Cienfuegos is a part of Santiago, la Republica Dominicana.
When we were told about it we were told that we would be working with a children’s center there and that the town was a part of a trash dump. We were told that the children might be a little more difficult to work with than the children back in the town we were staying in, Lajas, and that it would have something to do with the lack of structure they had in their lives, the work that they would have to do in the dump to find things to sell and the psychological things those things could entail. In reality I had this idea of what it was going to be like there and while I was excited to spend time with the children I was also terrified of what it was going to look like.
I read the blogs of other racers and their experiences with children that lived in dump towns, or areas, and while I knew that there was a possibility that I would work with them during my time on the Race, I was scared of what it might feel like to see them in real life. Even with pictures there is still a layer of separation between their eyes and mine.
The reality of Cienfuegos was different. The town looked different than the other places in Santiago that I had been, less built up, but there were no mountains of trash with little children and their parents digging through it. Instead there were dirt roads and small houses that were being build up—which apparently were near the mountain of trash. Our host told us that in the last few years a lot of growth had been happening within Cienfuegos and that more and more houses were being constructed.
Our ministry in Cienfuegos was to teach three English classes and to take charge of the game room. The children’s center was a school. There were three different levels and the days were split. Some children came in the morning for school and some came in the afternoon.
The first day that we went Lauren and I were serving in the game room. I was excited because I love games, what I didn’t realize was that I didn’t know how to explain games in Spanish. But as the first group of little children came charging into the garage that we were playing games in that couldn’t matter. Over the course of that day we played tons of games of Luz Rojo Luz Verde, Pato Pato, Simon Dice and an adapted version of Squirrels in a Tree (or Pajaros en Los Arboles because what even is “squirrel” in Spanish???). We held hands, smiled and laughed because sometimes language just wasn’t the vehicle of communication that it was supposed to be and those things held so much more meaning. A smile could mean, “You’re valuable” or “You’re loved” and a hand held could mean, “I’m here” and “It’s okay”.
It was hard to watch all those children that we had spent all day loving and laughing with walk home alone, leaving the school at the end of the day, some even as young as four.
The second time that we went to the children’s center I was placed in the three and four year olds group. I remember being terrified because while I love children teaching them terrifies me. The morning class was so hard because the children didn’t want to learn their colors in English and they certainly didn’t care about the animals. They wanted, instead, to bite one another or stab each other with their pencils—all things that maybe little children in America want to do to but at least there I knew their language so I could speak with them.
Instead I felt like there was a tornado going on each time I turned my back and I felt so badly for the woman that worked with them daily because even she couldn’t keep them calm.
After the morning session I was so tired and all I could think of was how I could never have children and how I didn’t even think that I could make it through the next class because according to another team the group during the second half of the day was more difficult than the first. As children came pouring into the center, though, I remember seeing all the same faces from the day before and smiling and waving to them hoping that today would be different. As they lined up for prayer I remember giving up on trying to stop a little girl from biting the girl in front of her on the shoulder and just praying that God would do something. I told Him that I couldn’t do it, that I loved them, but that He was going to have to make them want to learn, make them want to sit at their table and give Olivia and I the words to teach them and show them His love.
That class went so smoothly and the children were so calm and gentle with one another that all I wanted to do was cry on the way home.
God had done something in them and most likely something in me too.
