreme source of all medical knowledge and foundation for my family during times of crises…and for pretty much everyone else who knows her. If I were in the hospital, my mom would make sure that my care would be immediate and top-notch, she would squeeze my hand when an IV punctured my skin, she would bring me books to read and tell me that I would get better, and I know that she would bring me a drink and a treat- that’s just what my mom does. So that’s what I did- I wanted Stephany to know she DID have family- it was me.
Here the idea of community grows even larger- my mom is part of this community, my entire family is. I give to Stephany what my family shared with me- love. I share because I learned from them first-hand that family is who is there for you. I have a mom, a dad, grandparents, siblings even, who are my family because they are there for me and I am there for them. It has nothing to do with blood relation. Family is who you share with, who you give your love to. Community. . For many of the kids at NPH, the bonds among siblings are sacred. It is incredible to see how much siblings protect and love each other- some of them have even been raised by their siblings before coming here. Photos they have of their siblings are prized possessions, they save any extra food to share with their siblings, and there are unspoken, intangible support networks among the family members. My hope is that when the girls of Hermanas de Jesus are 23, they will know that they were loved too while they are here, even if they do not think of me, because they are.
I had my first official visitor from home! Bryan saw what is hard to explain via blog, phone call, and I know will be just as hard to explain in person. He even managed to make 24 girls fall in love with him in just a few nights just by brutally teasing them and throwing them over his shoulder- they were actually giddy around him. I think the tia was too. They laughed hysterically trying to teach him dirty Spanish words, shared their treasured mangos and smiles with him, and took over 150 pictures of themselves and with him in just 45 minutes. Having a visitor was an awesome reminder to bring energy to everything I do… I think it was an awesome experience for him too. At first, I think it was a shock to be surrounded by so many kids all at once. It was hilarious to watch 6’3 Bryan twirl in circles with 2nd graders in a Motessori English classroom. And in seconds of entering the classroom he was a magnet to little kids who all wanted try on his flip-flops that were six times the sizes of their feet.
On our way to the Ranch, we spent time in the dingy cesspool of Tegucigalpa where we got sick eating tons of baleadas, and I was still recovering from eating an entire bag of candy that my family sent with him. He laughed for 20 minutes straight when he saw a typical Honduran construction site: scaffolding made of a huge sagging beam supported by 2 chairs on each end. He found how hard it is to NOT drink pop here. We went to “La Tigra” a national park, and got laughed at by a fat, wrinkly Honduran shopkeeper woman after we bought cokes from her and then provoked her chickens and almost lost our eyeballs. We went to the “Comedor Infantil”, which is like a children’s soup kitchen in a very poor town, and were reminded just how lucky we are to have food and water. I gave Bryan the grand old tour of the Ranch: the farm, the hogares, the huge dam where we go swimming. He even made friends with the kitchen lady-something I do not think I will ever manage to do. We ate chicky’s, we toasted with Nicaraguan rum, we spent evenings with all the volunteers- overall Bryan got a small taste of daily life.
Daily life here is unique for every person. I love living with 16 volunteers from around the world, all with completely different jobs: physical therapists, tutors, teachers, caretakers, nurses. Everyone’s sacrifices, joys, experiences, struggles, and perspectives come out around our kitchen table every night when we come home. And over the past few months, some of the coolest, most opinionated, diverse people I have met have really become awesome friends. And when I see a friend spend a night at the hospital on the floor to be with a kid, I see a friend spend her entire day taking care of a special-needs child who screams and runs away (and then she still wants kid), I see a friend come home glowing because they tutored a kid who passed a test, I am reminded how much people DO care, how hard people can work, how much people can do. As my community grows, I continue to push the boundaries of how I participate in it. Be they language barriers, cultural barriers, social barriers, intellectual barriers.. But I continue to remind myself that often one of the strongest actions I can take in a community is be in solidarity with it, to be open to it. Hugs to everyone back home. I miss you all so much :D I really promise to be more diligent about writing. Can’t wait to come home in a month!
