We were all up with the 7:30 a.m. church service next door, all of us, except Kier who can sleep through church services, earthquakes, dogs of the roof. The sleepover girls wanted food. The other little girl doesn’t have Nesquik cereal at her house (her mom likes to feed her healthy food) so she wanted to have a big bowl of sugar. I was ok with that except that we were out of milk. Madi will only drink a very specific kind of skim milk, which can’t be bought closeby. I had to ride my bike into town to get a couple of boxes, which is how it’s packaged. The three younger girls played all morning.
Last night when I was went into town I walked by a wedding reception. It was set up in what is ususally an empty lot. They’d brought in tables, plastic chairs, strung some lights between the trees. There was a pinata waiting for the kids in a tree closeby, women waiting at some tables under the trees with plastic bins of food. There was a row of young women in light blue dresses. There was a man who was giving a little speech with a mic. Even though people have less money, the desire to celebrate significant life events is the same. Here they are much more creative in how they can make these special with fewer resources.
When noon rolled around, I decided to get Kier up to see if she wanted to experience any of the day. She wanted to get a coffee with me. She commented that she hasn’t slept in until noon in months. It’s true, at home she has dance on Saturday mornings and church on Sunday mornings. Here she has been getting up early on the weekends because she needed to finish her online course, which she completed last Monday. She was excited that she slept until the afternoon. We walked into town and had coffee. For the first time I had more to tell her about my Saturday night than she had to tell me. How’s that for a change. We were going to walk up to the market, but I’m still fighting this cold, and I had absolutely no energy to do so. Instead we walked home at a leisurely pace.
Later we walked to the church service. I said good-bye to the two couples who have been volunteering here for the past month, and with whom I’ve been working with on different building projects. They are going back to Wisconsin.
After church I took the younger two for ice cream while Kier went with two of the guys from church to get a bite to eat and watch a movie. They went to PanaPan and got some kind of yummy chicken baked in pastry pocket thing. It looked totally delicious. Cali asked is she could have a bite, and practically bit off a couple of Kier’s fingers.
We tuked home because is was starting to rain, and I still have no energy while fighting this persistent cold.
When we pulled up to the house, our indigenous family was waiting for us. I explained to them that we go to church on Sunday evenings, because I think they’ve tried to visit before. The father didn’t come along, perhaps because the mom was asking for money. They have 6 kids and she went through a long list of things they need for the kids, about the costs of school for each of the kids, that tomorrow is the first of the month. It’s a tricky thing having a relationship with an indigenous family here knowing you have much more money at your disposal, but also not wanting to be play the role of a cash machine for the family. I do try to give them jobs I can pay them for, like taking Cali regularly to school. If Cali goes over for a while to their house, I’ll pay the mom for that time. I also know my brother pays for school for the oldest girl. But it’s a tricky thing to know how to maneuver the ongoing requests for money. I’d do the same thing if the roles were reversed.
While the family was still here I fed Cali supper and put her to bed. She has to get up early and is one of those kids that has to have sleep or she is difficult to manage in the mornings.