Los niños de Misión México Albergue (the kids of Mission Mexico orphanage) - Part 4: The Grandes

Mariella, 16 years ‘’¡Ouuush!’’

Mariella used this non-sense word many, many times a day (pronounced so it rhymes with ‘whoosh’) and it was a bit of an in-joke amoungst all the kids at Mission Mexico as well as quite a few others would use it regularly too.  Apparently, ‘’ouuush’’ is appropriate to use in place of a sigh, or to indicate dislike or disdain.  Needless to say, there were quite a few ‘’ouuush’’’s used after the volunteers would make statements such as ‘’Haz tu trabajo, ahora mismo’’ (do your job right now!) or ‘’A dormir’’ (time for bed!).  Petrina has even started saying it!  Ouuush!

Clockwise from top left: Mariella, Maria Uno (Maria #1, 18 years), Yuri (15 years) & Roxy (short for Roxanna, 17 years).  ''¡Megamente!''

Yuri & Roxy adopted the nickname ''Megamente'' for Steve (mega-mind) due to the ever-so-slight resemblance to the animated character by the same name in the recently-released film – basically they both just have no hair and I think that’s about where the resemblance ends!  Nevertheless, it was fun to have this ‘in-joke’ just amoungst us and a few of the kids(-:  Roxy also speaks excellent English and wants to be a translator and I think she’ll definitely achieve that dream with the support of Mission Mexico (-:

Maria Uno again, very photogenic!

And again...taking a selfie (-:

Lalo, 17 years (left; older brother Mario, 19 years, is pictured to his right).  ‘’You buy me coca?’’

Lalo worked out pretty quickly that Petrina was not going to buy him ‘’coca’’ (Coca-Cola)…He persevered with Steve though, and would ask most days!  Persistent fella!

Marisol, 17.  Older sister to Mariella, and what a sweetie.  She came with me on a few of my runs and we practiced our English and Spanish, respectively!

Jose (see below) & Merril, 17 years.  ‘’Cun u opun da doir plees?’’ (Can you open the door please?).

For reasons of safety for the kids, only the volunteers and house parents had keys to the front door.  Needless to say, the older kids in particular would really crave their moments of ‘freedom’, and were allowed to leave the house unaccompanied for regular activities like part-time work, sport, youth church etc.  Merril always seemed to have an excuse to go out though – we think he had the cabin fever bad!

Jose Dos (Jose #2, pronounced Hose-a, brother to Yuri, right), 19 years. ‘’¡Beauty-full!’’

Beautiful must have been Jose’s favourite word in English.  Petrina hypothesised this because anything that was remotely good or nice was met with the comment of ‘’It’s beauty-full!’’.  For instance, one day the ‘grande’ girls taught me how they apply their impeccable eyeliner, and when Jose saw the results he said to me ‘’you are very beauty-full today’’!  Now that might not seem very out of the ordinary (well I, Petrina, wish those comments weren’t out of the ordinary anyway!…).  However,  another time, I commented on how I liked the way Mexicans shorten the phrase ‘por favour’ (please) to simply ‘por fa’, as its much quicker and easier to say…Jose nodded his head and said, ‘’Yes, it’s beauty-full!’’  

Jose Dos and Petrina.

Jose Dos (agin!) and Steve.

Jose ‘Dos’ was one of Steve’s amgios in the house, probably his favourite out of the older kids.  As for Petrina’s favourite, well, sometimes the one she liked the most was one that couldn’t talk back, run away or hide when it was bed time, lie, steal or punch etc, etc….  This magical child was, in fact, La Coneja...

Petrina getting her dose of fur-kid ‘’feel goods’’ in the absence of the two dogs at home…

 

‘Snow white’ was the orphanage pet rabbit, and would follow us both around when we were on the night shift once we started bringing our food scraps from our flat and feeding them to the coneja throughout the shift!

But our final blog on the MM kids would not be complete without a shout out to 'Papá y Mamá', the house parents that run this operation.  Thanks for the opportunity to have this great experience - we are in awe of them and how they keep on keeping on!

Mariella and Papá, Allan Skuse...hiding a basketball from the kids in his shirt.

Mamá, Pam Skuse

Hope you have enjoyed reading about the kids and some of the special moments we had with them in the last few blogs.  Adios for now,

Steve and Petrina.

