Not Always Sunshine and Rainbows

The other week was the toughest week of work I have had since being here in Santiago. However, Monday was by far the worst day.

Normally, Mondays are a little crazier than the other days of the week because it’s the day the Tias change shifts for the week (so the kids act a little crazier). Also, all the Tias and the professionals all go to the boys’ house for their weekly meeting. When everyone leaves the girls’ house, another woman comes and helps Allison and I out with watching over the girls. However, this Monday the woman left maybe ten minutes after everyone else left…leaving us alone with the girls. The woman had approached me and said she needed to go find something to fix the broken window, but would be right back, so I said ok. Not like I was going to say no to her. She never came back, and Allison and I were left alone with the girls for 3 hours. I know three hours doesn’t sound like a lot of time to be left in charge, but it’s an eternity when left alone with girls who have behavioral problems and you are not 100% fluent in the language. During these few hours, the girls did not listen to us once. They stole food to eat before snack time, even though we had given everyone some fruit to eat before official snack time, played with matches, two girls destroyed one of the rooms by throwing almost everything on the floor, and climbed on the roof. Everything was very frustrating, but the girls climbing on the roof made us really worried because if one of them had gotten hurt, there was nothing we could do to have helped them. When one of the girls came home, her hand was pretty hurt and she needed to go to the doctor. So Allison called the Tias, and it took over an hour for one of them to come get her (the boys’ house is only a five minute drive away). Thankfully it wasn’t a true emergency, but nonetheless it was still pretty frustrating. After that very stressful day, I thought surely the rest of the week would be ok…I could not have been more wrong.

The rest of the week all the girls were horrible. They were horrible to each other, to me, and all the other Tias. One girl was bullying another girl and would not stop, no matter what I said to her she just wanted to hurt the other girl. The other girl ran up to the third floor with the bully chasing after her so I followed trying my best to get her to stop. Once we got to the third floor I told the other girl to run downstairs and then I blocked the stairwell so the other girl couldn’t run after her. Oooohh she was not happy with me. She was kicking me, punching me, and trying to shove me out of the way. She’s 8 years old, so she didn’t have a chance against me, but she was furious. Once she finally figured out that she couldn’t get me to move she started yelling really nasty things to me. To be honest, I have absolutely no clue what she yelled at me, but I know none of it was nice. I just sat there smiling at her while she was yelling at me saying, “Oh that’s so nice of you to say that to me,” and “Thank you,” and things like that. Not going to lie though, it felt good to frustrate her with my smile. I probably didn’t react in the most mature way, but at the time I didn’t really know what else to do. I just wanted to get her to stop being awful to the other girl.

Another day, one of the younger girls kept pulling the two year old’s hair and pushing her around. I couldn’t get her to stop so I used my body as a blockade to protect the two year old. Because the younger girl couldn’t get to the two year old she started kick and punching me. It was so strange though because she wasn’t acting out in an angry way, she was kind of smiling the entire time. She had soooo much energy in her and I think the way she chose to release it was through fighting, and was enjoying it. The other girl, who was the bully, was filled with rage. I can understand that kind of meanness, but when the 5 year old was fighting with a smile on her face, I didn’t and still cannot understand it.

That week was really hard; however it was tough in a different way than I thought it would be. I didn’t mind the hitting, kicking, being yelled at, or being completely disregarded as an adult (ha); it was just physically tiring. Everything the girls did to me, I didn’t take personally at all. I could have cared less if they hated me. I knew that what I was doing was in their best interest, and that their “hatred” wasn’t really directed at me and would eventually pass. I think it was a good thing that I couldn’t understand what the 8 year old was yelling at me. It made me realize that in reality it really doesn’t matter what was coming out of her mouth. I’d like to think that she really doesn’t feel that way about me, but if she does, again, it really doesn’t matter. I’m the adult, and the reason why I am here is in her best interest. I’m only trying to help out the best I can and be a positive role model in her life, in all of these girls’ lives.

Until Next Time,

Liz