Busy but Oh So Blessed
Hello again everyone! I hope you all are doing well and I hope that things are going back to normal slowly but surely. For me, the last month has been busy, busy, busy. But oh, so good at the same time. It has been the first month, in the 7 months that I have been here where I have felt like I have transitioned more fully into life here. Of course, there have been its challenges, as per usual, but I have been able to see Jesus working through my interactions with those here at the Finca and simply by the fact that I feel more at peace than I have in the past few months.
I would have to say that April started off well due to the start of the Easter season (#thanksJesus). As I mentioned in my last blog post, Holy Week was a very good experience as was Easter. It was nice that the Lenten season had ended as well since we were then able to eat whatever we wanted/whatever was available for our meals. It was no longer rice and beans for one meal a day and it was glorious! We were so grateful to be eating our regular food more than once a day and we were happy to use rice and beans as part of our other meals, though not always at the same time.
The beginning of April also started off well with the killing of a rat during one of our community nights. What a rush that was! We were all playing Quelf around the little round table in the sala when all of a sudden Georgi and Adam ran to the kitchen window because they had seen the rat. By the time they had made the short 10 second run over, the rat was gone and nowhere to be found. We all geared up with brooms and Sarita containers and moved the stove hoping the rat was there, but it was not. So we went back to Quelf and tried to focus on our game, but not even 10 minutes later, there was another rat sighting where the same thing happened. However, this time, the rat was on the windowsill for QUITE a while and we thought that we would be able to catch it for sure. We waited too long to close the window and the rat was gone again. We tried to catch it once more with Sarita containers and by stunning it with the broom, but we were unsuccessful again.
We went back to playing the game, but we were sure there would be another rat sighting at any point in time, so we were actually prepared with the rat ran on the windowsill again. Adam ran quickly to the windows and closed them while the rest of us missionaries ran outside and saw it jumping and trying to escape. We were all yelling and uncertain of what to do so we did what we always do when we don’t know what to do: we called a Honduran. In this case, we called to our teenage boy neighbors and they came running out very quickly. They started spraying the rat with Raid and then hit it with the butt of the broom. Eventually, the rat bit a whole in the corner of our window screen and jumped out into the open air and we thought that the rat had escaped for sure. Lucky for us, one of the boys had hit the rat as it was falling and had stunned it enough to slow it down. It ran, but the boys ran faster. They cornered it into a plant and every time the rat tried to come out, they hit it with the broom until eventually, it was dead. We were all full of adrenaline and agreed that Quelf was over after that. So really, what do y’all think the real community night was?
This was the bush we cornered the rat into before it died :)
Even with its strong start, April felt very long for us as a community since two of our missionaries left on vacation, leaving us as a 6-person community once again (which we were during the month of December). Living in this small community has made me realize how much we count on one another and how each person plays a vital role in our day-to-day life. With two of our members gone, we have felt the weight of it. Our lives are slightly busier since we are trying to fill in the roles of our teammates while also fulfilling our roles. Don’t get me wrong, we are glad to do it because we want our community to get the rest they need in order to better serve the wider Finca community. Though we have some more jobs, I thing we are balancing our own responsibilities with those of our missing members pretty well.
Though we miss our fellow missionaries dearly, I feel like we have grown closer as a community, which as Georgi would say, “is just the nature of group psychology.” Having less members in our community makes it easier to have more in depth conversations during meal times and develop relationships with different members of the community as well. It also helped that I kind of lost my voice for about a month and so I relied heavily on Kelsey and Marisa, our nurses, to give me the medicine the doctor prescribed, which was also quite an experience...let's just say that they injected me with medicine while at our kitchen table. We have had lots of good laughs during meals and lots of good quality time as well. We again went on our monthly Family Day towards the end of April. This time to Santa Fe, a town about 20 minutes away from the Finca, just to go to the beach and have eat lunch together. It was a very relaxing morning and we were happy to get away, even just for a little while.
Marisa injecting me with medicine at our kitchen table
Our community during Family Day in Santa Fe
Britney and I during our Family Day
As for school, the kids continue working on weekly packets with us missionaries. I am still working with my 8th graders and 9th graders every morning. Spending a lot of time with them in a school setting is hard sometimes, especially when they don’t do their work or are having a bad day where they misbehave, but it has been really good as well. I have gotten to know the kids personalities better and it has been a blast. They are sometimes mischievous, of course, but they also say things that are hilarious very often and have me laughing when we should all be working. They also surprise me sometimes with their sweet gestures, like bringing me a snack to class or giving me a coloring page they completed.
One of the sweetest gestures that I MUST share happened during one of our Thursday nights covering the kids houses while the house parents went out to relax and reenergize a bit. I had chosen to cover one of the houses with one of my 8th graders and as I settled into the night, I started chatting with him while he was cooking dinner. He said, “I heard that you LOVE pizza.” I didn’t think much of it because I had just had a conversation with a tía few days before telling her that I love pizza. She had gone on a trip with some of the boys, including my kid, and had brought me a personal-sized pizza (which was also one of the nicest things as well) so I figured that my student had talked with her about me. I told him that I did love pizza, we finished our conversation and I started to play chess with one of the other boys in the house. My student continued cooking and before I knew it, there was a pizza right in front of me! I was SO happy and I asked him, “Did you know I was coming to cover your house today?” He did his classic smirk that always means he’s up to something and said no. I didn’t believe him, but chose to let it rest until I got back to the missionary house and went on and on about how my kid had made me a pizza. Emma laughed and said, “Oh my gosh, I was just telling him today that you love pizza.” I asked her, “Did he know I was covering the house today?” To which she responded, “Actually yes!” I once again lost it. I was like, “This is so sweet! Oh my gosh!” The missionaries heard me going on about this small gesture for days, but I was so touched by this act of love. I think that it showed how my relationship had developed with him during my time here even if it was not something that was always super obvious to me.
So in short, I love my students and I love getting to work with them, despite the challenges that arise. My relationships with the other kids and people at the Finca have also developed a lot in the past month or so. I get to spend a lot of time with the kids in other settings, like during an afternoon when the older girls take the younger kids to read to them and I supervise or during an afternoon when the older girls help me cook dinner because I don’t know how to. In each of those settings, there is an opportunity to get to know them better, and I love those days.
Also, the beach during this time of heat has been our refuge. Especially for us missionaries, who have not experienced such extreme heat in our lives. That sounds dramatic, but it feels very real! There have been days when the temperature reads 97℉ but feels like 108℉ which is no joke with this humidity. I have found myself going to beach about 3 or 4 times a week and I usually go with some of the kids. We get to swim and play for about an hour or two and get a little rest from the heat. It is also “good for the soul” as Kelsey says. Spending time taking in nature and swimming in our back yard, which is the ocean, is something to marvel at and I feel very blessed to call this place home for a short amount of time.
No caption needed
As I have said, April has been busy, busy, busy but life has been easier for me. It feels like I can now do things that I couldn’t do when I first got here fairly decently, like starting the fogón in 15 minutes or not being so scared to show up to a house and striking a conversation. Jesus is always good, but has been especially good to me this past month and I am glad to see the ways in which He is working in my life during this time. I can’t wait to see the ways in which He continues working over the next several months. I think that is all for now so I hope you all are doing well and hopefully we can catch up at some point soon! Miss you all and I am praying for you!
Paz y bien,
Alicia
