It's been a difficult past two weeks. Adam's job as Jefe of the Plantel began in all its confusing glory. Who's supposed to be working? Do they really have to work...because they sure don't want to? When your afternoon crew is between the ages of eight and twelve, you’re in for a battle, especially when work consists of two hours of raking leaves in the hot sun. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and for Adam his hair pulling is leading to more creativity.

For me, my job hasn’t been more stressful, as far as the difficulty of what I’m doing. But I dealt with some major frustration (that word keeps popping up in my blogs) as I cleaned our guest apartments, recently vacated by a group of academy students. To go into detail would only rehash bad memories. Suffice it to say, for my obsessive/compulsive cleaning habits, this was another moment for creativity: how to let the frustration go and just be about the business of getting the job done.

Last night, we continued the cockroach saga by discovering a nest of babies behind the toothbrush holder that is screwed into our concrete wall. Those little insectos are resilient. Killing one is like planting a seed for a thousand more.

Creativity and perspective seem to be my watchwords lately. Creative thinking when things don’t go according to plan, and the perspective of the whole that allows me to say, “that’s why we’re here.”

Last Sunday, one of the SMs cut my hair. It was a great opportunity to get to know each other since during the week we only see each other in passing. She told me that when they first arrived, one of the boys was forever commenting on their bodies, harassing them to the point that they didn’t want to be near him at all. Finally they decided to talk to Papi Joel about what to do. He told them that this boy, a teenager now, was sold out by his mother to be used as a prostitute when he was a child. That’s what life was all about to him; that’s what it’s still about to him. How terrible the definitions of normal we can create for our children. Hearing this story made me want to weep, but it also pushed a button in my brain: this is why we’re here. Yes, it may seem a bit mundane at times, weed-wacking or bagging frijoles, but if we can give one smile, one impression that God is good, one seed of hope that family can be beautiful, then our time here will be all that it was meant to be.

Jesus talked about the importance of giving just one cup of water to a child. He holds them in such high esteem that if you take advantage of their trust and innocence, you should be drowned. What a different world this would be if that really happened. If children were really protected and cherished while young, imagine the grounded, compassionate adults we could create. The implications of that on the world would be profound.