current cure: laughter

No matter how funky I feel...when something is funny, it feels good to laugh. Lately, things just seem funky. But in the middle of all the funk, there have been moments of joy...mainly in the form of laughter. Yesterday was my first full day back at the Hogar and funk stood no chance.

It´s still choclo season. Choclo...you know...huge ass corn. Yesterday I worked in the kitchen from 8am-1pm with Mami Angelica (the cook and one of my favorites at the Hogar), Vicentina, Calestina, and Karen. The menu included crema de maiz, choclo, ensalada, and fried fish. There are constantly people coming into the kitchen...usually some of the girls or staff who are looking to mooch some grub. Now Mami Angelica is, as I´ve said before, a firecracker. She almost comes up to my shoulders but she sure is feisty. She spent much of yesterday fending off lurking kids by beating them over the head with giant corn that looks like its on steroids. In my funky senilty, I couldn´t stop laughing.

About half way through the morning, she sent Vicentina and Calestina out to the big sink to rinse out random cow parts for the next day´s lunch. I peeked out the kitchen window to see both of them playing with the lungs. They were holding them up to the faucet (which was turned on full blast) and poking holes in them...so semi-bloody water would gush out of each hole they made with their fingers. They were screaming and laughing when Mami Angelica came out to see what all the fuss was about. Her response was to grab a big chunk of the meat they had just cleaned...and whack them on the back with it. Calestina grabbed the cow heart and yelled out, ¨Ay! Mi corazon!¨ This started a minor cow part fight...but everyone was laughing...including Mami Angelica.

It was 1:30pm and I was sitting outside on one of the benches waiting for my English/Computer workshop to start at 2pm. Nayda, Vaneza, and Margarita came over to join me. Then out of nowhere Vaneza farted...and it was a proud fart. She scared herself and even jumped...the face she made was priceless. Usually, they try to fart discretely and no one really acknowledges them. But we all started busting up. In the middle of the laughing, Margarita accidentally let one out, too. I blurted out, ¨Now who´s turn is it?¨ Yup, it was Nayda´s turn. I felt kind of bad for encouraging such ¨cochina¨ness but it seemed worth it to me. Eventually 2pm rolled around and I was off to find my group. As I got up and walked away...I said, ¨Creo que he tenido mi turno.¨ The new way to say ¨tirar un pedo¨ is now ¨tener un turno.¨

The sun´s warmth was strong, so we decided to have class outside. We found a nice grassy area right behind where they keep all of the guinea pigs (not pets). We were talking about animals because they are working on writing short stories. I was helping Vicentina with her story about a butterfly when, off to the side, Yanet started meowing at me (her story is about a cat named Michelle that only speaks Quechua). I started to laugh but tried not to get too distracted while I was talking to Vicentina. The meowing got louder. I finally looked over at Yanet who looked back at me and said with a glare and a head nod, ¨Meow huh.¨ It was a challenge. A few seconds later I was attacked. Soon everyone was rolling around in the grass making crazy animal sounds and laughing...they had completely lost it. I don´t even think they knew what they were doing at that point. I´m not even sure I´ve ever seen them laugh that hard before. I knew I´d be busted if one of the Educadoras saw us like that...so I tried to get them to quiet down. Nothing worked. Finally I gave up and said, ¨Stop! You´re scaring the guinea pigs! They´re trying to sleep!¨ That was a stupid thing to say. They all ran to the window and started barking and meowing at them. Then the terrified guinea pigs joined in with their high pitched squeals. It was utter chaos. When the squeals got louder, the ground-rolling laughter started up again. It didn´t help that one of the girls decided to tener su freaking turno (the question of who farted still remains a mystery) and it was pretty stank. ¨Quien ha tenido su turno!¨ I finally completely gave up on trying to get the girls to write in their notebooks...we only had 15 minutes left anyway.

The girls at the Hogar are tough. They have endured a lot at a very young age. Sometimes they are in just plain rotten moods for a number of reasons that seem more than reasonable. Sometimes I´m in a rotten mood for no good reason at all. Regardless of reasons for funk, those moments where laughter conquers and covers over pain and sadness are more than precious. Even if they are only a momentary relief and rest from something heavy, I am grateful for laughter.