Seeing the kids again has been amazing. I was worried that they might have forgotten me – after all, it has been two years since I lived here, and they’ve had other students work with them since. But as soon as they saw Ann (my old social work professor who runs all of the projects down here) they began asking for Flor – the name I go by here. “H” doesn’t really have a sound in Spanish, which makes my name a bit of a challenge…everyone pronounces it “eder”, sounding like a 2 y/o who is just learning to speak. When I finally arrived several weeks after this and stepped into the school, I was flooded by children. Even the two new students that I had never met before wanted to hug me. It was so special, realizing that these kids that I think of, worry about, and love all year long remember and love me too. The kids that I worked most closely with made me little flowers with welcome messages written in glitter and gave me little notes with our names in hearts. It was so incredibly sweet (and ego boosting).
Then the ego insults came.
In Nicaragua, fat is a good thing, and they aren’t afraid to tell you. When I was here in 2007, I lost a lot of weight due to being sick twice. Just for the record, I don’t recommend this as a strategy – the weight loss was a nice side effect, but definitely not worth the misery of drinking the wrong water. Walking everywhere instead of driving and eating fresh healthy meals also helped I’m sure. But when I returned to the US, I of course fell back into the trap of fast food (no matter how much I resolved not to, and the fact that it made me ill for the first few months). So I easily gained all this weight back. Last year, when I returned to Nicaragua for a week, all the teachers at the school commented on how much fatter I had gotten – I know, HOW RUDE!!! But they meant it more as, “you gained back the sick weight and look much healthier” or something like that…
Skip forward to this year – I’ve gained a few pounds in the last year, but I didn’t think I looked all that different and hoped no one would notice. Alas, I was not so lucky. About 10 seconds after the kids knocked me down with their hugs, they began telling me how fat I was! One of the older students (who is a twig), Yadira, told me in sign language, “Last year you were skinny, this year, you eat much and are fat!” Usually I hate how our culture falsely tells everyone how great they are, but I have to admit – I like the part where we tell everyone else they look nice and aren’t fat, even if they are.
You’ve got to just love the yin and yang of life though, right? Maybe this is just God’s way of trying to keep me humble. ☺
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