It was a Thursday morning. I woke to the sound of my bunk mate getting ready for the day. As for myself, I wasn't particularly ready to get a start on the day. In my opinion it would have been nice to catch a couple more Z's. However, as it was every morning in Mexico, once your awake, you stay awake. Who could sleep with all those birds sounding off just outside the window anyway?
I had slept a little better than I did the night before. At least this time when I woke up I didn't start brushing my sheets to get rid of any imaginary bugs. I had woken up several times, however. Enough times to get a good look at the late night lightning show.
Eventually I decided it was time to get up.
Every morning was pretty much the same thing. So I'll try to keep from repeating it in such detail every day.
We had breakfast, and got going on our projects. Today we didn't work on any bicycles for very long. But during the brief time that Jimmy, Clayton and I were working on bikes Juan decided to come see what we were doing.
Juan is a 16 year old boy who looks like he is 9. He was so completely and utterly neglected by his parents when he was born that the only way he survived was from the generosity of a neighbor who would sneak food in to him. This nutritional deficiency is the reason his body wasn't able to develop normally. When he first came to the orphanage he wasn't even able to walk because no one had every taught him how.
You would think that such a history would make a person bitter, or angry, or upset with the world, but Juan is anything but. He is such a happy and joyful child, you wouldn't ever think that he had such a rough start. Juan is walking now. In fact, he's not only walking, he is jumping, running, climbing, and doing everything else that kids do, including causing just a little bit of trouble. And that's just what he did while we were working on the bikes.
We were trying to get the brakes to work on a particular bike when Juan came over. He sat down next to Jimmy and watched as we worked. Before long Juan reached down and took the cap off of the bike tire. He held it up and gave us a mischievous look so that we would know he was causing some trouble. Juan then proceeded to deflate the bicycle tire from which he had removed the cap. We all thought it was pretty funny, but just to toy with him I said "Juan es mal", which means "Juan is bad." To which he responded "No, bien", which means "No, good."
We went back and forth for a little while with "No, mal" and "No, bien" until Jimmy decided to join in the fun by deflating the tire. Juan got a kick out of this and pointed at Jimmy ever so emphatically with a look on his face that said "HE DID IT!"
By the end of the whole escapade there had been a few more mal's and bien's thrown around and everyone was having a laugh. This incident then set up a precedent for the rest of the week when Juan would keep calling me "Mallo" which means "bad guy."
When I wasn't working on bicycles I helped out with the other projects that were going on. As I recall, I spent most of the day mixing up concrete for the ramp. We made a lot of concrete over the week. In all, we must have gone through anywhere between 12 and 20 bags of cement mix (but if I am in error, then I am erring on the short side). Every bag of cement mix would make 4 to 5 wheelbarrow loads of concrete.
I forgot to mention that it was this day that several of the children left for a three day camping trip. This is why Caesar wasn't around while we were working on the bikes.
As the day had begun, so the day ended. That is to say, every night and every morning was pretty much the same as every other night and every other morning. Dinner, singing, and then sleep. Such was life in Mexico.
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