Los niños de Misión México Albergue (The kids of Mission Mexico) - Part 3: The Medianas

Ruby (short for Rubita), 13.  Such a good little worker!  Her common line was ''Eh-Stiiiib'' (Translation: ''Steeeeve!'' - Latinos commonly have trouble prnouncing the English S and V, they are pronounced as 'ese' and 'b' in spanish, respectively - hence 'es-Stiiiib'!).  Very cute!

Maria Dos (Maria #2), 15.  Already a major cutie, she's going to break some hearts in the future

Petrina and Luis (pronounced ´Lew-ees'), 15.  A lovely boy who greeted you with a hug and a kiss on the cheek each day, no matter what.  But always making up excuses to go leave the house!  Bit of a free spirit, that one.

Francis, 15, was a real character (-:

Argelia (pronounced Ar-hel-ia), 14.  ''Jingle Balls, Jingle Balls...'' (instead of Jingle Bells) was what she was singing around the house one night - one of my all-time favourite English-language bloopers of the kids'! She made a great effort with her English though...a credit to her.

Sisters (left to right): Yesenia (16-ish), and Tere, 14.  Unfortunately we never got to know Yesenia in our official capacity as volunteers, as she ran away from the orphanage about a week before we arrived, and was still staying with friends when we left.  We hope she finishes her schooling.  Tere and Yesenia are also sisters to Ally, who we profiled in an earlier blog on the Chiquitos.

Javier (pronounced with an H), 14.  ''¿Para miiiii?'' (For meeee?) - this was what Javier would say anytime you were holding any object previously unidentified by himself...after all, it could be food, or money or something else cool....(-;  When you live in an orphanage with 60 brothers and sisters there's not much that you can say is truly 'yours', so you can't blame him for trying!

Los niños de Misión México Albergue (the kids of Mission Mexico orphanage) - Part 2: The Pequeños

Angel (pronounced An-hel).  Angel was 11-ish and a bit of a cheeky monkey(-:

Rueben, 10-ish...A lovely soft moment from the younger brother of Candy (see further below). 

   

 

Victor, 10-ish.  Victor gave us his hat as a present on our last day.  Such a sweety!

Candy, 11.  Oh so photogenic and one of Petrina's best little Spanish tutors and 'translators'.  Petrina had a real soft spot for Candy, she really was sweet just like her namesake.

Yoni Dos (Jonny # 2), 11-ish.  ''Cun i huv my fuud please?''

His favourite sentence was 'can I have my food please?'.  Yoni had was always scheming for extra food and trying to get into the kitchen...cheeky monkey!

Angelica (12), Maria Dos (Maria #2, 15), Candy (11). 

We will never forget Angelica (An-hel-ica) and her distinctive and peircing rendition of ''A-Comiiiiir''.   'Acomer' means 'its time to eat' and Angelica would manage to inform the entire house from the one spot with her huge bellow!

Juanito (12), Jimmy and Angel, showing off their surfing photos on the side of one of the orphanage 'buses'.

This was one of the 2 vans that would fit about 30 kids in on the way to the beach on Sundays.  Usually there would be about 2 or 3 kids to a seat!  This is quite common in Mexico, where only the driver is required to wear a seatbelt.  And no joke, in the space between the drivers seat and the front passenger seat there was a plastic chair (completely unsecured of course).  But when resources are at a premium you can't waste the potential extra seating space. We both had the privilege on sitting in the chair 'especial' a few times (-:  Ahh, good times.

Alejendro (9) and Junior.

Alejandro's classic 'spanglish' lines were ''he pooonch'' (transaltion: 'he - that is, another kid - puched someone) and ''cun i hep wit da pun o agua?'' (Translation: 'can I help with the pan (bread) or water´-- see our blog on The food at Mission Mexico - a sneak peak 'en la cocina' for context on 'the pan'!).  All the kids called any kind of beverage 'agua', whether it was juice, milk or water.  Sometimes one of the kids were rostered to serve the lunch of the volunteers (and they mostly all loved any excuse to to go into the kitchen - usually they would scheme as to how to get extra food while in there though - so this was a sought after job!).  So if they asked what drink you wanted, you had to make sure you said 'agua purificada', otherwise you could end up with one of their high-protein rice, soy or maize based drinks (horchata or taxcalate), but ''¡No me gusta!'' (I don't like it!).  These drinks are so popular in Mexico and you can buy them in every comedor (restaurant).

