Last Day at the School

Salutations, amigos!

We have successfully finished the project that has been our main subject of focus over the past three and half days. It is amazing that so many emotions can overwhelm a person in only a span of one day.  We were only at the school for a short while, but forever we will remember our time here. Even though Matt teasingly mentioned that he would cancel the flights, very passionately we all wanted him to carry through with it.  We wish our time here could have been much longer than it has been.  No one has any desire to leave this place. We cannot even begin to explain to the extent these people touched our lives.  We traveled to Nicaragua to help them, yet they left a deeper impression on us than anything we could ever give to them. 

On this day, the great sun smiled very brightly with a heat much greater than that of the other days.  

Excitement overwhelmed us in the car, for we were going to see those children and adults that left the biggest impression on us.  We all had formed relationships, so we were eager to take advantage of them.  We could now call kids by name that we had been interacting with over the course of the project. It is a wonderful feeling when the kids run up to us, and we know their faces.  They then proceed to drown us in affectionate hugs and high pitched “hola”s.  Before we could commence with this desire, we split into teams again to commence with the tasks that needed to be finished.  The manual labor group consisted of Senora Tansey, Mr. Keiper, Madison, Maggie, and Dr. Burlingame- who made a full recovery and successfully joined our ranks today.  With the mural, Miki, Meredith, Catherine, Lauren, and Courtney all painted with Jose Carlos.

At manual labor, the crew moved dirt while joking with Ralmon and the rest of the construction workers.  They were knights and kings in our eyes. They swept us up into a project where we could make a small contribution and took care of us the best they could manage.  They have been great examples of the way one should work and act. Our respect for them continues to soar. They have come into almost all of our night discussions.  It will be hard to leave them behind.  The lessons they taught us will remain with us forever.

At the mural, the group hastily started working since the rain halted our efforts yesterday.  It was grand working with Jose Carlos for a final time.  His humor and vast knowledge of painting helped to make the mural even better.  Throughout the day, everyone contributed to the painting, and we successfully achieved our goal of putting our hands and names on the mural.  In the streets of the community of Reina Sofia, our mural will be there forever.  We will never be forgotten.

Adding our hand prints to the mural proved to be a very fun endeavor.  We were able to successfully add the whole group, which included Matt, Vernon, and Jose Carlos.  After we placed our hands on the wall, we promptly decorated our pants and hats to remember our contribution. It also made the pants brighter, more colorful, and adorned with the signature of our faithful comrades.

We must commend Mr. Keiper on the matter of the mural.  While he has not been so hot with the paint for the last few days, he successfully redeemed himself today.  The sadistic looking father now has waxed eyebrows, and he actually looks happy.  He looks like he is recycling and setting a good example for the neighborhood. The mural is also a masterpiece because of Mr. Keiper’s smart, quick thinking, as well as acquired skill of using a paint brush successfully. He has grown into quite the artist over these three days.   

Maggie, Senora Tansey, Meredith, Madison, and Miki stopped their respective projects in the middle of working on them to hand out the clothes donations that we brought earlier in the week. They sorted and handed out the clothes for both the children and their parents to wear.  All of the kids waited excitedly for their clothes outside of the room.  It was very special to see the looks on the faces of the children as they received their gifts, especially when the clothing fit just right.  We saw the extent of their gratitude when one precious little girl flaunted her new apparel as she strolled past us as we were working on the mural.  She purposely did this to show how much she loved the donation.  This melted all of our hearts.  It is amazing the extent that new clothing can have on a child in this particular situation.  With having so little, a gift of new clothing puts the brightest and happiest smiles on the children.  Their happiness at having an outfit that fits correctly indicates they have the ability to determine the difference between want and necessity.  They get excited about the little things that we take for granted.

