Common Hope Blog

Every Wednesday afternoon I work with a group of about 40 kids from troubled homes.  The idea is that at least once a week they go somewhere that is welcoming and nurturing, but where there are also clear rules and expectations as well as consistent consequences.  The activities vary week to week, but they tend to emphasize creative expression, cooperation, and (ideally) peaceful interaction among the kids in ways that are fun enough that the kids decide to come each week voluntarily.

When you learn about the specifics of some of their home lives, it’s easy to feel skeptical that in a couple of hours a week you can really do that much good.  But in fact, overall I see progress.  A few examples come to mind, like one little boy who never used to talk in the group, just whisper something inaudible with his hand cupped to my ear, and now barely talks to me because he’s too engaged with the other kids.  But that’s a topic for another day.

What I want to focus on today are a couple of interactions I’ve had in the last two days with kids from the group.  I haven’t attended for last two Wednesdays due to a series of meetings, but in the last two days I’ve run into three of the kids from the group as I move about the Antigua site.

Now one great thing about kids is their enthusiasm.  It’s honest and unbounded by social convention.  So yesterday, as I was on my way back to my office I was interrupted by excited shouts.  “Profe Jeff!,” a boy called out, and I turned just quick enough to see him ducking down under a table.  An invitation to play.

I pretended not to know where he was hiding and sat down on the table.  I wondered aloud where he could have gone, which provoked the predictable give-away giggles beneath me.  That’s another great thing about kids — they can see through an adult’s silly pretense but still find it funny.  Just then his sister showed up and so the hide and seek game was over, but a new one was about to begin.

I made the mistake when I first started with the group of lifting one the kids over my head, so for over a year now its been a source of regular exercise for me, as they all want a couple turns.  So we played that until my shoulders got tired.  “Okay, it was really fun seeing you, but I have  to get back to work,” I said, in a vain attempt to make a graceful exit and get back to what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

But there’s the shadow side of kids’ enthusiasm and not being bound by social convention: Whatever it was I was saying about work was just some vague adult-speak.  There were things to do!

I tried a different strategy, walking with them towards the playground, hoping they’d find the swings and slide more interesting, but that didn’t really fly.  After another five minutes or so, I said I really did have to go.  Which led to a new game, tug of war, with my left arm being the rope.  Trini, who works in Sponsorship and was nearby taking photos, opined that the girl looked pretty strong; I was likely to lose this match.

As it turned out, I sort of did.  Despite repeated and ever more firm declarations that they needed to let go of my arm because I really did have to go, the “game” never did end for them.  In the end I simply fell back on greater height and strength to pry myself loose.  Not exactly how I wanted to say goodbye, but nothing else worked.

This morning I was recounting it all to Renato to get his advice.  He’s beginning a campaign among the staff of “Every Interaction Counts,” designed to get us to make the most of our time with kids, so that the whole site, in everything we do, is communicating to the kids that somebody cares about them, somebody is interested in what they’re doing or what they have to say.

He didn’t really have a magic technique, mostly it came down to spending more time with them.  That wasn’t a totally satisfying answer, since I really did have work I was supposed to be doing, but part of me knew he was right.  Ultimately, those kids are our job.  Which, when I can get myself to step back and let that fact sink in, is pretty great.

This afternoon another girl from the group called out to me and came running to give me a hug.  We talked about how I hadn’t come to the group the last two weeks, and about a party she was looking forward to for her sister’s first communion, and how she’s studying math in summer school.  She’s a couple years older than the two from the day before, so there was no tug of war to get back to work, just a sweet hug and promise to see each other next week.

The Wednesday group is called “little lights along the way.”  Until today, I had this vague notion that the “lights along the way” referred to the activities of the group, and the adults who guided these kids from troubled homes along the path to a better future.  But today, this girl, Nancy, made me realize that they are the lights guiding us along our path.

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I haven’t posted anything on this blog for quite a while.  Someone asked me about it a week or two ago and it brought a pang of guilt but all I could do was shrug.  I can’t really explain why, but I just haven’t felt moved to write anything.  And I think if you don’t have anything to say, you should just keep it to yourself.

But the other day I saw a kid in dirty clothes standing outside of a schoolyard, peering through the chain link fence, and just as I got close, he raised a bag to his face to sniff some glue.

In Honduras they were known as Resistoleros, after the most popular brand of glue.  You’d see the street kids in the park inhaling glue like that.  A low-rent way of getting high.  Supposedly it helped quell hunger pangs, but that always sounded like an excuse to me.

I don’t see it nearly as much here, which is maybe why I was struck by what I saw.  Or maybe it was the cinéma verité quality of the image:  a kid standing outside a school damaging his brain rather than inside developing it.  It was like an gritty ad for an organization like ours, something we’d never run because it’s too in-your-face, too much of a cliché.  Except that it really happened.

What that kid was doing, and not doing, put me in mind of something John Huebsch and I used to talk about.  When we shine a light on success stories there are others that get hidden in the shadow.

For example, one of my favorites is about a young man named Mynor, who’s alcoholic mother left him an orphan when he was in junior high, and he was about to drop out of school when Common Hope gave him a scholarship.  A few years later he graduated high school, first in his class.  That’s quite a twist of fate, a narrow escape from being just another uneducated, unskilled laborer.  The last I heard he was working as a bookkeeper, helping to support his family.

But John would turn it around, and ask about the Not-Mynor.  The kid who didn’t get help.  How many people do you pass along the streets, who were once at a pivot point in their lives, and it went the other way?  What might they have done?

That’s a pretty charged question right now, as we’re already carrying over 500 students who don’t have sponsors while we watch the economy veer into recession and panic sweep the stock market.  Tough times lead to tough choices, and it’s all the harder when you’re reminded of the consequences of your decisions.

So that makes me realize that I did have something to say, straight and to the point.  There are a lot of people that need our help, and to do that, we need yours.

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A Vision Team allows you to experience the people, culture, and beauty of Guatemala first-hand. You will learn about Common Hope’s work from our staff and volunteers and meet the families whose lives have been changed by their partnership with Common Hope.

You will participate in a variety of work and learning activities to enhance your understanding of Guatemala and Common Hope’s programs. You may visit families with a social worker, attend discussions with staff, help construct a simple home, sort supplies in the warehouse, or engage with students in after school programs.

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