Strength

“I thought she was a strong girl,” I heard my grandads newest lady friend say from their bedroom down the hall, after my sobbing had subsided enough for me to hear anything.

“She is strong,” grandad replied, “but she can be emotional too.”

Sometimes a memory is a seed that has been planted, lying dormant in the deepest part of the brain, until something awakens it. This memory has been replaying in my mind often over the last few weeks, and while it has always been vivid it has never had a whole lot of significance until now.

The last few weeks have been hard, there isn’t another way to say it, and it has made me ponder the meaning of strength… Is it showing strength to stay in a situation that you don’t want to be in? Is it strong to put on a brave face when all you want to do is curl in a ball and cry? Is strength keeping your worries and troubles inside, letting them eat you up, refusing to talk about them? Or is strength more about acceptance, rather than avoidance, more about working and learning than it is soley about making it away from that place in which you don’t want to be.

At the start of this year I never realised how much strength I would need for this journey. Stepping into the airplane, not looking back, holding back the tears as best I could, that was strong. Sleeping in a half demolished farm house in Argentina, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, that was strong, as was telling the truth the next day and getting ourselves out of that situation. Meeting amazing people and having to say goodbye is always a test of strength. A month ago when we were living without power, I thought maybe it was strong to have a cold shower without complaining. Two weeks ago perhaps I was showing strength when I smiled at our landlady while she was shouting at me for breaking the electricity or closing the door too loudly or something or other. Last week I tried so hard to be strong when I found out my beautiful Tyson has cancer, but I couldn’t be strong. I broke down as soon as one of the kids at WaaW asked me what was wrong. But perhaps that was showing a strength in itself, showing these kids with a million hardships that sometimes even the profe can’t be strong, it’s okay to let it out. Last week it was strong to ask for help, to step up and demand fair treatment by asking a one of our teachers to help us reclaim our bond. Earlier this week I was strong when, after three days of broken promises of furniture in our new apartment I stepped outside my comfort zone and said no.  Enough is enough. I would prefer to be homeless than to put up with the type lies that can only be told when they can’t be fully understood. Yesterday I was strong in the taxi, while I was holding back tears an wondering just exactly where we would end up. I know I always have something and someone to fall back on, and for that I am lucky. 

Through all of our dramas, all it takes is for that little face peering in off the street to bring me back to reality, to make me realise that all of this strength I have is nothing compared to the kid out on the cold street at midnight selling finger puppets to the drunk tourists, the six year old who has just had two teeth pulled opening his mouth up wide to show you, the little man who fell out of a second floor window and a week later is up and running, telling the us how much he missed us. All it takes is the grateful hug of an eleven year old boy, 'Gracias Profe', to make it all worthwhile.

Strength always means different things in different situations. Strength isn't always about holding back the tears when nothing is going right, strength is getting past those tears to what is beyond them, an experience from which to learn and grow. Beyond those tears and that hardship there will always be something positive, be it lady luck at the other end, a new friend or even just a memory, as long as you keep pushing you’ll come across it eventually, as we have, here in our beautiful new apartment with two lofts, our beautiful friends, a package waiting at the post office to be picked up tomorrow and a little chihauhau in the courtyard to keep us company.

Thank you luck, thank you strength, and thank you James for holding me together over the last couple of weeks. Once again, with electricity, a place to call home and exciting things happening at the Aldea, I have re-claimed my optimism. I feel strong.