The Live-In Aunt Experience

February 14, 2010

Yesterday I saw a whole new side of the work at La Casa de Mi Padre as I had the experience of staying at the girls overnight to watch four of the younger girls. When I arrived Saturday morning the girls were excited to have me there -- their new "Tia." I quickly pulled out my Dutch Blitz cards and taught them a modified version since I felt like at their age all of the rules might be too much. After about an hour and a half (a long time for 7-10 year olds) they had had enough and moved to watching television -- something that they are only allowed to do on weekends.

I was amused by one of slightly older girls who had taken it upon herself to kill a cockroach that was hiding amongst some t-shirts that had been donated to the home. She would lift each one up with the small, plastic baseball bat and say (in Spanish of course), "No cockroach, no cockroach" until she would find it, at which point she would begin to attack it (or the box) with the bat. Several other girls tried to help with smaller weapons but they were not nearly so dramatic.

After lunch I went with two of my girls and quite a few other children to a nearby recreational complex where a couple of people from the community had volunteered to give them some training in soccer. It was fun to watch the young girls learning the ball handling skills and laughing in the process.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching television, which of course I hate. I worked on somethings that I have been doing and did a little reading. I decided that the next time I am at the home for a weekend, I need to go prepared with more alternative activities available rather than just watching television. Pretzel-making or something in the kitchen would be fun, except that I had the joy of seeing my first El Salvadorean rat there, scurrying under the stove. I was not so excited about the kitchen after that.

Overall the girls behaved pretty well but I did have opportunity to practice the behavior consequence model that is used for discipline because the one little girl was being disobedient and stirring up dissention. I will be with the girls again this coming Thursday so I will get to be part of the weekly school routine. I know that it will be a very early morning since the one bathroom is for 7 girls who all have to shower before school. (And I think that they leave for school around 7:00AM) I am glad that my experience here at La Casa de Mi Padre will be well-rounded when it is all said and done and that I can meet some of the needs that they have, especially during this time when so many of the aunts are doing their vacation in rotation.

Earlier in the week I had the opportunity to do a team building activity with the girls that involved one girl being blind folded and having to listen to the instructions of the "lighthouse" instead of those of the talking rocks who tried to get the "boat" to hit the obstacles. In the debrief after the activity is was so exciting to see the light bulb come on for a couple of them as they saw played out before them the input that they had received in counseling sessions regarding obstacles in their path and how to avoid them. They were quick to recognize that Jesus needs to be the "lighthouse" in our lives. The connections that they made seemed to go much deeper than those of the older boys, just 2 days beforehand.