Hola todos! First, I hope that you all had wonderful holidays. I spent about 2 ½ weeks in Pennsylvania for Christmas and New Years, visiting friends and family. It’s hard to believe the holidays are over, they went too fast. This holiday was especially nice for me, because even though it had only been a few months since I had seen my family, it felt like more! While I did get to see most of my friends in Bellefonte and spend lots of time with my family, I wish I would have gotten in touch with more of you over the holidays. I am typically pretty horrible at keeping in touch, so I guess I just need to try harder. If I believed in New Years Resolutions that would definitely be one of mine!
In my last blog, I left off with the big news of a job offer. After lots of stressful weighing of my options, I told the organization in early December that I had decided to accept the position! Technically I started my new position about two weeks before I went home for Christmas. From here on out I will be full-time in Casa (the residential facility). I’ve been told that they came up with a sweet title for me, but nobody could remember it last time the topic came up! When I find out what I’m called, I’ll let you all know. Accepting the job was a really difficult decision for me. I was worried about another year passing before starting a postdoc in the US (which I need to do to become licensed), worried about another year not making money, worried about my family, worried about my family worrying about me, etc. BUT I love what I am doing here and truly feel that for me, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I feel good about providing some stability in the house for the boys during a really turbulent time. I am excited about improving my Spanish and having the opportunity to form stronger relationships with the boys. AND I’m both excited and scared about doing direct care work! This job is similar in a lot of ways to the job I had when I worked with Boys Hope/ Americorps in San Antonio for a year before grad school. There are major differences such as only four boys at Boys Hope and 24 boys here in Casa, and at Boys Hope I lived with the boys and here I get to go home at night. But, I guess what is scary is that in both places the challenges are similar, and I remember some of the challenges at Boys Hope being extremely draining! I’m having difficulty explaining why, for me, this role is so hard. I think it is because, as a direct care staff, it’s your job to act as a responsible parental figure which includes setting limits but also demands that you are nurturing, patient, and understanding. I think the hardest thing is that kids throw the whole range of emotions at you, and when they are angry at you or mean to you, you often are still attempting to build the positive part of the relationship and don’t have that to automatically fall back on. It is impossible to replace a child’s parent and can be very difficult to form these types of balanced relationships when children know you are not a permanent fixture in their lives. I guess the point of this is that for me, this isn’t going to be an easy job, and I know there will be difficult days, but I am looking forward to it, especially with a few more years of life and education under my belt!
Ok, enough of that. I mentioned that it’s a turbulent time at Casa, so let me give you a brief run down of what I’m talking about. At the end of November, things started to get a little wild in the house, beginning with two boys running away over a weekend (one of whom has a little brother who also lives at Casa). A few days later a third boy ran away from school. That Friday, the boys were informed that a woman who has been working at Casa for 5 years (and is amazing) would be leaving for another job at the end of December. The rest of the month was a blur of holiday activities, intense emotions (resulting from missing kids, saying goodbye, and of course, the holidays). Despite all of the fun activities and many generous donations and gifts, most of the kids struggled with family issues over the holidays. None of the children visit their families for Christmas and some children don’t have anywhere or anybody to visit. Soooo…that took us up until the time I left for Christmas. Since then, three more boys ran away, one of which was the younger brother. Two out of these three have returned as well as the original two who ran away. The two boys who are still gone are both staying with relatives, one in Puebla, and one in another state. I’m really not able to imagine what the experience of the first two was. They were gone for over a month, are 12 and 14 years old, were at a house in Mexico City at one point, ran from there when the director of Casa went to look for them, and then spent several weeks living and working in a small village somewhere outside of Mexico City. I saw them today for the first time. They seem aged, they are quiet, they are withdrawn, and I’m not sure how to explain it yet, but they seem mentally slower. Who knows what happened…definitely more trauma, maybe drugs…again, I can’t imagine.
So….there’s your December/ Holiday update from Mexico and Pennsylvania. I am back in Puebla and feeling happy to be here. The weather is great (sorry to those of you who recently had those crazy snowfalls). It is great to see the kids again, great to see my friends here, great (and not so great) to have my computer with me. I’m days away from being an aunt. Life is good! Hope everybody is well!
