There are fish in the pool!

Starting in Jan, we've started a whole bunch of activites for the kids. I'm only gonna talk about one of them now. The last Sat of every month, we have a whole Home outing (yep, even the babies!) Last month while most of you were shivering cold, we all loaded (squished would be more like it) onto a school bus and we headed off for Ichamichen (makes me want to itch just by looking at the word!) It's an Indian name. Ichamichen is a nice park that has several "pools. " Do any of you remember the TV show, Beverly Hillbillies? Well, they had a concrete pond. These "pools" were actually somewhat rundown concrete ponds...including small nibbling fish. There were very shallow wading pools, middle depth pools, and adult areas. There was even a curling and twisting water slide for those who gathered their courage. The teenagers had a blast with the slide and insisted that we do this with them over and over and over. Our cook, Alma, who's built like me and maybe even a little more rotund, finally was convinced to go down the slide. What we didn't know is that just about 15ft short of the end, she got stuck. There was very little water to help you slide well, and she was wearing denim. You guessed it, around the corner came a big group of girls, sitting one in front of the other like a train. I watched the whole scene unveil, and it was hysterical. The train came to a halt, much like dominoes falling on one another. But at least it created enough umph to get Alma going again, and they all followed behind her, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop plop into the water one after the other. They all came up laughing, even Alma. I think the only time the kids sat still was for a picnic style lunch.

Speaking of the slide, I've got to tell you the best part of my day. I'd overheard the younger boys (whom I adore) say they were scared of the water slide. And understandably so! After all it was pretty big, fairly tall, and the water was deep when you dropped off the end of the slide. Much to my surprsie, toward the end of the day, one young tyke named Diego asked if I'd take him on the slide. Wow! I was honored that he'd trust me so much! After getting permission, we went up the stairs to the slide. I sat him on my lap and held onto him tightly. Oh my gosh...you should've heard him squeel with delight as we zipped around the corners. He squeeled all the way down. And when we plopped into the water at the end, he didn't panic. I just held him tightly until we popped up on top of the water, and once he shook the water off, he was grinning from ear to ear. Apparently, the other boys were watching. 2 other young boys approached me and asked me to take them on the slide. One on one knee, the other on the other knee. Double the squeeles all the way down! So much fun! And I also was able to convince some of the young girls to jump off the side of the pool into my arms, much like my dad did for me when I was a little kid. As a kid, I just knew it was fun. I didn't realize back then that it was also about trust. But I sure know it now, and feel so humbled to know that I'm gaining their trust.

We left around 4pm, and most of the heads were nodding off asleep in the bus within 30 min. To our great pleasure and surprise, 2 of our Board of Directors (who had been in meetings earlier that day) were able to join us near the end of our fun day and then treated us to dinner in Olaquilta for papusas. We ate 300 papusas! (Which is a very inexpensive traditional stuffed tortilla dish)! It really was a blast, and the kids are still talking about the day.