Now that my time volunteering for the Farm of the Child has come to
close, I want to write one last blog post, just for old times sake. As the past
three years have gone by, my posts have become more and more infrequent, so I
thought leaving a good eight months between the last one and this one would be
a fitting way to close it out.
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| One of my favorite students. |
My final day at the Farm was December 3rd, and the weeks
leading up to it were fairly emotional. After almost three years, one can
become quite accustomed to a certain place and group of people. I’ve spent many
beautiful days walking underneath tall trees and seeing the sun breaking over
the mountains, with parrots squawking overhead and a cool ocean breeze blowing
across my face. I’ve been fortunate to travel a lot during college and the years
after, but I’ve never been to a more beautiful place than the humble rural
countryside of the northern coast of Honduras. I’ve also met some of the most
beautiful and welcoming people there. Many of the Honduran men and women I
worked with and got to know inspired me and taught me many things about life I
never would have expected to learn. Just under forty children allowed me to
enter their lives and walk with them for a short while, and though myself and
our organization are far from perfect and couldn’t always provide them with the
love and care they deserved, many of them formed a deep and beautiful relationship
with me, and also taught many lessons I hope to never forget. They offered me
the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen, the most resilient and wild laughs,
the most ridiculous senses of humor, and an incredible place to call home. They
also gifted me some incredibly frustrating moments in which I wanted to give
them a hard smack upside the head, but it turns out that’s frowned upon in
children’s home, so from that I guess I reluctantly learned patience and
restraint. So on my last night at the Farm, after having visited all of the
children and adults, saying our last goodbyes, I fell asleep with full heart. Full
of gratitude for the love I’ve encountered and the lessons I’ve learned, but
also full of a heaviness knowing this chapter of my life was over. Unfortunately
this full-hearted sleep only lasted an hour or two, because I woke up at 4am to
get a ride to the bus stop, beginning a two week journey through other Central
American countries that would be my, and the other four volunteers leaving with
me, last hoorah before heading home.
Those of us who left this December had been planning this trip for
months, and once the initial shock of leaving the Farm began to wear off, it
turned out to be a great way to end our time in Central America. Our first stop
was Nicaragua, where we met up with two former volunteer psychologists whom we
had previously worked with in the Farm. We left Nicaragua’s capital city of
Managua, and traveled to a smaller town named Jinotega, situated in the
mountainous coffee growing region of the country. In this town we encountered a
very interesting Nicaraguan tradition called La Griteria, or The Shouting, in English. The name sounded strange,
and soon enough we found out its meaning. The Catholic feast day of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary falls on December 8th, and is a highly
celebrated holiday in Nicaragua, but the night of the 7th is when
the infamous Griteria occurs. Our
Nicaraguan friend with whom we were traveling explained it to us, but we didn’t
fully understand the explanation until we were able to experience it for
ourselves. After evening mass in the main Cathedral, everyone dispersed and
began roaming the streets looking for a house or business that had erected a
shrine to Mary. When you saw a crowd of people all pushing and shouting (hence
the name) to get inside a certain location, you knew you’d encountered a good
one. You arrived to the house and began pushing and shoving until you were able
to squeeze your way in the front door. Then you stood there for ten or fifteen
minutes with the other fifty people who’d pushed their way in, and half
heartedly sang songs about Mary. There were normally one or two middle-aged
women belting them out, and the rest of the crowd mooching off of their
enthusiasm. After patiently waiting and pretending you were interested in
singing, you were rewarded with a small amount of candy, an orange, or a small
stalk of sugar cane. Upon receiving the prize for your heartfelt songs of
adoration, you left the house to look for another, repeating the process. At
the end of the night, after hours of pushing and shoving and singing with the
other faithful Catholics of the town, you happily returned home with a sack
full of candy and oranges and maybe a few small bags of chips. To me, it didn’t
feel much like a religious experience, but I did escape without any bruises or
broken bones, and fully understood why they called it La Griteria.
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| Jinotega, Nicaragua |
From Nicaragua we bused to San Salvador. None of us had ever been there
before, and didn’t have particularly high expectations for the huge bustling
city, but we turned out to be pleasantly surprised. After leaving the hostel
our first day in town, we began navigating the ever complicated, but very
exciting, urban bus system. We paid twenty cents to ride the bus route 52 for a
while, then hopped off at the corner and paid another twenty cents to ride the 42B.
I can’t remember the details precisely, but I believe we then changed to the
103A, got off and walked a few blocks, crossed the street, got on the 33C microbus, very different from
the 33C full sized bus, rode it to the intersection with route 13, then took
that north to our destination. One way or another, with lots of help from the
locals, and a many twenty cent bus fares, we navigated out way to the
University of Central America. Here we visited the site of the murder of six
Jesuit priests and two women, which took place during the Salvadorian Civil
War. We read accounts of each of their lives, their work with the poor and
their calls for justice, during a time when speaking out against those in
power, the government and the military, was a risky business. Ultimately, on
November 16, 1989, they opened their doors to a US-trained, Salvadorian
counter-insurgency force, which entered their home and murdered them in. They
died for speaking out against injustice, standing up for the poor, and thus, in
the eyes of the military, identifying themselves with subversive movements.
