Duro

A hard day today. Another half-sleepless night. After three very good nights of sleep, I slept far too little for the second straight night. During class I hit the wall with Spanish conversation: only a few ideas I could express. Every correction in speech the teachers made was getting me angry and less willing to talk. Little progress today, little sense of freedom. How hard the day, any day, is without rest. Dear God, please help me out here. I don’t want to miss these moments in Bolivia. Help me meet them with everything I’ve got. You know I’ve got a lot of passion for this experience. Don’t let my love slumber for lack of strength. 

On this day, the fiftieth day of my Bolivian journey, I had my first day at Nuestra Casa, the shelter for girl survivors of sexual abuse. I arrived a little before 2 o’clock in the afternoon and stayed until a little after 5 p.m. It was a slow and sad afternoon: no sun, only clouds, only rain until the very end of the afternoon. 

Fourteen girls live here. Ten of them are capable enough of attending school, which they do in the afternoon. So on Wednesdays like today I will meet the other four, who keep busy with arts and crafts and chores like laundry or homeschool assignments in arithmetic, reading, and so on. 

My intention today was to introduce an art project of my own. Well, not my own: the credit goes to my sister Jen, who is a middle-school art teacher. The exercise: turn music into colors and shapes. The goal: hear the music and translate the sounds into shapes and colors that reflect that sound. The girls would listen to different styles of music, including their favorite kinds, and learn to match the sounds with appropriate shapes and colors. The idea was to introduce an easy, fun project to express emotions and enjoy music. My sister is inspired by the Russian abstract painter (and pianist) Wasily Kandinsky, who said, “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” 

The only problem was there was no electricity at the shelter this afternoon, because of utilities work on the block. Without a radio or CD player we could use, Janet, the director, and I agreed to postpone my art activity until next Wednesday, and we did other crafty things the girls have been doing lately. Namely, they create blank greeting cards that they sell on the sidewalk. Nieves, one of the afternoon supervisors, showed me how to weave patterns with needle and thread into cutout shapes like hearts and ovals to decorate the cards. I felt clumsy and awkward, but I figured out how to do it. And now and then I talked to the four girls who were also making cutouts. 

As I say, it was a slow and sad afternoon for me. Hard to be there and be so self-conscious, unable to speak freely, finding it awkward to relate. In the third hour, the girls had a break for tea, coffee, and bread. I wasn’t hungry, so I declined. Nieves told me the girls eat five times a day. I said that in the United States we eat three times a day, and usually I have two meals only. One of the girls asked me why. I said because I am not hungry often. Of course that doesn’t answer the question for a teenager, so she asked again why. I said again, because I am not hungry. Then she asked why two meals. I said sometimes it is only one meal a day. Why? I digged deeper and said it’s because I fast for God, I fast for others, I fast against injustice … and I fast for her. And because I was about to cry, I went to the bathroom. I was brought to tears from deep feelings of empathy for the girls and pity for myself for feeling my efforts were feeble and futile. 

It was hard to keep composure after that. There is a dog named Jaqui at the shelter. Of course she barked a lot when I arrived. After I returned to the crafts table from the bathroom, Jaqui sat down at my legs. I started to pet her. She relaxed some more. Then after a few minutes she did something I did not expect. She got up on her hind legs and with her forelegs hugged my right leg. I don’t mean that she pawed my leg; I mean that she somehow was giving me a hug, an embrace. Well, I just about lost it right there. It was such an affectionate gesture. Janet and Nieves, aware that dogs make me nervous, commanded Jaqui to get down. But I said, almost overcome, está bien, está bien. 

Today I felt like I couldn’t go on, but I’ll go on. Why? One more thing to note in passing. I didn’t catch this two weeks ago when I made my exploratory visit to Nuestra Casa. Across the street, maybe one or two doors down from the shelter, there is a ballet studio and theater. Its name is Libellule Ballet y Arte. Libellule is not Spanish; it’s French. The Spanish equivalent is libélula. Libellule and libélula mean dragonfly. For those who have been following my story, for those who believe in synchronicity, make of the coincidence what you will.