Since I have been in Chile, there have been 3 earthquakes (it’s possible there has been more). However, I haven’t felt anything, until the other week. I was sitting in my bed reading, when all of a sudden my bed started shaking for a bit. It was just a little shake and didn’t last very long. While it was happening, I didn’t really comprehend what was going on. I just kept on reading and thought it was weird that my bed was shaking. Once I actually thought about what happened, I realized I had just felt the earth tremble. So that was kind of cool.
At work, there is this one girl, I’ll call her Danielle (not her real name), who lies a lot. It’s normal for kids to lie, all kids lie. I actually found out from my roommate, Ben (who is a social worker), that it’s a good sign when kids lie because it shows that they are going through a developmental stage (where the child is learning to separate themselves from others). Normally, when a kid lies, it’s to exaggerate something that happened or to just completely make something up. In other words, ‘normal’ lies are creative lies. And yes of course kids will lie to get out of trouble, but I mean adults do that too, so that is just normal human behavior…just make sure it doesn’t turn into a bad habit. However, Danielle lies to trick you, to manipulate you so she can get something she wants. She knows when to lie too. When we are too busy working with other kids to double check that what she is saying is true or not is when she’ll lie to you. For example, she had told me she had completed two worksheets and had put them on my bed (while at the beach), and because she had finished the worksheets, she could get paper to color. I was working with 6 other kids at the time, so I couldn’t check if she really finished them or not. However, later I saw no worksheets and confronted her about it and she merely shrugged her shoulders at me. Another example is when we make bracelets we give each girl a limited amount of beads to use. Danielle will get beads and then will come back and ask for more when Isabelle is really busy with 5 or so other girls. Isabelle will say, didn’t you already get some beads and she would say no I didn’t, and there is just no way, at the time, for Isabelle to check so she’ll give her more beads. But then later I’ll see her with double the amount of beads and we’ll have to hassle her to get the extra ones back.
The thing about her lying is that she lies about things that we can check on, so we catch her in her lies every time, just maybe not right in that moment. Lie to me once, ok that’s fine, lie to me twice, not cool…but get caught lying a ton, I had to talk to her about it. It has really been bothering me that she lies a lot. I can’t trust her at all, so whenever she tells me anything I do not believe her. Twice, she had been telling the truth, but I still didn’t believe her. Once I found out she was telling the truth, I immediately apologized. That’s not good enough for me though, I want to be able to trust her. I’m just really worried that her lying isn’t a phase; that it’s something that is always going to be with her. No child wants to be the child who lies because in the end, when it really matters during whatever situation she might be in, no one will believe her side of the story even if she is telling the truth.
I decided to have a one on one talk with her about her lying. (Naturally, I planned out my speech the night before so the conversation would go more smoothly…oh Spanish). I opened up with first apologizing for not believing her the day before about something and then asked her if she understood why I didn’t believe her. To my surprise she responded with, “Because I lie.” I honestly didn’t think she would answer with that, so that was actually pretty awesome. The fact that she is aware that she lies a lot is good, but then it’s frustrating because she is aware of it and continues to lie knowing people won’t always believe her. I followed with saying, “You are such a great girl. You are beautiful and have a good heart, so why do you lie a lot?” She told me that she just likes to lie, that it’s fun. So I tried some other approaches saying things like, “Each time you lie, I know you are lying and it hurts my feelings.” However, I don't think she really cares about hurting my feelings so then I said, “I really want to be able to believe you, but right now it’s hard for me to ever believe you because you lie all the time.” As soon as she heard me say she lies all the time, she was shocked and then buried her face in her hands and seemed as though she was crying. It seemed as though she was very upset, so I told her that I still love her and still think that she is a great person, I just want her to try to stop lying so often because I want to be able to trust her when she tells me things. Right before we finished our talk, I asked her if she thought it was possible for her to stop lying and she shook her head yes. So far, it had seemed the talk went really well. However, I had my doubts on whether she was really crying or just faking it, but that’s ok. Either way, her getting upset, whether it was real or not, was her way of telling me she was done talking.
Later that day, she ended up lying to Isabelle about getting beads. I was so frustrated because we had just talked about her lying, and she couldn’t even wait a few hours to not lie. Once I got home I talked to Ben about the whole situation to see if she had any advise on how to handle the situation. Danielle is one of the girls we have seen signs of sexual abuse, with her, it’s pretty obvious she has been abused and it’s always heart breaking when she does things that shows those signs. When talking to Ben about it, we came to the conclusion that she probably had to lie in order to get basic things in her home. Lying, to manipulate an adult, is a skill she had learn to help her survive, and now it has just developed into lying in order to get anything she wants. I also think that when she lies she feels empowered because not only is she able to get what she wants, but she’s also outsmarting adults. I actually got some really great pointers from Ben. Ben told me not to even make the situation about lying and to try and make it almost impossible for her to get away with a lie. For example, when Danielle had told me she put the worksheets on my bed, I should have asked her to bring them to me and when she couldn’t do that (because she didn’t complete them) respond with, “I know those worksheets are a lot of work and can really suck, let’s go and do them together.” I really like that response a lot because with it I wouldn’t even mention that she lied to me, but instead try and work with her to get the worksheets done. She gave me a bunch of other great tips like that one as well. Over all, we just need to keep a watchful eye on her while at work and do a good job on remembering when we give her things and double check things first rather than later. We’ll see how that goes.
