Peace Jam In El Salvador Part Dos- July Group 2011!

Buenas noches everyone! This is the first official blog entry for the July portion of the PeaceJam international service trip with myself,Casey Reit, and Ashley Hargrove! So far we have been here a week and a half, and it feels like time is flying, even though a lot has happened so far.


I think I should start with our experience so far at Hogar Padre Vito Guarato. One of our primary service goals has been to improve and expand upon the efforts of the girls who were here in May in building a sensory garden for the residents, that can be used as part of the physical therapy program there. Reading about the success the first group had, I knew that we had big shoes to fill during our time at Hogar. When I first saw the garden, I thought the idea was fantastic and creative, especially the telephone poles, but the area needed some work(of course this is not to discount the hard work put in from May! Time just had unforseen effects on the garden). The path of colored stones had gotten muddy because the ground wasn't level enough to handle the many bouts of rainfall that accompany this season in El Salvador. One of the textured stones from the cross had cracked, and the colors had dulled somewhat in the sun, and the level with the ground was again an issue. Not to mention that weeds had invaded big time, in all of the central spaces in the garden! It was mainly because of the all those pesky weeds that we basically had to start from the ground up, taking out all of the stones and existing plants and pulling the weeds. It took a full day for that to get done.

Then we rearranged and replanted some of the plants near the telephone poles and created a border around it with the rocks that the others had already painted, and filled it with other rocks. It looks great and so far it has held up after a few days of on and off rain.

This past weekend (July 9th-10th) Ashley, Jaime, Don Jaime and I went to a rock beach (will add name later) to collect a few more bags filled with rocks to fill the walkway and border the other plants. What was neat (besides the fact that the beaches are beautiful here! And the waves are enormous! ) was that later on in the week we had an activity day with the kids so they could paint the rocks too, so it was a collaborative process. (See below!)

They loved this activity! One of the best ongoing learning experiences is just interacting with the Hogar residents themselves. It certainly was overwhelming on my first day, because I didn't have any experience working with kids or adults with special needs, and the range of ages and disabilities is vast (infants to 52 year old adults). To add to that adjustment, my Spanish is sub-par, and even with my handy Lonely Planet Spanish phrasebook, I struggled to understand what some of the people I interacted with were saying. I was nervous, excited, scared, unsure of myself, and resisting my gut reaction to feel sorry for some of them, particularly those that were unable to have what I considered to be "normal" interactions with others (some physical reaction to physical communication via language and/or touching) and instead were in their own worlds,which for some were filled with silent fights with themselves and screams. I'm not going to sugar-coat this; at times, even now occasionally (although much less so than the first day), it can be frustrating when you are trying your best to interact with someone and they look the other way, or repeat the same thing over and over. Some kids have a good hour followed by a bad one. I really admire the staff at Hogar, both nuns and caretakers, who are here everyday.They have a limitless amount compassion and patience, no matter what the circumstances are for a particular day.

For every difficult moment, however, there many more postive moments to outweigh them. I am so touched when a girl comes up to me and gives me a hug and a smile for no other reason than to express how happy she is that I can be there for her. The other day I was in the cafeteria during playtime and there was a young girl in a wheelchair who I made laugh for ten minutes just by using finger puppets and playing beek-a-boo. It didn't take me long to realize how much I had underestimated the many ways in which love and understanding could radiate from the residents here. People out in the "real world" put up walls, make excuses and empty promises or get lost in communication. At Hogar emotions can exist in their purest forms, often without even needing words to channel them, and it is contagious. Whenever I see Giovanny and Edwin outside of their classrooms and they beam at me and wave, the postive energy from the gesture stays with me for long afterwards. Imagine if everyone were like them, sublimely happy having the company of a new friend, without judgment or hesitation. I went into this thinking that just "playing with the residents" was not the kind of change that mattered most. Now I think that my time both one on one and in groups with those here at Hogar is the most valuable aspect of the experience; it puts service into perspective, brightens the days of everyone involved, strengthens my resolve to put my all into the garden, and teaches me how to become a better volunteer.