The world needs more good daddies. And so I convinced my husband to join me on a two-week service vacation at a children’s orphanage in Peru this past March with the ulterior motive of providing the kids with the chance – maybe their only one – to have a positive experience with a wonderful male role model. Fully 70 percent of the 560 kids there were fatherless and the ratio of adult women to men caring for them was roughly the same ratio you’d find at a Nordstrom shoe sale.
I was told that kind-hearted men occasionally volunteered at the orphanage but many of them were older and had the intention, but not necessarily the stamina, to play with the children. Enter my husband Mike – a guy who has raised two wonderful sons, knows his way around any sports field and has the strength to toss kids into the air at will. His very presence inspired awe among the tweens (he’s 6-feet-8), and somewhere on my hard drive I have a great picture of him surrounded by cute little Peruvian kids wearing yellow shirts, all measuring themselves against his waistline.
Mike showed up in full Daddy mode and did all those wonderful things any good dad does. He showed 21 grade school boys how to make paper airplanes. They spent the next 45 minutes launching them from a soccer field, even after they dissolve into soggy lumps. He convinced Kathy, a shy 10-year-old, to grab his hands. Then using his best sign language (especially impressive since his hands were tied, literally), he convinced her to climb up his towering body. She tentatively put her feet on his feet … then on his knees … then on his waist … and when she finally climbed on to his chest he flipped her over backwards. Most of us can remember our daddies doing this with us but none of these kids had ever seen anything like it before, as far as I could tell. And so for 90 minutes each day for the next two weeks, Mike flipped, swung and tossed grade schools kids, only stopping when he collapsed exhausted in the grass and mumbled, muerte (dead).
You could argue that women can do the same thing, and rightfully so. I was the primo kid-swinger on prior service vacations in
Keep up the good work, daddies.
Get out and give back.
Ms.R Lo Monaco faxed the following letter to the editor of the South County Chronicle of Alexandria, VA:
We will all be asked one day, what we did with the life we were given. So many opportunities, so much to see and do — retirement holds golden opportunities to be explored. Helping out, reaching out, learning new skills to be shared with others.
I live in a senior retirement community and there is much potential here for helping one’s neighbors. Just to search out a needed contact, such as services offered by the county, starting a support group for going it alone or a bible group, researching new areas that are available for day trips.
Yes, we are all called to get out and give back for all we have received.
I volunteer at the local library once a week, facilitate a bible sharing grouping this community and a rosary group once a week, maintain a neighbor’s window box filled with flowers, prepare a meal when needed, and just became involved with the S.A.L.T. program at the local police stations (Seniors and Law enforcement Together), which is a program to protect seniors from being victimized by criminals. I also enjoy travelling into D.C. on the metro and at one time set up trips for about 6 of us. Since then most have moved on to nursing homes.
R. Lo Monaco
Laura from Columbus Ohio wrote:
I consider my job my mission and my way of giving back because I work with struggling 1st-grade readers and get to literally turn their lives around. Many are living in poverty and with minimal “common-sense” adult care. They come to me as 6-year-old failures, on a strong path to life-long failure, and I change them into academic successes! The program I’m trained in is Reading Recovery, and it’s wonderful! It was a year of unbelievably difficult training and study, but SO worthwhile! But I will still never be able to convince the boys that reading is an important thing that boys and men do. I count on my male volunteers who come to school to read with them for that. We also have terrific college tutors from Ohio Wesleyan who come and work with our 3rd graders – and again, a college guy with a book, coming every week specifically to read with a boy, suddenly makes reading cool; something he wants to do. A whole school full of women and Mom and Grandma at home could never have that impact. The fact is, it takes men to raise boys. And girls. It takes men and women. And a caring community. I love doing what I do, because I really know I’m making a difference. But I realize no matter how much I try to do, I can’t do enough by myself.
It takes all of us.
Laura from Columbus, Ohio wrote again:
I am passionate about what I do, though, because it really is saving lives. I see lots of nice tributes to teachers, but the people I really admire are the ones who reach out to the hardest-to-teach. The strugglers, the ones who need help every step of the way, the ones who have given up on themselves. Exemplary teachers work with special education, multiple handicapped, inner-city children of poverty, Somali immigrants with no English, etc. These kids are exhausting, heartbreaking, the accomplishments are often hard for you or others to see.
Or it may just be the “normal, average” kids in every class, in every club or summer camp group, or team, who need a boost. It may be they just need expectations (and gentle instruction) in manners and social graces, so other kids will enjoy being around them. But great teachers believe they are worth the best you can give them, for as long as you have access to them, because they are people of value. It starts with a relationship that says, “I will bring out the best in you, because you matter; you are important. You will work hard, and learn, and discover how good you can be.”
Good teachers don’t blame the kid or the circumstances. They keep reading and studying to find ways to help every kid learn. It’s a very hard attitude to maintain, and it burns good teachers out. They need support of staff, administrators, parents and community. These movies about hero-teachers are unrealistic because it takes a whole community working together. One person alone will never last.
