So twice a week we go to this girls home and hang out with
the girls, do homework with them, play games, and jump rope. I’m sure you’ve
heard all about the place from Ruth and Jessalyn. The home is a place where
girls ages 6 to 15 live because their families aren’t fit to take care of them.
They are not orphans but many come from physically abusive or drug addicted
parents. We mainly hang out with four little girls that are 7 and 8. Oh and I
forgot to mention, the home is run by nuns. It is quite a sight. One day, we
walked in to two nuns giving each other pedicures. There is something intimidating
about their white habits (is that what they are called?) and stern faces, but
that generalization was blown to pieces when we saw them picking at each
other’s feet.
Last Tuesday we
were playing with the little girls when a nun asked Kayla to help her with
something. She was traveling to Florida to give a presentation to raise money
for the home and wanted help with her English. This nun was 5’1, probably mid
50’s and clearly did not speak English. (When she first called Kayla over I
thought she was going to yell at her for her clothes or the way we were
playing.) However, the nun just needed some help, so Kayla spent two hours
going over her presentation and helping her with her pronunciation. She then
asked Kayla and I to return the following night to go over the speech again. We
did, and it was a comical sight. Two teenage gringas wearing t-shirts and
flip-flops correcting a nun. Wow. My favorite part however, was after we
finished helping her, she asked us for our phone number so that we could continue
giving her English lessons after she gets back. She pulled not one but two cell
phones out of her “nun suit” pocket and had us enter our number, I can honestly
say that I never imagined I would be giving my phone number to a middle aged
nun in Nicaragua. Sometimes, I look around and have to ask myself, “Is this
real life?”
Moral of the
story is that learning opportunities present themselves in all shapes and
sizes. Some are more familiar than others, but I have learned to embrace all
these new and different experiences with a joyful heart. Also, I learned that
although most nuns inspire fear -even if you are a head taller than they are-
they’re probably just as “plugged in” to the world as I- an eighteen-year-old
American girl- am.
P.S. Sorry it has taken me a while to blog. My apologies, my
deepest apologies.
Shout out to the tripod
