Count Your Blessings

June 18, 2013

Count Your Blessings…and then, keep counting and counting…

 

As much as I want my blog to be inspiring and motivating, I also want it to be real and honest. I think I have balanced it well so far. However, the longer I am here, the more that I see and experience and today I have to be real and honest. It’s probably on the opposite end of inspiring and motivating. Sharing on this blog has become therapy for me and today I need some SERIOUS therapy…

Today was by far the hardest day here. It’s like my heart was broken and then broken again, into little tiny pieces…

 A little 2 year old girl in my preschool class lost all control of her bladder today. She went through 4 or 5 pairs of pants until we didn’t have anything else to give her. Everytime she stood up, it came running down.  So we wrapped a towel around her for the rest of the day. We phoned her parents to come and take her to the clinic. When they came about 5 hours later, the father was high and the mother had passed out on the ground. She was so drunk that she couldn’t stand up. Sister Giovanna and the other teachers think that the little’s girls bladder problem because of some form of infection. The social worker knows her family’s history and shared with me the filthy living conditions at her home (shack).  They also suspect that she has been raped. The heartbreaking part about it is that raping 2 and 3 year olds is a common thing. Often enough the teenage boys (13 and 14) are the ones doing the molesting. It sickening. I went into the office and cried after the stories that the social worker told me about these preschool children.

Then later on in the day, I find out that a boy in 6^th grade was hit and killed by a truck on the highway this weekend while he was begging for food. My heart broke again. I spent all day this past Friday with the 6^th grade class subbing for their teacher who was out for the day. I sat with this boy in a reading group and listened to him read and watched him smile as I told him what a wonderful reader he was. Now, he is no longer with us. I thought that the reaction would be just as traumatic for the other children and teachers as it was for me but that was not the case. The teacher was obviously upset but it was her response that was so shocking to me. She said, “This one really hurt.” This one?! Yes, students not returning for school the next day because they are killed is not an uncommon thing. I could tell this because the other children, his classmates, went about their day as normal. I am sure his close friends and classmates were sad; I don’t doubt that, the atmosphere just didn’t seem changed. It was just like another day for them; just another part of their life: death.

I was given the details about the boy’s death but they are too depressing to share. Let’s just say he wasn’t begging close to home and that he wasn’t alone. It involved drugs, drug dealers, satanic devil worshiping groups, sleeping under bridges and then add the begging for food part. All of those elements were part of the 6^th grade boys last night on earth.

All of the terrible things that I could have ever imagined are nowhere near what actually goes on in the lives of these children. I thought at first that I was just being judgmental about what I have witnessed these past 18 days. However, it’s not a judgment. It is the absolute truth. And I don’t judge these people by their actions and lifestyle. I am simply witnessing a reality and trying my best to share love, a smile and a helping hand to everyone I meet and those willing to except it.

After sharing all of my thoughts and reflecting on my day, I always find myself thinking about all of the countless blessing in my life. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for. Whatever my problems were at home seem to be absolutely nothing in comparison to the problems here. Thank you, God.