Instead of working, Courtney decided to learn how to play a game of marbles with a boy named Louis and his friends.  It took about an hour for her to throw the marbles correctly because their manner in which to throw the ball was rather difficult.  Luckily, he could speak English and proved to be a very patient teacher.  Matt also came over to learn the game, but it also appeared to be a challenge for him, too.  Even though they should have been transporting dirt into the kindergarten room, they could not turn themselves away from these children.  Within the boy’s eyes, we could see their excitement at them trying to learn this game.  It was very plausible that they liked it even more that Courtney and Matt had trouble playing the game and could not quite grasp it.  They wanted to teach all they could before our departure.  It was a very special moment because the boys just kept helping them. It did not matter in the least that they had could not comply with the boys’ directions accurately.  They cradled the hands of the two and repeatedly showed them the way that allowed for the most success of hitting the other marbles.  The boys were just happy that the two of them had this willingness and openness to learn from them. 

Unfortunately, we had our final “fútbol” match today.  It was very flattering when one of the boys approached us inquiring if we could play soccer with them again.  We must be pretty good if we were getting requests to play them on the last day.  Because we had just eaten lunch on such a hot day, we proved to be rather sluggish in our endeavor to dominate their kingdom.  With the help again of Jorge and Gato and many other spirited youngsters, we were able to hold our own.  Our energy reserves quickly kicked into gear as the boys displayed their deep desire to beat us again.  Even though we were unable to defeat our mortal foe, we put up an okay fight and walked off the field with our heads held high.  This will be something that we will miss immensely.  Even though not many of us possessed the playing capabilities of soccer, these young boys allowed for us to make fools of ourselves without any judgment.  They simply enjoyed our company and zeal to play against them.  They also might have liked the fact that when they kicked hard at us, we kicked just as hard back to put that soccer ball in their net.

Because we had worked so hard from our arrival to the end of the day each day, the school awarded us with a very nice concert.  We were given seats of honor in the front.  Because they had Spanish pop music playing, we had no choice but to join in.  We rapidly processed up the stage to show the children our “American” dance moves. During the song “Danzo Kuduro”, we all decided to project the esteemed Bernie dance and fist pump into their minds.  Obviously, the children loved those dance moves.  Once we party animals took our seats, the little concert commenced.  Many of the students prepared dances for our viewing benefit.  We could see that they had put a lot of time into their performances.  “Nos gusta el concierto mucho”- We liked the concert a lot. Because Latin American dancing is a tiny bit more risqué than what we are used to, it was very comical to see little boys and girls successfully shaking their hips just like Shakira.  When they pulled us up to join in, we American girls had no such luck in getting our bodies to move in those positions.  It was then that many of the tiny boys took each one of us to show us their moves.  A little boy that proved to be especially talented paired up with Maggie.  Excitement and smiles erupted onto his face when he would show her a move and she would attempt to repeat that exact move.  He simply adored her willingness to learn such complicated dance moves from him. Many also busted out the “American” moves that we had taught them.  So caught up in their dancing fever, we began a conga line around the school with many excited children trailing us.  A “muy pequeno”- very small boy- decided to lead the line with very snazzy dance moves in which our spotlight disappeared to him.  All of this dancing made it all the harder to pull away from them today. 

It was quite overwhelming at the conclusion of this beautiful day. Each of the bosses from their respective establishments gave us speeches that were flooding with their appreciation.  We received one from the director of the school, Ralmon, and Jose Carlos.  Their welcoming attitudes and evident compassion helped to make our contributions successful.  Each thanked us warmly for our actions from the bottom of their hearts.  We never truly realized the effect that we had on these people until today when they graciously poured their hearts out to us.  It was nice to find that they truly appreciated our work this past week. With all of the thanks, the speech of the director really struck us.  She told us that we would always be welcome back to the school.  In other terms, the school will take us back with open arms and allow us to help them once more.  It took a lot to both say and hear such a compliment.  Someone from this crew must, MUST, take this challenge.  After just three days, it is the duty of at least one of us to come back.  We have received more than they have given us.  It is only right that the call be answered and we help more. Who will be courageous enough to answer it?