Da da daaaa...the infamous Taxcalate drink prepared (in the bucket) and the powder (resting above).  Mmmm, brown maize-y goodness....No me gusta!

Tascalate and comida (lunch!) ready to be served for the pequeño kids

Candy, Steve and Ally

Ricardo, 13-ish. ''You Chee-na?'' Like many of the kids, Ricardo had a facination with Asian people.  He asked a Chinese gentleman whilst we were out one day what nationality he was.  But rather than using that polite wording, he bellowed out ''you Chee-na?''.  To which the gentleman replied back in Spanish, ''Have some respect''!  He learnt a lesson that day.  See additional comments about Ricardo below.

Juanito 12 ish

Juanito and Ricardo were initially NOT a fan of Steve's.  He took  them on as a challenge to have these two on his side.  As you can see by the above two photos he was successful.  Juanito was the toughest of the kids at the orphanage, he had run away about 6 times and definately knew how to fight.   If you had him on your side things seemed easier.  Both boys would give Steve big hugs and became quite free in their discussions with him.  Juanito led two others on a run away excursion a few days before Christmas, it was the prayer of Pam's and all of us that they would return for Christmas... and they did.  They are such special boys.

Steve, Luz and Petrina.

Luz (pronounced 'loose') means 'light' in Spanish; but her full name is even more pretty - its actually Luzerindera.  Reminds Petrina of 'Cinderella'!  She is one of the most 'huggy' kids we've ever met (she usually came up for an average of about 10 hugs a day from Petrina!)...She's also very cluey.  She made us a handmade card when we finished up at at Mission Mex (MM).  Awww.

Luz also granted Petrina the ultimate complement on one of the last days of our time at MM...One of the children was speaking to her in English when Luz interjected in Spanish.  The other child said, speak English, ''she no knows Spanish'' to which Luz replied, ''¡No! Ella habla Espanol ahora'' (no, she does speak Spanish now)!  It was so sweet(-:  

The problem with these kind of complements though, is that you get lulled into a false sense of security that your Spanish is actually improving!  Then the next moment something happens that totally shatters your confidence, like you make a mistke with some really basic word and the kids think its hilarious.  Petrina's personal favourite blooper was when she mistakenly said ''¿Necesitan pastel de dientes?'' (do you kids need a cake made of teeth) instead of ''¿Necesitan pasta de dientes?'' (do you need toothpaste?).  

Meche, 11.  ''Si, pero....''

Meche (short for Mercedes) could also be called 'Luz's partner in crime'.  Equally street smart and cunning!  Her usual line was ''Si, pero....'' (Yes, BUT....)!

The two other 'frases de pequeeños' (phrases of the pequeños) that we will remember the most are ''one serviette,  please'' and ''one cup please'' (rather than 'a cup ' and 'a serviette'!  They were trying so hard at English!).  Due to past bad behaviour with rolls toilet paper (you can imagine the fun that would have been had between 60 kids playing with rolls of it!), the kids now had to use serviettes, and had to get them from the volunteers who were the only ones with a key to the locked serviette drawer.  I swear getting serviettes was all I did some days!  Also, they had to ask the volunteers for cups from the locked kitchen, which we had to retrieve after they'd finished.  This was because, along with the socks, and 'chanclas' (thongs), their was definately a black hole for cups at MM!

Los niños de Misión México Albergue (the kids of Mission Mexico orphanage) - Part 1: The Chiquitos

In the next few blogs we'll introduce you to some of the 50 plus kids at Mission Mexico Albergue.  And our favourite sayings and anecdotes from each one over the last 2 and a half months...  But first of all, we should explain that the kids at Mission Mexico are divided into 4 main age-groups, with staggered dinner and bed times accordingly:  Chiquitos 4 - 8 years, Pequeños 8 - 12 years, Medianas 13-15 years and Grandes 16-plus.  This blog is about the chiquitos.

Kique, 4 years.... 'Erin said ''mochicha'', he he he'. 

Kique, short for Enrique, had a sharp memory for when one of the volunteers mispronounced 'mochila' (school bag) one day, and proceeded to remind her and all the other volunteers about it every day thereafter for at least a month.  Note the home-made swing, which was simply a bit of rope, with a cardboard seat!  Happily, Kique and his older brother Antonio are about to be adopted by a mexican couple from Puerto Escondido, so they will get to spend their growing years surfing Mexican pipeline - lucky boys.

