ants and chiggers and mosquitoes...oh my!!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a creature burrow into my skin until this week. Chiggers are little bug parasites that burrow and nest all up in your skin. They itch like a mofo and its especially not fun when its callused in along with a splinter on the side of your foot. Digging it out was quite a sight to see! Im a bit sad I didn’t take a picture, but hopefully It’ll happen again! Fingers crossed! (fail!!!)

I climbed under my mosquito net about 5 minutes ago, if I don’t see ants all over, I consider it quite a success. I usually smile, giggle a bit, and search under my pillow, journal and random books I have enclosed with me just incase there are some hiding. I would say out of the past 48 days, I have not seen ants one of those days. It happens to be tonight, which is what put me in the mood to write. GO TEAM!

My friend Kira came to visit last week!! It was crazy(in a good way) to have someone from “home” be in a place that I now call home. I realized a lot of the things I have in my everyday life here are not “normal” in an American sense.
For example, even though I am a fat kid, I eat for nutrition not for pleasure. I can honestly say I use about 5 gallons of water a day(including bathing, cooking, toileting, drinking) Im pretty sure one flush of the toilet back home is 2-3 gallons??) I buy things out of need,I don’t itch mosquito bites, I don’t indulge often(except in a fan when the power is on) and I have stopped looking at this way as “sacrifice” but more so how most of the people in this world live, and who really needs more?!!

My 4o minute walk to work has become a time when I contemplate this question most.
When I get to school, and 9+ kids bombard me with hugs and smiles its easy to anwer this. I don’t need more …..this is plenty for me, and for this life.

I have been teaching the sign class. I am still not fluent, but I guess it’s the peace corps experience to teach in an unfamiliar culture and in a language you don’t know either. CHECK
Most days it’s the kids and I learning signs together and even though I haven’t gotten to a place where I inspire much logical thinking, I still am there. And to be honest, that’s what most of these kids need. Someone to be there, to care for them, someone they can trust.
I struggle with a lot of students backgrounds. People with disabilities in this culture are not accepted. The lack of education plays a big role in this. There fore most of the children with disabilities are abused, physically, emotionally, sexually: and being there for them, to listen to their stories is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. There is a student that came here without a name, last term I was taking birthdays and I discovered this. He came to the school from social services. He has countless scars on this face and body, his nails have been burned and ripped off so many times most of them don’t grow and he is still extremely shy around new people. He came without a name, a birthday or an age. He has a name now, and a safe place to live, and I asked him to pick his own birthday.(which he did with a smile as he pointed to his bestfriend and picked it to be the same day as his) There are more stories like this, and
Lets just say this week has been especially tough, mostly because I don’t know what to do. It has a lot to do with the way things are in place here,or rather not in place.
If I knew a student was being raped back home, I would know the steps I needed to take to interfere with that situation, atleast get her in a place that was safe. Here I don’t have a clue. And neither does anyone.
I called neighborhood police…but its not the same...and its hard tosleep knowing that. Its even harder to make that 40 minute walk without knowing what my lie ahead.

Man, I didn’t mean for this to sound so negative..maybe not negative but just not maybe so happy?! Life isn’t always so happy I guess, but its our choice to decide the attitude to which we move toward things, and really what’s even more important than that, is to keep moving and not let these things stop us.

Peace, Love and Just keep swimming!!