So This Is Christmas...

It's Sunday, the day after my toy drive, and I am officially exhausted. It's been extremely tiring and emotionally draining, but my 4th and last toy drive is but a distant memory.

I'll admit it, I cried. Twice. I didn't want to, but I just broke down. More on that later.

It started off on the wrong foot Saturday morning. After staying up until 10pm on Friday night packing about 95% of the toys, along with some very kind friends helping, I decided I was done. I glanced at the cookies and juice that people have been donating for the children and it didn't look like it would be enough for 450+ children. Crap, I'm not going anywhere tonight, I thought. So in the morning, I decided that I would go and buy more cookies and juice. I left about 7:40am and although I knew that people would start trickling in about 8am, I had no choice. Maureen, a Peace Corps volunteer who stayed over at our house Friday night, stayed and opened the doors for people. I didn't get back to my house until 8:30am+ and of course everyone was already at my house. We all ended up leaving for Ojojona and what would happen on our way there? We, as the lead car, missed our turn. Crap. This is Honduras - it's not always that easy to get back on the right track once you've missed an exit. I called one of the Embassy's drivers and asked him what the hell to do now. Thank goodness he was able to lead us back on the right track, literally.

We get there in Ojojona and it looks good so far. It's the same day as the start of the Fair in Ojojona, but there isn't too much of a crowd yet. Maribel, my main contact in Ojojona, is there waiting for me. She works in the municipality in Ojojona to better women's lives. She is a fighter and a hero of mine. Two Peace Corps volunteers are also there, along with the pick up truck I would rent for Lps. 600. Very cool. No waiting. We get down to walk around a bit and go to the bathroom, then we're off! All of the people with us, except for two, have never taken this trek with me before. It seems that whoever goes in the previous years don't return with me. Why would they? It's sacrificing their whole Saturday, driving 5mph on an unpaved, rocky, hilly road for two hours to see dirty, poor children and their parents. Who would be crazy enough to do that????

As we're driving, I think there is a lot of tension and fear among the two SUVs following us. This is their first year, and they didn't expect the roads to be this scary. Ten minutes before our destination, we stop to regroup. Santa and Pepe, the non-Spanish speaking elf, get dressed in the woods. There are two stories here. The first, the funny, haha-look-our-friends-are-getting-dressed-up-hey-lets-take-tons-of-blackmail-photos part.

Then there's the second story. The real reason I have been doing this for years. The children:

We arrive at the "school" (what school do you know have a few tables and chairs and no books?) and the children are waiting for us, and they have been since 9am. It is now 11:00am. They are quiet and cautious as I approach them with a smile and even mutter a few words of greeting. I ask my friend Luis to get the kids separated by gender, youngest at the front. Sadly, when you ask these children how old they are, they just look at you like it's the toughest question in the world. Sometimes their parents don't even know.

I ask for the keys to open the door to the school so we can set up the cookies and drinks inside. Of course, the keys are nowhere to be found. I ask for a table and a chair for Santa. Nada. Finally, someone is able to find a table and a chair for me in one of the houses near by. We set up the toys behind the table and chair. I'm noticing that there is nowhere near the 450 kids I was expecting. Nothing close to that. I'm relieved, yet saddened because I really wanted to get those kids some toys, especially on my last year. I ask and they say that one of the aldeas (villages) didn't show up because word probably didn't get around to them. I look at the bright side: it's easier to manage now.

Luis gets the kids excited, as much as unenergized, malnourished children can be, to see Santa. Finally Santa and Pepe, who have been waiting behind the hill the whole time, come down and greet the children. Many are smiling, and many more are a little confused, as is Santa himself I presume. Santa, who this year is played convincingly by one of the Marines, sits down and talks to the first child. She wants nothing to do with this and doesn't come forward. Santa, trying his best to make this work, entices her with a toy. It doesn't work. The mom comes by and tells the child it's ok. Finally she takes the toy, apprehensively. It's as if this is the first time in her life anyone has ever given her anything. And sadly, it probably was.