From bottom left, clockwise, Kique (4), Jimmy (6), Junior (4), Sammy (7), Albi (6), Alli (7), Enetilla (7), or otherwise collectively known as 'los chiquitos' ('chick-key-toes'), saying the pre-dinner 'oracion' (prayer / grace).

The prayer or grace at the start of the meal time for the chiquitos and pequeños was always really cute, and their was often a fight over who would say it.  Sometimes they got really creative with what they would pray for, e.g. please bless such and such (inevitably singling out one of their mates - and no one else!).  Of course, there was always the usual suspects mentioned at the start of the prayer which I think I could nearly say word for word in Spanish...it would usually go something like this...''Padre, gracias para las comida, los voluntarios, mama y papa, Doña Marie, Zafi y Christy (Lord, thank you for the food, the volunteers, mum and dad, Marie, Zafi and Christy (the paid workers)).  They would also inevitably add in about helping 'los niños pobres y los niños de calle en Tapachula' (the poor children and the street children in Tapachula).  Very cute.  One night Jimmy even thanked god for Aleesha (one of the other volunteers) 'por que ella tienes bonita ojos' (because she has nice eyes)!

Alejandra (7), Albi (5), Enetila (7) and Junior (4) all lined up before the chiquitos bed-time (waiting for their bed-time story).  Ally, Albi and Ene were so tiny they all shared a bed...so cute!

Petrina 'negotiating' bedtime with Jimmy one night. And she thought negotiating with her work stakeholders was tough!

Jimmy again!

Jimmy shows us his stuff....Don't be suprised if this little one is a professional athlete of some kind one day

Another gorgeous Jimmy portrait.  His catch-cry was 'Hey!' and 'Shoulder ride!'

Nearly every single sentence that came out of the mouth of Jimmy (7-ish), Junior's older brother, began with a frantic ''Hay, hay'', follwoed by ''give me xyz''.  Petrina and one of the other female volunteers were getting frustrated with the lack of manners, and we must have started saying ''My name is Petrina'' quite a lot, which the kids evidently picked up on.  Anyway, by the end of our stay, the kids were all correcting Jimmy when he made one of his frantic demands they would chirp in (totally seriously) ''Ella nombre es Petrina'' (her name is Petrina).  They were also asking in perfect English, ever so politely, ''may I please be excused'' when they had finished their dinner.  Awwww!

Our other favourite anecdote about Jimmy was that you could pretty much get him to do anything if you gave him a shoulder ride e.g. to the shower, to bed, to find a broom for his chore etc. etc.  Only problem was, you had to go around the whole house before he'd had enough.  The love of shoulder rides must be genetic, as his younger brother Junior shared his passion...

Junior having a heap of fun during a Steve shoulder ride, as usual

And again....You should all know this little one by now...Junior (4), the one who has stolen our hearts.  His catch-cries were ''Looking, Looking'', ''You touched the poo-poo!'' & ''I'm a street kid, give me food!''

Junior's way of getting your attention was to say ''Looking, looking''  or ''looky, looky'' (when what he meant was ''look, look'').

Junior (along with his same-aged amigo Kique) has a memorable game he likes to play with the volunteers when we walk them to kinder.  Whenever we see ´caca´ (poo poo) on the road, they say ´´¿tu tocar la caca?´´ or ´´¿Junior / Quikue tocar la caca?´´ (which means you / Junior / Kike touched the poo poo?) and then they reply ´¨!no, tu tocar la caca!´´ (no, you touched the poo poo) and then this goes on for like 5 minutes and amuses them immensely.  Then I ask them if ´´¿la caca es desde un gato o perro?´´ (the poo is from a cat or dog?) and they make up whatever answere they feel like at the time - usually 'un gato' for some reason(-:  Ahhh, good times.

In fact, these little walks to kinder are some of the funnest times of the day.  Junior and Kique treat the whole world as their playground - any wall, door, plant, step, piece of rubbish etc etc that lies in their path, well, it will get touched or banged or poked on the walk to school!  And anyone out the front or in the doorway of their house in eye-shot of these two little monkey gets a resounding ''¡Hola Señor / Señorita, beunos dias / tardes!'' (Hello man / lady, good morning / afternoon).  We quickly learnt that on the walk to school we must stop at the bridge over Hepatitus River (see previous blog for the explaination on that one!) and play 'what's in the river?'.  The answers are always the same - basura (trash), pescada (fish), arboles (trees / plants), agua (water), naranga (oranges - well their skins anyway), botella de leche (milk bottles) - but that didn't matter, it was an important pre-kinder ritual.  One day on the way home from kinder with Steve, Junior also confidently announced in an extremely loud voice - ''looking, looking, Señor Señorita'' (man lady) as we passed a transvestite on the street!

