We're made out of blood and rust, looking for someone to trust without a fight

Me faltan las palabras aptas para describir las luces que ahora brillan en mi vida, más que nada el cariño que siento para estos niños preciosos con quienes me toca a trabajar.

This week was so lovely and thick with goodness. I think the first couple of weeks of anything new are a little jolting and no matter how eager I am to work it takes me awhile to learn the rhythm. I feel it now! I am perfectly content here. I want to say that now so that when I come home and I'm having a dramatic fit about something insignificant you can tell me that my life is not fraught with trauma and that I have been truly happy and will be again. Halle-hallelujah, as Hermano Niel would say. :)Here are some of the brightest lights of my week:

*CASA JUCONI--I am loving those boys so much! They are such complex little creatures and despite the roughness and experience that some of them have, there is an endearing innocence about them too. I've been teaching them all the card games I know with Rook cards. I know that would make my grandmother happy to know that these little gamin are playing Gin with a Tail, Pyramid and Doughnut. (I haven't taught them Eights yet because I think if I try to explain it in Spanish I will just confuse them. I need another month in!)

*There are such sweet moments that come being with the boys. There is one 11 year old (Leobardo) who is not as naturally gifted at sports as the others are and I can see how he suffers for that. I wince when he tries to kick the ball and misses and the other boys laugh at him, when he is automatically removed from the team if the numbers become uneven. I've felt a little of that hurt and I'm sure it stings him more than I know. One day I showed him how to play "Reloj" with basketball (just shooting from different points on the court) and I wouldn't let anyone else join. I was worried he'd get bored, but now every few hours he comes to find me wherever I am with the basketball in his hands. "Maestra, want to come play with me?" It's our special game now and I know it means a lot to him that I spend that time with him. It feels so good to be able to do that especially since I have always been a "gran fracaso" at sports and I really do know how he feels.

*Angel Jose, the little boy I wrote about last time, is my constant shadow and that means so much to me. He always wants to be where I am and to hold my hand. He'll say, "Maestra, is it okay if I give you a hug?"

*On Friday I was about to leave and I went into the playroom to say goodbye already wearing my backpack. While I was talking to someone one of the older boys unzipped the front pocket to see what was in there and my hymnbook fell out. They all asked about it and I told them it was a book of songs about God. They asked me to teach them one so I turned to the Christmas songs and we sang some of them. They asked me to teach them one they didn't know, so I turned to "Soy un Hijo de Dios" (I am a Child of God). I sang the first verse for them and they all stared at me open-mouthed and clapped (HA!). Then they all crowded over my shoulder and sang the next few verses with me. This might sound cheesy, but there really was a quiet feeling of love in the room that there hadn't been before we started singing. I could tell they felt it too because their faces were so peaceful and right after we stopped singing they all just grinned at me.

When I walked down the street afterwards I was thanking God for that moment. Growing up I never really appreciated that song, but during the last several years I have had so many experiences singing it with children who have not been blessed with "parents kind and dear," but who respond to it with reverence and wonder because it still speaks the truth, they are children of God, and even if they're been thrown away, injured and abandoned by this world, they still belong to Him and He knows them and loves them. It makes me feel like a child at home as well; if I just hang on He will take care of me and help me be strong enough to endure hard things and to serve Him well. I hope the boys let me sing with them again.

*I love doing anything with Lolis from TRACA. She is incredibly warm and good-natured and an excellent social worker. She is also one of the people I can be funny with in Spanish. I laugh the most with her. I told her how it's funny to me that she, Carla, and Marce call each other "Gorda" (Fat) affectionately because "en mi pais" most American women are dissatisfied with their bodies and calling someone fat is one of the worst things you could say. Lolis thought that was hilarious! She said, "Well, we know we're fat and we've accepted it, so being called Gorda doesn't bother us!" Lolis is very protective of me and whenever I'm in the mercado with her she won't let me walk too far away from her because she's worried harm will befall me (even though I go there by myself all the time!). She is also mildly obsessed with getting me to try every kind of food available in Mexico and is constantly buying me fried platanos, tortas with carne enchilada, pueblan candy, chips from street vendors. If she herself is eating something she'll ask if I've had that thing before and even if I say yes she will always give me some.

*In our group with the teenagers this week a professional photographer came to speak with the kids about taking pictures for the project we are doing, "Mi Vida desde Mis Ojos" (my life through my eyes.) We are going to have the kids in the TRACA program take photos along the parameters of various themes and then choose the best pictures to auction off in the U.S to garner donations for JUCONI. It's similar to the project done with the children in the movie Born into Brothels. I'm very excited because I get to supervise the children while they go take pictures! I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here. Totally righteous!

*I've been reading "The Bible" on addiction recovery and I felt so sharply that the only way a human being can overcome any kind of addiction is to strengthen their relationship with the Savior. There can't be any other way. We are too frail and too pathetic and too vulnerable to the suction of our vices. We need heavenly arms to hold us back. Carla wants me to find this information to help with the fathers in TRACA who have a drinking problem. I want to use this opportunity to be an ambassador of Christ if it comes to me.

*Habanero chips are a light in my life, but won't be much longer if I can't stop eating them. They are to me what Joes were to me in Romania. Irresistible, intoxicating influx of calories.

*I was in the mercado this afternoon and wanted to take so many pictures but it would all involve bothering people and trying to ask permission, when really I just wanted to freeze some slice of the moment and asking would destroy the spontaneity. I would have taken a picture of a little girl curled up asleep in a cardboard box beside her frantic mother who was selling pottery, a man with birdcages filled with live parrots stacked on his back, all the smoky haze in the air from people selling incense for dia de los muertos, an ancient woman sitting serenely on a stool by the guayaba booth, a father playing soccer with his little girl who was wearing a pink dress, two little brothers sitting behind a booth with their arms around each other, a drunkish man begging who had eyes like Rasputin. Maybe next time I will ask.

*I do have this visual from Friday sports day, taken by one of the TRACA girls who was fooling around with my camera. Bien tierna, verdad? I told you it was a good week.