I live in the center of Calante. The school is about 200 feet from my house. As such, kids are around, always. Early on in service, I instituted "office hours". Oti's Day Care Program opens at 9am and closes its door at 6pm. When I turn kids away, they usually stare blankly. Juxtaposed against the noisy chaos of their homes, it must seem really weird that at times I want peace and quiet. After all, they're used to having at least ten people in the home and never being alone. (I repeatedly get asked by both children and adults if I get scared at night living by myself).
I have a ton of books in Spanish. Mostly the kids just thumb through the images. Some read aloud simultaneously in a cacophony of learning. There's a few chapter books that usually get put back in the pile in disgust. Where are the pictures?!
Reading is their favorite pastime. Sometimes they color. Sometimes I give them chalk and they draw on the floor and outside wall of my porch. For awhile, we made bracelets. I think more than anything, they come to my house because I give them the time of day, something they're not used to with the adults.
Seeing as there's about five kids between the ages of 3 and 11 in every house, and that many come over to Oti's, at times it can be a bit much. Occasionally, kids get into fights on my porch. They whistle incessantly. They manhandle the books. In short, they can be kids. Sometimes cute. Sometimes, really, really annoying.
It could be an outsider's guilt at seeing a demographic so deprived of stimulation. It could be the call to service. But those days I'm not out working, the door opens at 9am. There are many days I don't want to be babysitting, days where I'd rather be pondering life's questions alongside Ira Glass instead of responding every 15 seconds to a kid showing me every single page of Jorge El Curioso. But I try to make the effort.
In a world where my efforts are something nebulous, I like to think that this is one of my greater contributions, that I'm touching the lives of these children in some profound way that neither party can fully appreciate.
That's my reward in all of this. It's a feeling of satisfaction that is all too rare. I'm also rewarded by having a group of people that light up when they see me, that call out my name from across the river. I know as a volunteer, I'm not alone in saying that my best friends are on average about 8-years-old. I'm laughing as I write this, but it's the honest truth. As I battle my almost daily existential crises, it's the children that keep me grounded. The adults may still call me chui, the Ngabere word for foreigner (somewhat derogatory), but it's the kids that accept me unconditionally. And that's how I've developed my daily mantra. Do it for the kids.