The kids I work with in Reading Recovery aren’t in special ed – at least not yet. And if I do my job right, I will keep many of them out of special ed. (This is good for the schools because it’s even more expensive than the short-term one-on-one teaching I do.) These kids are “normal” but low-achieving, with low-average intelligence scores. Or they have dyslexic tendencies, but are not officially learning disabled. Or a little bit attention-deficit, but not diagnosed. Or distracted by lack of sleep, or food, or mom and dad’s divorce. Or gifted and bored, and don’t yet see how school is relevant to their lives. These “border-line” kids are the ones I have the joy and pleasure of working with. (Can you hear my passion? I think people get tired of hearing me on my soapbox!)
Tina from Bellefontaine, Ohio, wrote:
I sort of had a change of mind set and decided that “Someday I’m going to….” was a thing of the past. I decided right then and there that from then on, if there was something I had a strong urge to do that I would find a way for it to happen. Since that time I’ve done quite a bit of traveling (to Mexico a few times, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and even to Italy with my mother) and have always been intrigued by the different cultures of the world. Over the past 15 years I have also spent quite a bit of time developing my spiritual side and trying my best to be a person I (and my children) could always be proud of.
After returning from my last trip to Cancun with my children, grandchildren and a niece and nephew – I was reflecting on all the fun we had and how much I enjoyed seeing the excitement on their faces as they experience another country and it customs. Although I wouldn’t trade that trip for the world, there was still something missing. In the various countries I had visited, I still didn’t feel a connection or a clear understanding of the people and what they really were like. That is when I decided to change my travel focus and it will most likely be a life style change.
So began my search on the internet for opportunities to travel and serve abroad. This was perfect! I could travel and experience the world but yet feel that I had made a difference (although it might seem slight at times) in someone’s life along the way. Being single, I often found it difficult to find a travel companion as not all my friends had the means to just pick up and go thousands of miles away for days or weeks at a time. With the volunteer experience it allows you that freedom to travel on your own, yet meet many good friends across the country to share your experiences with.
My international volunteer experience began last Sept (2007) with a one week trip to Cusco, Peru with Globe Aware (a similar non-profit organization as Global Volunteers) to serve in the Albergue Children’s Home. It didn’t have the numbers that the orphanage you served in Lima had, as there were approximately 35 middle to high school age children living here. Most of them had at least one parent, however, their families lived high in the mountains and didn’t have many opportunities for education and interaction with others. They are chosen, based on their willingness to learn and potential, to live in the Albergue during 9-10 months of the year and attend the local schools in Cusco in the mornings, and then continue more individualized studies in the afternoons at the Albergue.
I arrived in the Cusco airport on a sunny afternoon at the end of August (which is actually the end of their winter) to meet my co-volunteers. We had a great, diverse, but small group of 7 volunteers but we were about to turn their world upside down. There were 5 women (ranging from the early 20′s to me, 51) and 2 men who fell in between in age.
When I read your article about grouting in Peru it brought back many memories of mixing and pouring concrete, laying out the rocks and then making several trips back and forth with a board to level each block of concrete we poured. Painting – we painted as much as we could – the concrete & adobe fencing around the grounds, the front gates, the smaller building that housed a few of the older boys and the guinea pigs (yes, they raise and eat guinea pigs in Peru – and yes, I tried it to say I had -not bad though). Then we came up with this grand idea – we had a strong (and for the most part) youthful, group of volunteers, and we were going to go above and beyond what was expected of us and completely rework their courtyard. One of the men in the group was a construction contractor so you can about image where it went from there! We were only there a week, however, in that time we hired local labor to tear up the old sidewalk (because there wasn’t a jack hammer to be found in Cusco to rent and it was much too difficult to do on our own). We had special concrete blocks poured specifically for this project and we were laying them out before they were completely dry. We covered the courtyard and then filled the holes in the concrete with fresh soil so that they could eventually plant grass seed in these small areas and actually have a green courtyard (which you know is VERY rare in dusty Cusco). One member stayed behind a few extra days and planted larger plants and small trees around the outskirts of the courtyard. I never worked so hard (physically) in one week in my life but we felt so proud of what we had accomplished in such a short time.
And that wasn’t all – each evening, after dinner, we worked with the kids and their English (singing songs, playing games, etc.). These children were not only strengthening their Spanish (as they speak only Quechuan in the mountain areas) but were also learning English. What an opportunity for these children! Without this program they would have spent their entire life living in poverty, with very little exposure to anyone other than their family members. This gives them the opportunity to find good jobs in the city and be able to support their families and improve their lifestyle. We also went into the mountains one day to a small school (ran similar to Albergue) but focused more on high school age children and built an Adobe cooking stove for them. When we finished, they invited us to stay for lunch and sang and danced for us in appreciation.
I know, Jane, that you can picture all of this as you’ve been there and you know what the smiles of those sweet Peruvian children look like! Although it was difficult at times (taking cold showers daily, having a bad hair day everyday because we couldn’t dry or curl your hair, having to travel with your own toilet paper because you just never knew if there would be any available… and listening to hundreds of barking dogs all night long as you were trying to stay wrapped up and warm) – I have to honestly say, it was the best “vacation” I have ever taken in my life. These memories will stay with me forever and it was the start of a new lifestyle for me.