A day in the life of...

So, I’m writing this blog Tuesday night I’m slowly making my way through my extensive rap collection (If you’re not sure, that was slight sarcasm). I just finished It’s Tricky by Run DMC and now 2Pac’s talking about Changes. You just get in those moods sometimes. Yeah…

My workdays have been good. These two weeks I go from school to school spreading the news about the program Sin Excusas by Decisiones (the place I work). In general terms it’s a program to teach teachers, its ultimate goal being to improve the character of kids, steering them away from alcohol, drugs and premarital sex, among other things. Let me break down my by taking you through how today (a typical day) went. Note: times are estimates.

6:54 a.m. I walk the two seemingly insurmountable blocks to work and press the doorbell. I wait a minute or two. Surprising cuz Sergio (secretary/anything else you need) is normally there to greet me. No Sergio today. Laura says hi (but in Spanish. don’t worry, I’ll translate when I can).

7:14 a.m. We prepare the fliers and invitations for the principals of all the different schools. Gabriel (fellow delivery, I won’t say boy, he’s very much a man, a former security guard/former/current (not sure which) boxer, but it’d probably take 3 me for it to be a fair fight) makes a comment how I’m like a maturing apple with my green polo. I’m confused. Things are slowly explained.

7:32 a.m. Fernando and I roll out in our sweet ’96 Toyota Camry. We say a prayer. He likes to make me pray in Spanish. I do, but poorly. I imagine God can fix my poor conjugation. (Yeah, praying in another language. That’s an interesting dynamic).

10:13 a.m. We visit our sixth school for the day. The directora is very excited to have us. She calls an emergency staff meeting so we can present directly to the teachers. Fernando tells me I can talk to them while he waits in the car. I politely decline.

11:29 a.m. We head to a local joint in Luque, a city just outside of Asuncion. I have my usual: ¼ chicken, yucca, salad and 350 mL of Coca-Cola. Delicious.

12:47 Fernando tells me that I’m going to present the program to the principal. I do, awkwardly stumbling through several of the key points before both the principal and I give a pleading looks to Fernando. He obliges.

1:19 We drink terere. This happens a lot. If you’re not familiar, you should get familiar. Link.

2:17 Some kid calls me rubio. This also happens a lot. It means blondie.

3:15 Fernando says, “let’s go, ho!” (in English, he likes to use a few words here and there) I laugh, and then ask him if he knows what he just said. He thinks ho is just a nonsense word or something that Santa Claus says (“you know,” he says, “like Santa Claus, Ho, Ho, Ho). I tell him otherwise. We head back to Decisiones.

3:35 We get back, and head home for the day. This is a bit earlier than normal but it we got to plenty of schools today, so it’s all good.

In other news, I’m pressing through my reading material, and I’m ready for more. I’ve read just about all that I’ve brought. Right now the only fresh meat on my bookshelf is the Politics of Jesus, and after slogging through the first chapter I remember I’m not a fan of John Howard Yoder’s sentence structure. Not good nighttime reading.

I’m having questions about my impact here too, I guess. What does me being here do for the people I come in contact with? Well, not lots. But that might change, and maybe I have made some sort of difference, I can’t answer with any sort of clear answer. I could meander more but this is so very public and I don’t think all of you are as quite as attentive as my mother would be. Good night.

dp