Un día muy dificil...

So I wanted to cook for these kids, since the offer had been made and since I'd been eating their food. Yesterday evening I went to the grocery store, about a 15 minute walk from my house. I decided on one of my favorites: Nick & Jon's famous homemade pasta Alfredo with Prosciutto, because it's both delicious and easy to make. It wasn't until I was at the store and halfway done with my shopping that I realized: I hadn't the slightest idea how to say "nutmeg" in Spanish. So I was wandering aimlessly... For some reason it was a little bit of a consolation that I at least knew the language enough to reply "Yes, I am looking for something in particular, but I don't know what it's called in Spanish" when asked if I needed help, instead of sitting there with a dumb look on my face, even though it didn't make any difference. I finally found the spices, and set out to find the fine brown powder. Turns out, fine brown powder makes up about half of a spice rack. So I'm picking up every little plastic baggy and holding it up to my face trying to sniff out the nutmeg, looking I don't know how crazy and garnering a few more stares than I would have liked. But I found my nutmeg.

Finally after being in the store for at least an hour, I was at the cash register. Veronica had told me not to carry around my passport, because a photocopy of it is sufficient ID to show when using a credit card. That had been true everywhere, up until then. They kind of scoffed at my photocopy and asked for my original. I said it was at home. They asked if home was far, I said about 15 minutes. Knowing they were going to tell me to go get it, I thought about saying "Yes, absolutely, extremely far, no possible way I can retrieve it", but I didn't want them to say "Well, too bad then, we'll just be taking these groceries back now. " So as expected, they told me that I'd have to go home and get my passport. I wanted to say "okay" and leave and not come back, and let them have fun putting everything back... but it was an hour's worth of shopping. And it was for the kids. So about 20 minutes later I returned, passport in hand, to claim my stuff. By that time I was already dead tired, as I had practically ran home and back, knowing that they left my cream, butter, cheese, and other should-be-refrigerated items just sitting there on the counter. I picked up my 7-8 bags and trudged back home, hands, arms, back, and neck aching as I finally set them on the kitchen table. Those were some hard-earned groceries.

I decided to do a test run last night here and make dinner, to make sure the "crema" I bought was indeed heavy cream and not sour cream, and to avoid any other such culinary catastrophes. My family here very much appreciated the dinner, saying "Que rico! Que riccissimo!" [How delicious, how absolutely delicious!] more times than I can remember. Yelen asked if I could take over and cook every day, which is absolutely ridiculous, because her Mom's cooking is 23094320498 times better than my cooking. But I appreciated the compliment anyway. Raquel was telling her friend how I made dinner, describing everything I made, and apparently he said "What?! For dinner!?? That sounds like a LUNCH!" I told her how silly that sounded to me, since things are the opposite in America. Here, lunch is the big meal of the day, and dinner is the sandwich or the salad or whatever.

So by this morning, as you can imagine, I was practically beaming with excitement as I walked to Arco Iris from the bus stop. I arrived in the doorway with a smile on my face and bags in my hand, only for both of them to drop upon hearing news worse than anything I could have expected: "Four of the boys never came home after school last night. They're missing. We've called the police and the father [of 3 of the boys]." I couldn't say anything most of the morning. I just sat there holding on to Tutui [who had, since the last time I'd seen him, fallen down and contracted a black eye], kicking pebbles and being so frustrated that though I was scared to death, there wasn't a thing I could do. As if all of that wasn't enough for this house to handle in one day, their stove decided to not work and the picture below is of Carolina trying to cook some food over a fire on the patio.

Finally, maybe around 10 or 10:30 am, their dad came over to say that he had found the boys last night and that they were all at his house. I guess he didn't bother to come over or call sooner...of course, I seemed to be the only one that really cared anyway. I still don't know what happened... If they went wandering and got lost, if someone led them away, or if they were running away. Something tells me though, that it was the latter. Anyway, Alicia doesn't want the 3 boys back in the house. I thought it was related to this incident, but I guess it's been going on for a while and they were supposed to be out by Thursday, even before this. She was just doing their dad a favor, looking after the kids while he figured things out and found a way to support them. I guess that's been going on for over a year now, and dad is still with the woman who doesn't want them and still doesn't have a job, and Alicia has had enough and says he has to take them back. He's saying that he can't, that he has no means to support them. As always, I don't know exactly how accurate this is, as I hear bits and pieces from the various adults and older kids, all in Spanish, and sometimes in disagreement. One told me that everyone would be back tomorrow (though the 3 boys [Zacharia, Ezequiel, Solamon] are still supposed to be out by Thursday). Another told me that those three wouldn't be back at all. So what tomorrow has in store is as much of a mystery to me as it is to anyone, and whatever it is I have a feeling it won't be super pleasant.

You know, I just wish that SOMEONE, most preferably their father, would realize how lucky he is just to know these kids, and step up and take some responsibilty. I know I wish there was more I could do; I'm absolutely going crazy. A bit earlier I went out for the only therapy I could think of... I spent money on them. They're going to know me by name at the toy store...