Later on we visited the home of Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador during
the same time period, who was known for speaking out against the ongoing
violence and the oppression of the poor. He too was assassinated, in 1980,
while celebrating the mass. During his funeral in the cathedral of San
Salvador, the military set of bombs and fired shots into the crowd of the tens
of thousands who attended. It was very rattling to know that these types of
crimes against humanity were going on during our lifetimes, and especially that
the US Government was in many ways involved. Those who were in power, fought to
maintain it at all costs, regardless of how many innocent lives it required. Visiting
these sites were very sacred moments for all of us. Sobering to know of the
atrocities, yet for me it was also inspiring, learning of the six Jesuit
priests, two women, and Archbishop Romero, whom tirelessly fought for the
rights of the poor and the sanctity of life. We too had been living with and
working with the poor of Central America, and learning about the stories of
these martyrs inspired me to continue to fight for the poor, and for justice,
in whatever way that may manifest itself in the future.
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| The chapel in the Farm of the Child, Guatemala |
Leaving El Salvador, we headed to our final stop: Guatemala. For all of
us the journey had begun there, spending several weeks in 2012 studying Spanish
before heading on to Honduras. And for many of us the journey was going to end
there as well. We went because we wanted to see the sight of an orphanage
founded in northern Guatemala, by the same couple that founded our orphanage in
Honduras. The original Guatemalan orphanage was begun in the 1980s, and after
building it and running it for many years, the couple moved to Honduras to
begin another, which would become the Farm of the Child as we know it today.
Unfortunately the original Farm of the Child in Guatemala didn’t last long
after the founders left, the children were relocated to other homes, and now
the site is only ruins. While planning this trip, we talked to the founder, and
she told us that no one had visited the site in over ten years, and that there
was probably very little remaining. Many more phone calls later we got in touch
with a man who said he would take us to the original site and show us around.
So from Guatemala City, we got on a night bus, and more or less 15 hours later,
arrived in El Naranjo, Guatemala, a city well known for… absolutely nothing. It
is close to the Mexican border, so it is a good stop off point for all
immigrants heading north, but other than that all the town has is a big river
and a lot of cattle. In fact it didn’t even have electricity until it was just
recently installed this past November. Our soon to be friend, Victor, a former
teacher at the orphanage’s school, met us when we arrived, and took us to the
hotel where we would stay. Immediately he began telling us one story after
another of the old Farm, one of his favorites being about Pablo, the resident
howler monkey who lived in the trees and was constantly harassing the kids. If
one of the children attending the school wasn’t playing close attention, he
would steal their backpack and carry it up the tree to inspect it for anything
he was interested in. He kept what he wanted, and threw the rest back down. He
would even steal the babies’ bottles of milk, carry them up the tree, then upon
drinking the milk, hurl the empty bottle to the ground. For years it seemed
like the children had a love-hate relationship with Pablo, until one day, the
German man who directing the orphanage at that time, sent all the kids into
town to buy some ice cream. While they were gone, he got out his trusty rifle
and ended the Pablo’s mischief once and for all. When the kids began to ask
where Pablo went, he replied that he must be off in the forest somewhere
playing with his friends. Finally Victor finished with his favorite story of
all. The story of how he married one of the English volunteers, who is still
his wife today and with whom he has a fifteen year old son. Obviously Victor
could never forget the Farm. The next day he put us on a boat, and took us on
the short trip down the river to the site of the Guatemalan Farm of the Child.
The only buildings really left standing were the chapel and a few chicken
coops, but the concrete foundations were all still there, and we were able to
vividly imagine the stories Victor explained. Kids making loops on rollerblades
in the one room schoolhouse, the female caretaker who they always tried to keep
from going to town because she frequently ended up pregnant afterwards, and
Vicente, the founder, taking off in his Cessna on the dirt runway, bringing
someone to the nearest hospital hours away. Getting to know the original Farm
of the Child, and hearing Victor’s endless stories, was a dream for us, and a
very fitting way to end our journey.
My three years at the Farm of the Child in Honduras was one of the most
beautiful experiences of my life. It involved some of the lowest lows, and some
of the highest highs, and because of that it urged me to learn and grow in ways
I never would have imagined. I encountered a dark side of humanity I’d never
known much of before, in the suffering of the children and the struggles they
deal with daily through no fault of their own. But I also encountered a force
and a resilience I’d seldom seen before, in the way they respond to their
demons, and the way the volunteers and employees of the Farm fight their
battles with them. And finally I found a real beauty in the landscape and
lifestyle of rural Central America, and in the unlikely relationships formed
between abandoned children, Honduran adults, and American idealistic volunteers.
Those three years were far from easy, but for that I’m very grateful, because
it allowed me to learn what I have, and grow into the person I’ve become. I’m
grateful for the opportunity to be there, to God, and to each and every one of
the people I’ve had the pleasure to meet over the past three years. And I pray
that the things I’ve learned and the ways I’ve grown continue on with me as I
move forward with life.
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| Group of Farm boys along with neighbor boys after a 3-1 The fear-inspiring, mustache-wearing Farm male volunteers |
And for all of you who’ve lost countless hours of your life reading
these far-too-lengthy blog posts, thanks I guess. I enjoyed writing them, so I
hope ya'll enjoyed reading them.
