Ring-Around-the-Rosy

O.K., I apologize. I am better. The cloud has lifted and I can feel the sun and I feel as though an uplifting post is in order, which is quite convenient as I feel much uplifted. Yesterday when I was dropped off at my wawa-wasi I was utterly perplexed. We walked past the familiar room at the front of the house, down the hallway to a smaller room tucked in the back. O.K., I thought, so they´ve switched rooms. Then the madre with the baby loosely fastened to her back manta-style, turns to face me (all smiles I might add), but she is not Bertha. Well, yes, actually, she tells me, her name is Bertha. She is my Bertha´s cousin. Bertha has gone to do her shopping today. What? What do you mean she´s shopping??? I came here to see her! O.K., so I try to look around for a familiar face, Bertha´s daughter Mariella is there (age 9) and so is her son Diego (6), both technically too old to be in the wawa-wasi, and it takes them a few seconds before I see the recognition flicker across their faces. I mean I literally can see as they try to make sense of what I´m saying to them (¨remember me?¨) until I see the memory sink into place. It´s a bit unsettling, but still kinda cute. Helloooo? Where´s my welcome back party? Where is Bertha? O.K. then where are the kids Bertha told me were still here? No sign of Luiz, Yampied, Yasuri, Yasmin or Dayana ... Mariella obliges. Yasuri´s mom is sick and pregnant again and she has gone to the jungle. She will be back Wednesday after I´ve left. Yasmin reached age four and so is no longer eligible for the wawa. There was much miscommunication and I believed that none of the kids I knew were coming. But then Yampied sprinted in the door with his winnie-the-pooh backpack, smiling and yelling something (the same) and Luiz, dressed in tattered overalls, meekly hugged the door frame, not speaking, after his mother left (the same). Dayana would be back tomorrow with her mother (Bertha) and Angelo was running around with a fake gun shooting innocent children. The day passed and I tried my best to fall back into the swing of things, but it was very odd without Bertha (I know her routine), and plus there is a volunteer currently placed at this wawa-wasi, Kirstin, and I didn´t want to overshadow her with my wonderfulness. I would just wait for Bertha...
Well, apparently yesterday evening, Bertha walked to the CCS house looking for me! (I don´t think she has quite grasped the concept that I´m traveling alone this time.) I arrived at my placement again today and this time she was waiting. We hugged like old friends. She is the same. I am the same (except apparently ¨flaquita¨/skinny...not eating will do that). Have I mentioned today was a good day? We talked and talked and talked and I showed her pictures of everyone and she liked Kevin´s muscles (haha). She also told me that Luiz´ father hit his mother in the street because she left him. Apparently he met them on the street one day and said he wanted Luiz, she refused, and so he punched them both in the face (a real problem-solver). His mother apparently has many children, Mariella used her hands to signify a ladder, indicating children of every age and size in ascending order. In addition, Bertha told me an almost identical story about one of the new boys who never talks named Yaren, coming to wawa with bruises.
They had the animal cookies I brought with their milk in the morning and I french-braided Mariella´s hair. They had me sing and dance to the hokey-pokey, Old McDonald and Ring-around-the-Rosy. They laughed at stories I told them and we planned an excursion tomorrow for just me and Bertha´s family, as well as a trip to the zoo on Monday when Kirstin is back (she switched placements just for today). It literally feels as if I have come to visit a good friend from high school and my spanish has much improved so conversation is more fluid. The volunteers at the CCS are loosening up a bit and I will go for drinks tonight with Kirstin and some others. Of course I finally make some friends just as I am nicely adjusting to life with Mery and Carlos. Mery is my friend. She took me all over yesterday. We walked to the market and found the cheapest vendor of the best quality childrens´ clothes (about 60 soles for pants, shirt and a vest) and looked for plus-size sweaters for Bertha. I don´t understand, every single top and sweater for a women here is size ¨standard.¨ That would sooooo not fly in the U.S.. And Bertha is, well, a bit above standard, so finding her a nice new sweater is proving a bit more difficult. Mery helped me avoid vendors selling over-priced watches at the sight of a gringita and I assessed the digital camera situation and found that they are twice as expensive here (if not more). I will wait til Arequipa or Lima. The whole two-hour walk we talked like school girls, she in English and I in Spanish and I learned much more about her.
Carlos is in fact, NOT, her husband, but her friend since she was about five. When he broke up with girlfriends he would cry on her shoulder and vice versa until finally...well you´ve heard this story before. (It´s not one of my favorites...) They are not married but live as husband and wife in their very nice house (by Ayacucho standards). I´m thinking, ¨Niiiice....very progressive for Ayacucho...¨
Last night I talked to Carlos for over an hour about his job implementing health and nutrition programs in Ayacucho, as well as where best my donation money would be spent. I feel a bit overwhelmed. He told me the problems I might probably encounter with my playground endeavor, (¨do not give them money until you have a tangible result¨), and continued with the cycle of problems of these old-fashioned people from the country who refuse to change their ways to better their children. It was alot to digest (in Spanish), but I kept up and then, promptly went to bed at 9:30 I was so exhausted from thinking in Spanish. Which, by the way, is beginning to happen. I lay in bed and think about things in Spanish, on accident. And the whole time I´m here with this family or at my wawa-wasi I am speaking only in Spanish. I am definitely improving.
Anyway, about the playground, I am picking up a paper from a playground contractor today with items, prices, a layout and I have a proposal, and this is all the hard leg-work required to begin. But the project requires much more money and maybe I can come back again in five years and do it then! However, I´ve decided with the amount of money and time I have, I would rather do what I initially set out to do (and what I can do, as one person) and take my friends on trips and buy them some new clothes. Sidenote: Luiz went to the bathroom yesterday and came back with one of his overall straps in his hand. I had noticed it had been connected by two threads, no exaggeration.
So, I will buy him a warm outfit and help his single mother as best I can. I was torn about this because I know it is only a temporary solution, but after listening to Carlos for an hour and the depressing cycle of these people, I am a bit defeated. What can anyone do? How can I change a country? I can´t. But I can use my donations and give gifts to some people I´ve grown to love. Do you remember what it felt like when you were young to receive a present? Let alone one for no reason at all. I have the money. They don´t. I want to give them gifts. Thank you so much to everyone who will have helped me do this. If kinda feels like a gift to be able to give them such grand gifts. Ahh, you caught me. The selfish side of volunteer work.