Rompa Cabeza

The volunteers and I were much smarter today when it came to picking out activities for the kids. We found a 300 piece Tinkerbell puzzle which was filled with lots of colors and designs. When we arrived, I started out by playing karate with Juan Carlos, a boy I see most days who is probably about eight. He would karate chop me and I would slowly fall to my knees. "Yo gano!" He would shout, and a victory dance would follow. He then would pull me to my feet and we would play all over again.

Eventually, we broughtg out the puzzle and everyone was in awe. A puzzle with small pieces and blasts of color, how amazing. Some smaller kids would pick up a bunch of pieces and give them to us, pretending like they were food. "Yum yum," we would say. There was this one little girl, maybe six or seven, who got very into the puzzle. She would get very upset when the kids would play with the pieces because she was extremely determined to finish. We worked hard on the puzzle, and didn't allow any distractions. Some of the smaller girls lost interest. But this girl and I were going to finish. I used my limited spanish to talk to her about the puzzle. "Uno pieza," I would point to an empty spot, "donde?" "No say!" She would reply. After two hours, we completed the puzzle, only to discover it had nine pieces missing. but we didn't care. It was a tough puzzle and we finished it.

When we finally stepped out of our puzzle world, we looked up only to discover that everyone had gone outside. We were too engaged to care so we headed out too. I helped some younger girls walk across some tires that were sticking out of the ground. Every time they finished, they would go back to the beginning. I was helping Mazy, the cutest little girl I've ever seen. One girl fell off the tires and came to me for support. I picked her up and held her for a while, telling her it was okay. I was also lucky enough to be the victim of keep away with my bracelets and my glasses. All the kids had a great time running away from me, giggling and passing my things back and forth. I played along until I got annoyed. "No mas!" They gave me my things back and we started to play tag.

After a little while, it was time for us to leave. We said good bye to everyone and headed onto the bus. I headed for the Aristan Market, while the rest of my roommates headed home. I met Kenny and helped him work again, and I chatted with other vendors at the market. One boy, Bryan, is going to take English lessons at Maximo so he can travel to America. I'm very excited to see how that goes.

It turned into a very relaxing night with the roommates. We had a nice dinner, chatted, and then stayed in and had a calm evening. Tranquila, indeed.