ole le chimichanga.

I don’t speak much Spanish.  I took classes in high school and college and some of the vocab has come back, but trying to put together a sentence?  Forget it.

 

I’ve been working with some kids in an orphanage this past week.  Kids who have been abandoned by their parents, kids who don’t know what it means to own anything, kids who have forgotten what ‘I love you‘ sounds like. 

 

But I want them to remember.  So I try to tell them.  But half the time I end up saying, ‘you love me’ or ‘I love me‘ or even ‘you love you.’  Which doesn’t make any sense.

 

Since I don’t speak much Spanish and they don’t speak any English, we meet in the middle with a song called, ‘Ole Le’ (Oh lay lay).  I’m not really sure what language it is or if we’re actually singing words at all…but that’s what makes it work.  We start out real quiet, end up really loud and do a lot of silly dancing in between.

 

And they LOVE it.  Now every time I walk into the orphanage 15 kids look at me and yell, ‘Ole le!’  We take turns leading and before I know it ‘Ole le tiki tanga‘ has turned into ‘Way way chimichanga‘ and two hours has gone by.  My throat is hoarse, my shoulders are sore (apparently it’s more fun to do on my shoulders), and sweat and sunscreen are combining forces to drip into my eyes and blind me.

 

But as I say adios (it’s hard to mess that one up) I realize that maybe I didn’t mess up ‘I love you’ after all.