A Life In A Day Of...

6:15 All of us boys are abruptly awakened by the glow of the inconsistent, white fluorescent light. Or is it Ramon, shaking our feet violently and repeatedly saying, ¨arriba!¨?

6:30 Worship. Typically it initiates with a song, everyone seems a little drowsy, it’s a quieter song. Then Paty, the Mom, teaches. Frequently it begins with mom things like, ¨why are your eyes closed while I am speaking¨ or ¨why are crumbs on the floor when you just swept¨ and rapidly transforms into teaching, a daybreak devotional. Then a prayer and another song. But this song is the big one, finally faces are awake. It is one of my favorite times of the day.

7:00 Breakfast: Bread, coffee and babble.

7:35 I clean breakfast table number 4 -the guy’s table. This encompasses the responsibilities of bringing all dishes to the kitchen, folding the tablecloths, washing the tables and stacking chairs. My other daily chore is to clean the boy’s laundry room.

8:30 This time always looks a little different each day. Sometimes I play with the younger girls, which usually includes a second breakfast. They set the table beautifully, right next to a couple of trees and the rock wall that runs around the property. The table is a gigantic stump cut from a bulky Samu'u Tree. We eat bread, well at least that´s what they identify it as, but really it´s just dark red sand. And they serve me black coffee from a rock. Or I build kites. Or I play soccer. Or read and memorize verbs with their conjugations.

11:00 Leave for my Spanish class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The bus ride is about one and a half hours long.

12:30 Class starts. Practice different conjugations of verbs, always lots of verb exercises. Pronunciation. Writing in past tense and just speaking in general. I am now learning how to say something in the past that was done repetitively but is currently completed. In English, for example, we would say, ¨I used to run, ¨ in Spanish you just conjugate the verb ¨to run¨ a certain way. Strange.

1:00 Lunch on days I don´t have class. Usually pasta or rice with some type of beef. The food is delicious. Something that separates lunch from other meals is that there is always juice for lunch. I have fallen for mango juice.

1:45 Clean lunch table 4.

2:00 Read and siesta.

3:00 My showering time. By this time the outside, daily chores have usually been done. I have figured out if I take my showers at this certain window of time I have the best chance of staying clean for the most consecutive minutes in the day. Regularly I am dirty with red dust or child’s snot within minutes of climbing out.

3:30 A time of helping with dinner or going on a walk. Sometimes laundry, by hand or machine. Study. Attempt to learn Spanish songs or spend time searching for English songs on the radio, in which I sometimes find, except it always seems to be Bob Marley´s Jammin´or Lionel Richie´s Brick House. Always.

6:00 Merienda, or mid-afternoon snack in English. Usually some sort of starch and coffee.

6:30 Until dinner time, it´s cartoon time for the younger kids. Typically I catch bits and pieces of the action in Power Puff Girls! If I am not learning of the adventures of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, I could be found with the older kids working on coursework. Or I might be in the back with the boys, playing Monopoly, which I learned is not played by the same rules described on the back of the box. Of course. The first time I played hotels had gone up before my first trip around the board. The pace of the game is incredible. If you get the chance to play with them, good luck, I never last long.

7:15 Younger children´s dinner, ages 2-12. Frenzied and hysterical.

8:00 Good night prayers for the young ones.

9:00 Dinner. The food is frequently rice or beans with beef; sometimes eggs. I nearly always crave seconds.

9:45 Head out to my bunk bed and try to read a little before the lights get turned off. I am exhausted. Sleep is quick to follow.