Junior's final memorable line was 'Tengo hambre, mi un niño de calle, necessito comida' (I'm hungry, I'm a street kid, I need food), which he would confidently spruke around the volunteers dinner table, just when we were eating...  Very funny and you were so tempted to give him extra food off your plate just for the cute factor!  Doubly funny was that when Junior got something to drink, he would always call it his 'coca cervesa' (coke beer).  We have no idea where he got that one from, but what a little character he was!

Junior again...how can you resist that face?

Steve and Junior (again)....Boy, are we going to miss this little fella when we leave here....Even if he did give Petrina head lice repeatedly(-:

Alejandra (Ally), AKA 'Princessa'...''I no like it'' was Ally's response to almost anything - requests to do her jobs, to eat her food, to go to bed, to brush her hair.....  you get the picture....

Petrina and Ally during chore time.  Yep, we finally got the kids to do some of their allocated jobs...it only took two and a half months!

Stay tuned for installments on the pequeños, medianas and grandes!

Adios a Tapachula

Hello family and friends

Well, as we alluded to in one of our early posts, we have reviewed our finishing date with the orphanage and are wrapping  up our time here in Tapachula early.  

We won't be sorry to see the back of this guy....The local 'basura' (trash) man - pay him 3 pesos and he'll take your rubbish and dump it in the river for you!

Even though we knew in our heads that this would be tough and emotionally draining work, nothing could prepare us for the challenge that we have experienced in the last 2 and a half months.  We are proud of the effort we have made here, staying this long is actually quite a marathon effort by volunteer standards (most of the orphanage volunteers stay about a month, and many many pull out early).   We feel at peace with our decision, given that if we stayed much longer, we would probably need another 6 months off work back home to recover!

The reality of the work we have done here is that it really is an emotional rollercoaster...some heavy, heavy stuff being dealt with by some very broken children.  While the highs were amazing, the lows are well, low...way way down there!  It was dirty, tiring, stressful and thankless work.  Nevertheless, we believe that God brought us to Mexico for 3 reasons - to bring us closer together, closer to Him and to refresh our souls.  We have definately achieved the first 2 so far - we've needed to rely on Him and each other a lot more than we ever have before, and in the process, He has shown us some good things about us, the world, and most importantly, about Him. So now all that remains for the rest of our time away is to refresh our tired bodies and minds!

So, what are our plans in the next few months before we return to Australia?  We will spend roughly the next 2 months travelling in Guatamala, Mexico and the States if all goes to plan - we are hoping this is where the relaxing and restoring of our souls comes in!  So you haven't heard the last of us yet as we will continue to blog about our travels.  We also plan to post some more about the kids of Mission Mexico that, even though we could've just killed them many a time, we will be super sad to leave behind.

Again on the trash theme, unlike the kids, dropping the rubbish at the local dump (where you have to PAY to dump it!) will not be something we'll miss!  Soemthing that has really stood out to Petrina so far on this trip are the benefits to public health of a government-provided rubbish collection service!

Lastly, we couldn't resist posting below some pics of what happened to be both our first and last meals in Tapachula - Quesadillas (kay-sa-di-yas) at the 'Quesadilla Rubita' - the favourite of locals in our area. 

Check out the size of the things, a bargain for les than $3 AUD!  The sides are salsa (tomato, onions and chilli in the red pot), chilli (green chilli paste - in the squeeze bottle) and onions (yellow pot).   All is prepared (incuding the rolling of the tortilla) and cooked fresh before your eyes.  Beuno!

 

Petrina's order was always Quesadilla con queso, flor de calabeza y champiñones (quesadilla with cheee, squash flowers - the yellow things -  and mushrooms) - veggo heaven!  And served with plenty of salsa of course (the tomato looking stuff on the left-hand side of the beast!)

They are made with cheese that is a speciality from the neighouring state Oaxaca, which is super-duper stretchy.  The red drink on the left is a sweet, homemade juice called Jamaica (pronouched 'ha-my-eca') which is made from a flower not unlike the hibiscus.

Hablaremos mas tarde (talk more soon),

Love Steve & Petrina.