It’s so nice to be living with Ben because she has her Master’s in Social Work and has learned the skills that I need/want to learn. So it’s been really awesome talking through problems with her and hearing her stories. It also makes me so excited to go back to school in the fall to learn skills that I’ll be able to use when working with troubled youth.
During my time volunteering here Chile, we have been running a program called ‘Vamos a Leer.’ Each of the girls were tested for a reading level, and depending on which level they were put in, that decided how many books they needed to read before the summer ended. At the end of the program, to reward those kids who reached their goals, VE threw a carnival for all of the kids. I really enjoyed Vamos a Leer because it made most of the kids really excited about reading. For the younger girls, we mostly read to them, but it was always so great to listen to the girls read out loud. It was really great to hear a girl who struggles with reading read out loud too. Each time she finished a book, you could just tell she felt really good about herself and about completing one more book. Each time a girl reached her goal, completing how ever many books, she would get so excited. I really loved seeing that excitement.
The actual carnival VE threw for the kids was so great! All the kids had so much fun! It was also really awesome to meet some of the other kids from the different institutions. The institution I work for is only for girls and there is a partner institution only for boys. Some of the girls I work with have their brothers staying in the other institution, and it was so neat to see the siblings hang out and play together. It was precious being able to see them interact with each other. The day started out with games for the kids to play. There was pin the tail on the donkey, a fishing game, a bean bag throwing game, a soccer goal game, tossing pennies on to dots, throwing a ball at bottles to knock them down, bowling, throwing a football through a hoop, and face painting. There was also a clown. After the games, we had lunch, and then the kids went swimming. Over all, it was such a great day for all of the kids, but it was so very exhausting for me ha (obviously not that important).
The next day after the carnival, Danielle had a family visit with her dad. This was a really hard day for me, emotionally. As of right now, I do not know what has happened to these girls in the past or who did it to them. In another institution the girls are sometimes allowed to go home for a weekend and stay with their abusers…no idea how that makes sense. So I’m only assuming that when family comes and visits these girls (for supervised visits), they are the ones who have neglected the girls and/or sexually abused them. So far I have been ok with seeing the girls interacting with their families. They are always so excited to see their family; however, this day I almost couldn’t handle watching Danielle with her dad. First of all, the guy gave me the creeps and just did so many weird things. He just made me feel uncomfortable. Danielle has so many problems, and it makes me so sad when I’m reminded of them through how she acts sometimes. Knowing that someone, who she was suppose to trust in her life, has caused all these terrible things makes me so furious. Then seeing her dad that day (who most likely did abuse her because in most cases it is the dad) made me feel so much hatred. I have never felt like that before, ever. I was playing with other girls outside while they were doing stuff together and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I did not trust him with her at all. As soon as we left work, I just released all of my fury on Isabelle and vented about him.
Feeling that type of hatred towards another person is not healthy. I’m going to need to learn how to separate myself from situations and learn to be more professional. For all I know, he could have done nothing to her, and the abuse could have come from someone else. But if it didn’t come from him, then whom did it come from and why couldn’t he have protected her from it? She can’t live with him for a reason, and the only reason I’m coming up with is that he is the one who sexually abused her. I was just so surprised with myself with how judgmental I was of him and how much hatred I felt towards him (and if not him, then her abuser, whom ever that may be). It also made me realize how protective I am of these girls. I love all of these girls, even when they are being impossible and will not listen to me. They have gone through so much pain, pain I will never know or understand, and they just need positive people in their lives to love them.
On a different note…some random, mostly good, things that happened this week are that I met up with one of the people who works in the office to practice speaking Spanish. We went to a café near where I live and drank freshly squeezed mango juice and just chatted in Spanish for an hour. It was so great. I really enjoyed it. It was so cool to be able to speak about random things in Spanish and understand everything. Learning a language is so self-gratifying because you can immediately see the results of your hard work. Also on that note, I have made an intercambio connection. One of the workers in the office went back home this week, but she told me she had a Chilean friend who wants to practice English and thought of me. She gave her friend my email and her friend contacted me. I now have a local to practice my Spanish with, and I’ll get the chance to return the favor and help her with her English. I’m excited to start! I’ll keep ya’ll posted on how that goes.
I live on a busy street, so it’s almost always loud. Cars are screeching constantly on the street right outside my window. The other night, while I was on the couch, I heard an extra long screech and then that BANG noise you always wait to hear following the screech. That’s right folks, a car accident has finally occurred. Quite frankly, I am surprised that it took me this long (5 months or so) to finally see/hear a car accident down here in South America. The driving is sooo crazy; I don’t know how I’m not seeing accidents all the time. The accident was minor, so no one got hurt; however, it was still quite exciting ha. And in good ol’Chilean fashion, they were pretty nice about the accident, very calm and rational, and zero yelling occurred.
This week at work a 7 year old and a 4 year old corrected my grammar. That’s always great when that happens…a nice little confidence booster for me ha. It happened in Argentina, and I’m sure it will happen again.
On Friday, something really cool happened at work. I was leaving and one of the older girls asked me a question and I immediately responded. The reason why this is cool is because normally I think of my response in English and then translate it into Spanish in my head (this process has gotten faster since being down here). But this time, I just automatically responded in Spanish, without the translation step. It happened so fast that I didn’t even realize I did it until I was walking to the metro and was just like whoa what just happened? Ha I know that that sounds kind of dumb, but it was a very exciting moment for me!
Until Next Time,
Liz
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