One More Month of Kids, Classes, and Adventures in Ecuador

I thought I’d be writing a lot this month in Quito. I guess I was mistaken. I’m basically working a part-time job at la Caleta these days. I work Monday afternoons from 2:30 till 5:30ish, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9 till the same time. It varies between being fun and being boring every day. The crew of volunteers is excessive when you think about how many kids are actually AT la Caleta now. Currently there are only two beds being taken up in the younger kids’ room, and one in the adolescents’ room. Jose Luis and Luis Antonio are the only kids left, and Jairo is staying in the big boys’ room. Jairo barely counts as a kid though. He’s been at la Caleta for a long time, and will be there until he can move out on his own. I guess you could almost say that he’s one of the “successes” that has come through the organization.

When I first came back from vacation, there were five other boys still at la Caleta, but four of them were transferred to a farm in Ambato where they can stay more permanently and where there’s more space for them. One kid left at some point since last Thursday. I don’t know where he went or why, but today I found out he’s not expected back any time soon. That’s something that’s very hard to see and deal with, working at la Caleta. The kids can only stay there for about three months before they are supposed to move on to another site. Sometimes they make exceptions, as in the case of Jairo, but for the most part, the kids cycle through pretty quickly. I wish that there was some way that they could provide a little more stability than that, but apparently that’s not an option. The four who went to Ambato are sorely missed by those of us still at la Caleta. Alex and Camillo, the older two of the boys that left, were both relatively well-behaved and wonderful kids. They were, for the most part, happy and cooperative and helped out around the Caleta a lot. The two younger ones, Hamilton and Javier, were actually pretty new to la Caleta. They had been picked up somewhere on the coast. Whoever brought them to the Caleta found them in a run-down shack on the coast with a drunk mother who was perfectly willing to give them up on the spot, no questions asked. Camillo was at la Caleta because his step-father wouldn’t let him live in the house. He stole some money from him once, so he made Camillo leave; the Caleta people picked him up off the streets. Many of the kids that come through la Caleta have seen their parents fight every night, drink themselves into oblivion, or take drugs that prevent them from caring for their kids. Some of the kids themselves come in addicted to drugs, and the Caleta really isn’t ready to handle that.

Sometimes all of the hardships these kids have seen, and our inability to give them a normal life, make me want to scream at the world. I want to berate the perpetrators of the crimes that have put these kids on the streets and stripped them of any chances for an easy life. I find it hard to think about my own life in comparison to theirs. How can all of the opportunities that I’ve had exist in a world where all of these children are pushed out? And there are more. The workers at la Caleta know the parks where kids sleep. We walked around the Caleta’s neighborhood last week, with someone pointing out every place that kids sleep, the corners where they work, the children of the vendors who actually have stands and don’t receive help from la Caleta because “their families have money, and the kids are only there so that people will pity them and buy more,” and the street where they can’t even get to the kids at night because it’s too dangerous and the kids that are there are almost all drug users. All of those children, and there are only 3 living in the 20 beds that the Caleta has.

The only thing that keeps me from going crazy trying to comprehend the size of the problem is that we ARE making a difference to those three kids. When Jose Luis came to la Caleta, it was almost impossible to make him hold still long enough to even figure out what grade he was in. He was an impossibly skinny little boy who was full of energy. He used to dance around the Caleta, singing (only choruses, the kids don’t know any songs in their entirety), and pestering everyone else. The first day I met him, he was sulking the whole time just because some of the girls were saying his name. I still have no idea why that upset him. Now, every morning, he gets up, eats, helps clean the Caleta with Luis Antonio, packs his backpack, and takes the city bus to school on his own. When he comes home, he actually likes sitting down and getting his homework done. Or at least standing relatively still next to a table. Sitting might still be asking a bit much. It helps me deal with the impossibility of providing the children of the world with the opportunities they deserve to know that, at least, I am able to help some of them, however few they may be.

One of the problems that makes my hours at la Caleta boring at times is that there are entirely too many volunteers working there now. Of course, the three K kids (myself, Chandler, and Emily) are leaving at the end of next week, and apparently the two German girls are also leaving, so that will cut down on the number by a long shot. But there will still be the Danish couple, the Australian girl, and the Ecuadorian guy. At times, we’ve had 8 volunteers at la Caleta at once, which is just too many for the number of kids that are there. I’ve spent a good amount of time organizing shelves (be the full of blankets or books), and making beds. Of course, I’ve also had a lot of free time to play baseball (no, let’s call it an approximation of baseball, since they don’t really understand the rules) and kick a soccer ball around with the kids.

There’s a guard at the gate to la Caleta 24/7. “The guard” is actually three different guys that trade off shifts. All of them love the kids, but one is more involved than the others, sometimes even playing soccer when his shift ends. The other day, he fixed a little orange bike that was sitting in a storage closet and the two younger boys have been riding it around since, squeaking like it’s never even heard the word “oil.” Of course, the kids don’t really distinguish between the guards that much and call all of them “Don Guardia” (basically: Mr. Guard). Not exactly surprising since they’ve started calling all of the volunteers “volun” or “volunta.” Particularly Luis Antonio. He doesn’t seem to understand that we have individual names. And everyone still calls me Clara, the name of one of the German girls. She and I have similarly cut and colored hair, are about the same height and weight, and are both gringas. It also doesn’t help that we started working the same week. The kids insist that we must be sisters, even though we come from different countries, and many of the adults at la Caleta still get our names mixed up.

I could probably talk for ages about la Caleta, and the people there, but I also want to talk a bit about Ecuador in general. You see, I’m coming home in a month.

It’s strange to think that this experience is finally drawing to a close. I’ve been in Ecuador for so long. In many ways, I’d become resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to be home for a long time. So long that I didn’t really think about the exact length of time. It was incomprehensible. Now, suddenly, I find myself close enough to the end that I actually can wrap my mind around it. It’s weird.

I’ve gotten so used to Ecuador. Things function differently here, and I’m comfortable with that, finally. My host sister is back from college in Brazil, after 5 years, and I find that I really like having her as a sister. It makes the family dynamic more fun, and I feel like I know my own place in the family a little better with someone else as an example. If Nani does it, I can too.

I know my way around the city pretty well now, which busses to take where and how to push just right to make sure I get on or off without anyone trying to snatch my bag. I find myself thinking of Ecuador as a place that’s always going to be there. If I want to go visit the jungle, I can do that, but I don’t have to go NOW because the jungle’s ALWAYS going to be there. Which is a sharp contrast to what my brain is trying to tell me now that I’m close to going home. NO! The jungle is NOT going to be a three hour bus ride away in a month. YOU HAVE TO GO SEE IT NOW! I guess I’ve finally settled in and realized that, yes, I’m LIVING here, not just visiting and studying for a time. I don’t feel like I’m wasting time if I spend an afternoon sitting on my bed reading. Sometimes in life, we need to take a break like that. Sure, I don’t do that when I’m visiting some amazing place, but I do when I’m at home. And Quito is home now.

 As I get closer and closer to my return, I find myself missing home both more and less. Now that it’s so close, I just want to be home. There’s not that much left, why not just rush through it and get home and see everyone that I miss? But then, some other part of me wants to make time SLOW DOWN so that I can experience everything that I still haven’t seen in Ecuador. Of course, there’s no way I could see everything in the country in 6 months, even if I DIDN’T have classes, but part of me wants to TRY.

And all these mixed-up feelings are exactly what I expected to feel, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

In a month, no matter what, it will be nice to go home.