Some days I go to sleep and reflect on the day and just marvel at how odd it really is, but how normal it seems to me now..... today was one of those days.
I had a half day at the hogar today. We got there around 1:30 and walked around looking for the girls (it's always a busy time with everyone eating lunch and getting home from school). So we went in the TV room/living room and saw two of the middle girls just sitting there in silence... that's not normal so we sat and (assuming they were upset about something) asked what was going on and why Mari didn't have on pants?? She's 13 and was sitting in her school uniform top and a sweater over her waist.... weird, but not that weird. It is their home.
So then they started to tell us that she went to change her clothes in her room and came back out to get her pants off the couch and they were gone. Just gone. So instead of putting her other pants back on, or asking where they went. She had been sitting there with another 11 year old just waiting. (However, because of the language barrier I still hit everyday I thought she said her pants were drying for about half of the convo and later realized that someone had taken them). Secar vs Sacar - very easy to mistake!! After chatting for about 20 minutes about why she didn't have pants we decided to go have lunch..... it was an odd mixture of hot dogs, veggies and some creamy thing that made it like hot dog stew, but thick. I ate it all.... just another day with a weird meal.
Then we went to the volunteer room and played teacher with some of the younger kids, made a few Christmas macarroni wreathes and just played for a while. After that, I went to look for some of the middle girls and found them all watching TV (because it was so hot outside we couldn't do anything today). So I sat down and watched a bit of a Jennifer Love Hewitt movie (in spanish) with about 9 grils that was just horrible while one of the girls played with my hair. When she was bored of that we went an jumped on the trampoline for a bit and she died laughing at how high she went when I jumped with her. ( I found out that she is leaving to go back to her family tomorrow. I love her and am happy, but so sad to see her go so I almost started crying while jumping, thinking this would be one of the last times we did this!)
After that, one of the 10 year olds B showed me her latest magic tricks and then that some how led to looking through my hair for lice. Did I mention that almost all of the girls have lice? It's a bit gross, but I'm used to it. They try to get it out, but with 30 girls it's just hard to get rid of it. So I check my hair for lice quite a bit these days.... I'm ok with it. What am I going to do? Not hug them and love on them for fear of little bugs? I don't think so.
So two girls sat on the steps with me and searched my hair for lice (it's been a bit itchy lately so I was worried). One tried to lie to me and tell me I have it and the other told me I didn't have any and I was ok. I believed her so I was quite happy about that today!
Then around 4 I started to round up two of the girls who won our latest Festival de Arte competition. They won 2 free movie passes so we were going to see the latest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie this afternoon. After they changed clothes and packed a purse. which consisted of a water bottle and body splash (it was so cute) we were off. Me and two ten year olds to see a movie! I was pumped!
So we got to the theater and handed them our passes..... and they told us we couldn't use them!! So in my broken spanish I had to figure out that the movie was a new release and we couldn't use the passes yet. This was just not going to work for the girls.... they were dead set on seeing a movie today. So we went through a huge list, had a little meltdown and eventually decided to see "The 3 Musketeers".... I told them about 9 times it was in English with subtitles and that we could come back, but they would not have it.
So we headed in to the movie and it was hilarious! It's just so fun to take them out of the hogar some times. There was no one in our theater so that weirded them out, then it was a huge process to pick a chair and get settled. All through the movie one of the girls kept looking at me and saying "Que Bakon" (how cool!) and "Esta bien" (this is good) or "el esta mala" (he's bad) .... it was hilarious. I honestly forgot I was in Chile it just felt like a normal day. Then we headed out and made the trek back to the hogar. One of the girls left saying "that was just too good! This was so great!"
It was so cute!
Overall it was a pretty normal day, but for some reason I just think it's funny that this is now "my norm". Just 5 months ago my norm was going to work everyday at the foundation and then probably hiking in Boulder. It is really amazing how life can change in just a few short months....
Tomorrow we have our big Christmas party at the hogar. They are bringing in dancers, clowns and bouncey machines! Should be fun!!!
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