Happy Birthday
Tuesday is the birthday of one of my godsons. He's at the shelter but home for weekends, so we decided to celebrate today. We had a little get-together at my place - he came with his sister and niece. It was just really nice and domestic - I made mom's famous lasagna, and brownies for dessert, since he had been asking about "gringo food." The first question was, "Where's the rice?" because here, we eat rice with EVERYTHING. Seriously, I've had spaghetti with rice on a fairly regular basis. Atkins has not yet hit Ecuador. However, once he got over the lack of rice, the meal went really well. And then I got to introduce him to another key element of Amurkin culture - we sat down to watch Star Wars. The real, original Star Wars, none of this prequel stuff. It was just a really nice day.
Hmmm, writing about it, it sounds kinda mundane. I guess that's one of the reasons it's hard to capture what I love about being here. It's little moments like that, sitting around cracking jokes and watching a movie with one of my kids. I realized the other day that when I blog, it tends to be about the crises here. There certainly are enough of them - AIDS, drugs, child abuse, you get that stuff everyday. And one of the reasons I keep coming back here is to help try to make all those crises just a little bit better. But if that were the only reason, I know I'd be a burnt-out basket case by now. So I'll confess, another reason that I keep coming is so that I can sit down with my kids on their birthdays and watch Star Wars. Nothing world-changing in that, but a lot of joy.
Hmmm, writing about it, it sounds kinda mundane. I guess that's one of the reasons it's hard to capture what I love about being here. It's little moments like that, sitting around cracking jokes and watching a movie with one of my kids. I realized the other day that when I blog, it tends to be about the crises here. There certainly are enough of them - AIDS, drugs, child abuse, you get that stuff everyday. And one of the reasons I keep coming back here is to help try to make all those crises just a little bit better. But if that were the only reason, I know I'd be a burnt-out basket case by now. So I'll confess, another reason that I keep coming is so that I can sit down with my kids on their birthdays and watch Star Wars. Nothing world-changing in that, but a lot of joy.