Things go a little smoother as the children go down the line. Then it hits me - this is my last year. I look at the children, and I don't see their beauty anymore. I see everything that is wrong with them. Their dirty faces, their tattered clothes, their shoeless feet, their lack of energy due to malnutrition, their ignorance from not being schooled. I look at their parents and I see they are no different from their children. It's as if I am seeing into their children's future, and it does not look good. I get mad. At the system. At the government. At the rich. At the way things are. It doesn't have to be this way. Why is it? Not being able to help myself, I repeat to myself, "No child should live like this!"

Then I turn away and cry. I'm giving them toys. Toys? They don't need toys, they need shoes and clothes, they need food, they need comfort, they need EDUCATION. They need a fucking future. I can't stop crying. Some haven't eaten in days and I'm giving them a fucking soccer ball. I go for a walk and try to calm myself down.

I often look at my own children and I see so much spunk and internal strength. They rule our house today, and will one day rule the world if they so choose. These children that I am looking at don't believe that. This is their now, and this is their future. Without hope, any sign of a future is gone. They just lack spirit because no one has ever told them that it's there. They just have to one day find it.

I vow that will try to do more work in the future. Even as I return to Washington D.C. next year, I will continue working for these children. It may not be giving away toys, but it'll be in some other way.

I speak with the aldea leader, a soft-spoken man. I ask his name, but no matter how many times I ask him to repeat it, I could not say it back. He tells me that he has a three-year-old girl with cerebal palsy and hands me a paper from the hospital with her information on it. He asks if he can bring home a toy to her as his eyes well up with tears. If I was sad and crying earlier, how must these people be feeling on a day-to-day basis?

After they receive their toys, they walk over to the other side and take their cookies and juice. We are getting close to the end of the lines and I'm somewhat satisfied. Not completely, of course. People who stand up for change do so because they are never satisfied.

We leave, and that's it. My 4th toy drive in Ojojona has come and gone. I don't feel like crying at this point. I feel somewhat indifferent.

Next comes my favorite part, handing out toys to children who live in the houses on our path back. We've always done this in the previous years, but this time, it was hardcore. We had more than enough toys left over so I was determined to give away as much as possible. Any child within a shouting radius was not safe from our toy purging. At first, it was slow and infrequent. I had to keep getting out of the truck to find a toy in the back. Then after several stops, it occured to me that it was better to take a few toys with me to my seat. Then from there, it evolved into bringing in bags and bags of toys with me.

We'd stop and my helpers would give them cookies and candycanes and I'd give them the bags of toys. After a while, more bags from one of the SUVs following behind were delivered to the pickup truck in front of us. In that pick-up truck was Maribel, a Marine, an English teacher and two Honduran college students (with whom I was very pleased to see helping their fellow Honduras - Hondurans helping Hondurans - what a concept). They probably couldn't have been more different, but yet here they were, waving and shouting for the kids to come out of their houses and get their toys! And boy did the kids come, one, two, three, four, five at a time, running, jumping, falling over - just for a toy. They were extremely thankful. You can see it in their eyes.

Suddenly, it occured to me. I may not be able to change their lives, or their way of life, like I wanted to back there at the school, crying and cursing this country. It may happen one day, if Honduras gets better leaders, leaders who know what it's like to be poor and humble and who fight for their own people the way Maribel and that man with the unpronouncable name do, and when they instill in their children a goal of getting a better education, so that they may not end up like themselves.

But for today, for these last several hours anyway, I've given them something to smile about. They now have a teddy bear to hug during those lonely nights, a puzzle to stimulate their minds, coloring books to help their creativity. In their faces, I saw confusion at first at the idea of a complete stranger handing them a bag of toys, then elation. You care about us?, their eyes seemed to question. Then smiles and lo and behold, a sparkle in their eyes! The same sparkle that exists in my children's eyes! They are no different from my kids, except for the fact that they were born into his life. If only these kids believed they could rule the world as well.