Day Five: Douglas (flexico Mexico)

So our plan for the day was to actually go to a children's home called Betesda. Wellll, seeing as we are in Mexico, as everyone at Back2Back would say - time to be FLEXICO MEXICO!!

The morning began with a concrete pour at the Back2Back property with the Michigan State group. I ended up shoveling gravel and dirt into the concrete mixer for 2 hours. There were groups running wheelbarrows, lifting buckets on scaffolding, pouring concrete, and more. However hard it was, it was that much more rewarding. This was something that we could see instant results as the concrete was being poured to create more staff housing. It was also very rewarding to work along side the Michigan State group. They are a great group.

After the concrete pour, the market was opened for us to buy souvenirs and whatnot. We then proceeded to have lunch and get our debriefing on what we would be doing that day. Change of plans:

One of the encargadas (caretakers) at Douglas children's home suddenly died. Douglas was one of the children's homes I was able to serve at last year, so I was excited to be able to see these kids multiple times within the week. The home was also located about a mile from the Back2Back property. We basically became babysitters for the day. All of the other encargadas wanted to attend the funeral for Fransisco who had passed away, but they needed someone to watch the kids. Twelve of us versus sixty of them... we knew it was going to be interesting.

As soon as we arrived the kids were clearly excited. It was one of the first times that they knew they would be able to be kids without the constant direction of their caretakers. The weather suddenly turned to about 45 degrees and rainy, so we attempted to keep the kids inside or at least layered as much as possible. First, we watched a movie with all the kids in the pavilion outside. Yes, it was freezing. I loved when a child would sit on my lap, not only for the love and joy that they would bring, but for their warmth!! After the movie, we played with crafts and attempted to help the children with their homework. We took them into the comedor, which is their big kitchen/community area. One of the boys Iliud was distraught because he couldn't find a pencil. Through a lot of searching, I was able to find him not only a pencil, but a mechanical one. He was first of all stoked to be using a mechanical pencil, but second of all, stoked to be able to finish his homework and move on to the fun. Once he completely finished, he handed me back the pencil, and while smiling, told me to wait for him there, and left the comedor. He just wanted to go drop his backpack off in his room, and came back to grab some stickers and a coloring book like all the other kids.

After a while, Caroline, Jessie, and I were on grill duty. We were planning on cooking out for the kids starting at 4:30 pm, eating at 6:30 pm. They don't get much variety, let alone food, in their diet, so it is always fun to serve these kids something new. It's almost like taking them to a very fancy restaurant. Even though it was raining we stuck it out and grilled the food, taking turns flipping the chicken patties and holding the lid over the grill to protect the food from the rain. We assembled the sandwiches and almost right on time, we were serving the kids dinner. Once they ate we had to clean up and then take all of the kids to their dorms. Girls and boys separately. We attempted to do a little picture framing craft with the girls. They never really have photos ever, so it was a lot of fun to take Polaroids of them, and let them keep that picture along with a frame.

Liliana, a girl that I met last year was in the girl's dorm that I was in doing crafts. She was kind of dancing around the room and I asked her if she liked to dance. She said yes and before I knew it, she and I were dancing around the room like fools. It was glorious. I never thought that I would be able to pour into the lives of the same children year to year. It was just awesome to see how well she is doing a year later and a year older. I know that she will be OK with the care that has been given to her.

At this point, we had been babysitting for 8 hours. Some of the Back2Back staff came to relieve us of our duties. It was late and dark and they wanted us back at the property for safety reasons. We got back and realized how long and crazy of a day it had been!! Concrete pour in the AM and then enormous babysitting job in the PM. We were all exhausted... but there is always still energy to record!! I recorded a few tracks for the CD and then went off to bed. However crazy the day had been with sixty wildly awesome children running around, it was a wonderful day... flexico Mexico style.

-Kristen