My Superhero: Kathleen!

If you read Monday's blog, you may have some insight into how I (Cathy) have been dealing with life in Puira. Monday was the most difficult day for me, but Tuesday morning I picked myself up by the figurative bootstraps (so thankful to have boots) and got back to work. I am struggling with the injustice of how poorly these people live compared to how many material things I want. I was excited to do a landscaping makeover of our yard and the people I've seen are struggling to feed their children.

Yesterday morning we delivered to the villages again. We first went to the mercado and purchased 3 (new!) beds, mattresses, bedding and mosquito netting. We also bought a tall plastic dresser, 2 smaller plastic dressers (1 pink, 1 blue) and a plastic table and chairs. (I was very excited thinking that we were going to the new house a group from Texas built last week. To me, it was like the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition TV show where they built and decorated a house in one week.) I was quite disappointed when we were only able to find one person home. He got one twin bed with bedding and the tall dresser and he was very appreciative, as all the people here are. I very much dislike passing all these other just as poor homes knowing how much they would appreciate any small gift. The other items were delivered this morning to the people they were purchased for.

In the afternoon, we delivered clothing. Again, because this is all so new to me, I thought we would be delivering new, nicely folded, well organized clothes to specific families. (I will explain the Family to Family program later.) We hauled out 8 nearly 100 pound bags of used, donated clothing to be distributed. By this time I knew the clothing would not be new, but I still expected it to be somewhat folded and organized by size and gender. Was I wrong! We sat with 4 other young volunteers in the back of the truck. As we entered the village, the driver honked his horn repeatedly while the 'Social Workers' yelled out continuously "la ropa esta in la capilla! la ropa esta in la capilla!" (Clothing is in the chapel!) As we wound around the village letting everyone know, we could see the women run to the chapel. By the time we arrived at the chapel, there was a long line waiting for us. Imagine my surprise when we laid out a large blue tarp on the dirt floor and literally dumped the clothes on the tarp!! Only 10 women were left in at a time. They could choose 6 items each and they had to be counted and have their arm marked with an X so they could not get back in line again. I thought this was very degrading for them, but they, again, were so thankful. I tried to spend my time holding the babies when the mothers grabbed for clothes. To me, that was more enjoyable than counting to make sure they were not trying to sneak an extra item. FYI most of the clothes were for adults. I am not sure where they get clothes for their children.

The best thing that happened during our clothing delivery (we did 2 villages yesterday) was that when I was getting out of the truck a little boy came rushing over to me yelling "Cothy! Cothy!" and gave me a big hug!! He recognized that I had been in his classroom at the school. He made my day!!

One more thing...last night at mass we celebrated the anticipation of the feast of St. John the Baptist (which, I think, means we will celebrate his actual feast tonight):)
Padre always tries to give a little synopsis in English. Yesterday he told us we should not be worshipping superheroes like Spiderman and Superman, but real people like St. John the Baptist. I just want to say that my superhero is my daughter, Kathleen! She is inspiring me everyday with her dedication to this church, its cause, the social workers, others we have met, her insistence that we do everything that is offered, her use of Spanish, the way she engages all around her in conversation and her continual good mood and positive attitude. I would not be here today if not for her. My superhero...Kathleen!