Goodbye to the Hogar

During my first days at the Hogar, I thought I would never survive five weeks; the days were incredibly long, and there were so very, very many children. But it has come to feel like a home away from home, and our five weeks went by like no time at all. I'll try to put down some of my strongest memories from my time there, knowing that I will be back to visit for a weekend or two or three during the rest of my year.

During the week we usually help the little kids get bathed and dressed in the morning, go into Lima with them to their appointments if needed, or else hang out at the house helping with their lessons or playing. I, however, always enjoyed Saturdays most because it was market day. On a typical Saturday morning I get up at 6:45 or 7 to be downstairs by the time the kids finish breakfast at 7:30. (Wake-up call: the sound of Tony yelling from downstairs for the kids to finish their breakfast ("Angela! Avanza!"). Some of them just sit there staring at their food until barked at, which I do not understand.) Coming down from my room, I never make it past the second-floor landing, because there are little boys with leg problems sitting in chairs by the nurses' station who call out to you to bathe them, take them downstairs, or brush their teeth, all at once. It's both exhausting and hilarious to be greeted every morning with "Senorita, pichi!" or "Catalina! Catalina! Tu me banas!" I've gotten good at saying "No, I can't right now," if I'm too tired to deal with it that morning, but most of the time I kind of like it--it wakes you up kind of like a cold shower, which I am also learning to appreciate. I prefer to get the morning chaos out of the way before breakfast so that my eating won't be rushed with requests to go upstairs and brush teeth, etc.

At 9:30 or 10 on Saturday mornings we would go to the market. Dr. Tony drives one of the 15-passenger combis that are ubiquitous in Peru, with the volunteers, one of the cooks, Tony's friend Frank who is like a grandfather to all the kids, and usually one of the boys as well. The highway goes in between two chains of mountains that are nothing but stark, bare, gray-brown rock, but in the valley there are trees, houses, flowers, a river. The weather for the most part was sunny and relatively clear in Chaclacayo. We went to three different markets because Tony's favorite places to shop for vegetables (including 48 kilograms of potatoes every week), fruits, and meat are in three different places. Frank (Tio Fransicso to the kids) always bought a mano of tiny, sweet bananas and gave one to everybody. Among all the delicious food that we had at the Hogar, I think the fresh, sweet mangos we bought at that fruit market were my absolute favorite. On our last day at the market, Catherine and I bought a Peruvian cookbook, so now we're going to learn things like ceviche, papa a la huancaina, chicha morada... yum!

Later on we would take the kids to the park after lunch. I haven't yet managed to inform all of Peru that their custom of throwing water at women in February is disrespectful and unacceptable, but we did manage to have some great water fights among ourselves at the park (shh, don't tell Dr. Tony.) My friend John, a volunteer from Ireland and one of the nicest people I've met here, went and bought one of the boys a water gun, at which point we female volunteers taught the girls that the proper response to such a thing is not to scream and run, but to run at them all at once and take away the water gun! It was hilarious, especially since they kept giving the water gun to the blind kid, Jose Luis, or Arlis, who's in a wheelchair. I like Carnevales much better when it's among friends and/or when the people who have the most water are blind or immobile.

One of the most intense parts of our stay for me was being with some of the young women in the house, Anita and Marleney, when they were in pain at different times. Just before we left, Marleney had an operation which I didn't entirely understand, but which left her lying in her bed groaning in pain for hours even after they gave her painkillers. I had nothing to do but sit beside her and hold her hand. I sang songs that my mom used to sing to me as a baby, and then we prayed the Rosary together with some of the younger girls who were standing nearby in concern. Marleney was in too much pain to even pray along at some points, but later she thanked me for staying with her and taking care of her. It was a difficult but deeply touching experience to be there with my friend even though I felt I couldn't do much to help her. I did, however, go find Tony and ask for more painkiller for her, which seemed to work wonders in a few hours. When she felt better, we sat around chatting the same way we usually do in the mornings when she helps the cooks clean the little stones out of the rice before it's cooked.

The day before we left the Hogar was the birthday party for Terri. Terri is a missionary who felt called to sell everything she had in her home in Belgium and come to Latin America to work with the poor. She is a wonderful presence in the house--the kids call her Mama Teresa, and she is always very peaceful, joyful, and down-to-earth in the midst of all the chaos. The kids put on a musical show (Jose Antonio on the zamponia (pan pipes) and Jose Luis on the cajon (box-drum) playing traditional Andean music!) and a fashion show for her in the afternoon, and there was dancing and cake and ice cream on the patio. Then in the evening, all the volunteers, nurses, Tony, Frank, Terri, and the teachers went over to one of the teachers' house for a very authentically Peruvian party. We had baked chicken with aji sauce and salad for dinner, and then the teacher's husband played his trumpet (he used to be in a salsa band in Las Vegas) and their grandson played the drums, and everybody danced salsa and merengue. The younger teacher, Jenny, and her son did a dance to the trumpet music that involved white hankerchiefs and twirling and audience clapping. Victor and John ended up dancing in circles of women because they were the only guys around besides Tony and Frank, who didn't dance much (but even Tony got up and danced a little!). What an incredible way to end our stay. In the middle of all the fun and music I liked translating between the English-speaking volunteers and the Spanish-speaking nurses; Frank, who likes speech-making, kept making me his translator so that everybody would know what he was saying to Terri. All the volunteers chipped in to buy a nice bracelet for Terri, who was always our contact person whenever we needed anything in the house.

And so the day of our departure arrived... and it was discovered that all the girls in the house had head lice, and so did we. So the morning we were supposed to leave, Catherine and I treated our hair and started picking out the nits while we waited for the taxi (with the help of some leftover cake and ice cream to get us through). Back home in Delicias, we had to wash all our clothes in hot water, which means dumping boiling water from the stove onto buckets of soapy laundry, then wringing it out later and hanging it to dry... fun times. Now, after many nights of us combing through each other's hair, the little critters seem to be gone, knock on wood. I'm calling it part of the authentic Peruvian experience. We hope to go back and visit the Hogar soon, because we both miss the kids--but I'll be sure to put my hair up and wear a hat when I do.