Under the Banana Trees

I tried last night to do a post from where we are staying, but the internet service was down. Now some of the boys in the group are back at the place using my computer, and I am trying to do this post instead at an internet cafe here in Cochabamba, just for the assurance that the service won´t go down on me again. This is my main way for staying in contact after all. So the internet cafe here is much different from the ones I remember in New Orleans. Firstly, there is no coffee. Secondly, there is a chewed up sticky stucker stick sitting on the desk, I can´t figure out the "at" symbol, and the desk is sort of falling apart. All that aside, I would just like to update those of you who care to read this.

Yesterday we went to Millennium, an orphanage, for the first time. There was a little boy there who reminded me of Roger from Jamaica, I suppose because he peed himself. I was pushing him on a tire swing and all of a sudden he began to tinkle. He still wanted to be picked up and held, and it was hard for me not to just pick him up and tote him around all morning, wet front and all. In Jamaica, I probably would have, because it was only a week long trip. However, here, I know that I have more time to bondy with the children. I am not in as much of a rush. There was another child, a little girl, who I was taken with. Of course, I don´t know her name, they aren´t verbal yet... which, gratefully means that they aren´t critiquing my poor Spanish skills. Anyway, these kids seem pretty sad. They want to be held a lot, and once they finally let you bond with them, once they finally spend the energy to let their guard down, they just seem exhausted. So yesterday at the orphanage, we mostly just played with the kids. Sliding board, swings, helping with feeding, that sort of thing.

We had our first class session yesterday as well... underneath the banana tree. I want to put up a picture, but I am not sure if I will be able to do that here or not. Basically, we just discussed the readings to date and some of our assumptions about what it is to be Native American.

I have surprised myself somewhat by getting a little homesick. Usually, I don´t do that. This time around, though, I think it has something to do with John having already been all the way out in South Dakota. I just want to get back to him, but I know that at the end of all this, this whole huge blink of a month, we´ll have both grown and have a lot to discuss. I hope that he is having a good time at Field Camp, it sounds like it´s going a little rough for him. Sounds like his prof. is a complete jackass, which I could sort of pick up on from the getgo. Anyway, he´ll just have to wait til his other prof. gets there and try to relax into the fact that everyone in his department knows his work and how well he has done thus far. He will be fine.

This morning we walked back to Millennium and went upstairs to where the children were. I walked up to one little girl and tried to make friends. She promptly began screaming and crying. I think my prof. said it best, "There are too many gringos in here¨." Yes, I´m sure that we are overwhelming. Then I walked over to a baby in his cradle... he sort of looked like he was looking at me. Well, he started bawling, too, and David, a guy in our group had to come get him calmed down. Then there´s Bennine, a little girl with the most hurt but beautiful eyes I may have ever seen. She hid from me under a little desk-like table, holding onto the legs of it, keeping herself secure and separate from me there. She didn´t flinch, however, when I brushed the eyelashes of her cheeks. She finally came out for one of the workers and took my prof´s hand.

I felt more at home, though a bit discouraged due to my lack of kid-skills, when Daniel and I went outside and began sawing off the long branches from some of the palm trees. We turned extra bark into mulch, and used some ridiculously heavy tool that I don´t know the name of to bust the weeds out of the cement. We got the job almost done... we´ll finish tomorrow, but my hands and back were certainly aching. That´s ok. I just kept thinking about Sister Monica and how some days "You´re just picking up shells." We don´t always get the satisfaction of knowing why we´re doing what we´re doing. Sometimes we just have to do what we´ve shown up to do and let that be the end of it.

Anyway, I´ll try to write a longer post at some point when I am able to access the internet back where we´re staying, since that is free and this is not. So far, I´m still adjusting and getting used to the activities, sites, sounds, and group. The guys are great, but I do sort of wish there was another girl on the trip.

Peace. Blessings.
-Casie