The Burning Bed

Today as we were coming down the mountain, Jairo and I told Joss the story about the man who found a bed for his wife.  Jairo pointed out the neighborhood where they lived, where the man had gotten up early in the morning to search on the side of the roads for tin cans, and finally the huge dumpster where he found the bed and box spring for his wife on Wednesday morning.  We told Joss how the wife had cried tears of joy and how the photos of them in the newspaper were awesome because you could see how thrilled they were about their "new" bed.

A few blocks past the dumpster where the man in the story found the bed is where Jairo buys his newspaper every day. As he approaches, he always beeps his horn.  The newspaper man crosses into the middle of the street, hands Jairo a newspaper, and Jairo pays the man with exact change which he folds in the console at the beginning of the week to pay for a newspaper each day.  (Everyone knows not to touch the little stacks of money for Jairo's newspaper.)

Today the headlines of that newspaper read that robbers broke into the house yesterday and burned the bed!  At 2 pm yesterday the couple returned to their home to find it had been ransacked and their bed was burning.  I was so sad for them!  We were literally just telling Joss this sweet story and now their bed and some of their belongings were ruined.  The lady was interviewed.  She said each day her husband leaves early in the morning to search for things he can sell and for food from the garbage.  She waits at home, hopeful that he will come back with food.  Some days they don't eat.

The good news is that with all of this media attention, people have been reaching out to support them.  The last line of the article said that they would really like to have their own piece of land where they could build a proper home.  It gave their phone number in case anyone could help.  This is the home where they currently live.

Lourdes is still not able to come back to the Breakfast Program.  She is still very sore.  She needs to go to the doctor, but she thinks he will tell her to go to physical therapy and she doesn't want to do that.

The Breakfast Program has gone smoothly all week.  Walter has been around and the the local ladies help out in the kitchen as much as they can.  Yesterday the kids had a LOT of homework.  Some of it was over my head - science in Spanish - but we figured it out.  Good thing Wikipedia is in Spanish  too!  Blanca Flor and I wrote a biography of some guy I never heard of before.  I asked if she had read about him in class.  She said no, she didn't have any book about him.  I asked how she was supposed to write about him.  She said she had to look him up on the internet.  I am sure she is one of very few kids from Los Pinos who have access to internet.  They don't have electricity, never mind computers or internet.  How can her teacher expect the class to do this assignment?  But Blanca did the assignment.

Every day there are more and more men in army uniforms on the street.  Jairo says it's because there is  "a situation", but he is not sure what the situation is yet.  Whenever he tells me about something political he always say, "The situation is..."  When we know what is going on with all of the army in the streets I will update you on "the situation".

Today we had an arm wrestling contest after all of the kids left.  I was wishing it were a year ago when I was in the best shape I've been in years from going to the gym in the US and running every day.  Now I'm extra weak, especially after fighting this cold for 7 weeks.  Don Juan won all of the arm wrestling contests, although he is older by far than all of his competition.  Yesterday was the first day I didn't cough once all day.  Today I can feel congestion in my chest but I can't move it with a cough.

Tomorrow all of the jovenes are going hiking in La Tigra National Park.  They are really excited!  I may go too.

Blanca Flor gave me a Valentines Day card today.

The front of my card

Inside of my card from Blanca Flor
She will turn 13 tomorrow

It says Happy Valentines Day
You are unique
You are the best
You are super
You are my best friend
I appreciate you
I love you
You are special
I love you very much
You are a very good friend

♥  So sweet ♥  And so typical 13.  As you can see, she can also write in English.  She often asks me about songs she hears on the radio in English.  Yesterday she sang one I could not interpret through her accent.  She sings she sounds that she hears, but it is not necessarily English words.  A few weeks ago she was singing very clearly, "WHO, WHO, WHO WHO, WHO LET THE DOGS OUT!"  Even her barking had a Spanish accent.  Did you know that barks and meows are completely different in Spanish?  You'd think animals sound the same in every language, but they don't.  Wednesday Blanca and Lolita asked me, "What does it mean, 'Boys will be boys?'"  That's a fun one to explain to two almost teenaged girls.