Welp. It’s official. My heart has been stolen by a 10 year old boy.
Wilfredo is his name. Being amazingly stupendously awesome is his game.
I mean, first… with a name like Wilfredo, how can you not be awesome right? You can agree. It’s okay. The very first night we were here at the home I sat at his table for dinner and he was really quiet the entire time. I tried to chum it up with him and he just didn’t have it. When he talked, it was soft and with his head down… but by the end of the night he was chummin back and it’s safe to say it was the beginning of a beaaautiful friendship.
When we started our painting project, the other girls started outside and I was inside doing the birthday wall. Wilfredo’s chore for every day that I was painting inside was cleaning the room that I was in. The first day I had my music playing and out of the corner of my eye I saw him pretending to play the guitar with his broom. What’s a girl to do when this happens other than join in? That afternoon I think we played every instrument known to man with our brooms and paint brushes, and of course we sang. I think we could make a career out of it we were so good by the end of the day.
The next day it was back to painting and back to chores. I had my computer again and you guessed it, more jammin out. I wish I had a video of him, he is hilarious. On Friday we took the kids to the colosseum to play soccer and he didn’t play so I got to hang out with him all day. I think we laughed 90% of the time. He may or may not have been laughing at my spanish, but laughter is laughter nonetheless. He and his older brother, Beimar, reminded me of my own brothers because of their wrestling. It was so fun to watch and think about how funny it is that something like them wrestling made me feel so at home.
The next day we went to the river and he waited on me to leave and we walked the whole way together. It was an hour walk and eventually I was thinking okay something’s gotta spice this walk up. In Ecuador when we had to walk a long way downhill, a couple of the women told me to just roll down it. They didn’t think I would take them seriously but I did and it proved to be a fun time. I figured if it was fun doing it alone, it would for sure be fun with others. So I asked him and another boy that was walking with us if they wanted to roll down with me. They were hesitant but eventually said yes, and my thinking was correct… much more fun when others join in.
We finally made it to the river. For the most part the kids could touch the bottom but there did reach a point where they couldn’t, so Wilfredo got on my shoulders. I asked him and some of the others that were around if they knew how to play chicken. They didn’t, so I taught them and we played. He got on another girl’s shoulders and Beimar got on mine and we played for I don’t even know how long. Then we switched where it was girls vs boys and we fought to the death. Not really, but it got pretty intense.
We were at the river for a few hours before we headed back. I had given him my camera before we left so he waited on me and we walked back together. I’m tellin ya… this kid has jokes. We laughed so much of the way back and I taught him how to shoot videos on my camera so he took at least 30. On one of the first ones where I was showing him how, I asked him what he was doing and he said eating. I thought he said walking (they are kind of similar in spanish) so I asked him where to… he looked at me like ummmm you are really confused right now, and then it dawned on me that what I said didn’t make sense. He laughed at me and if he watched that video once, he watched it 1,000 times. He couldn’t get over the fact that I asked him where he was eating to. Then he showed everyone that was near us and laughed every time like it was the first time he saw it.
The sun went down on our walk back and we walked alone in silence for a while. I couldn’t help but think how we had gone from a missionary and an orphan, to friends, in a few short days.
