Day 3 March 9th, 2010

Quote for the day: "Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won't come in." Alan Alda, American Actor/Activist.

Today we started at CDLN with a brief recap of yesterday starting with Jessica's inspiring journal entry. Myrian asked for feedback from the first day which we all were eager to share. Planned interactions with the boys seem to vary by the house and the will of the tutors. We are proud we all find our way to our respective homes on our own today. We are eager to see what tasks may be assigned today. I wonder would I be of any use especially since I have such limited skills in speaking Spanish. What kind of contribution could I make? June and I are with the San Benivito Family house. When we enter we are told that today we will wash the windows. Happily I thought , well here is a task I can do. June and I quickly developed a system for completing this task. I would do the upper windows and she the lower due to our height difference and we could oppose each other to check for missed spots.

So I sought a metaphor for all this window washing that also speaks to broadening our world view through challenging our assumptions. When we speak of wanting to help we need to be reminded someone has to do the basic tasks that keep the organization working. I realized in a moment of clarity looking through clean windows. After we ate lunch together with our Families, we did go back and worked with the boys covering books and they did seem to enjoy having us there to try some words of English and quiz us on our words in Spanish. Exhausted but content with a good day's work behind us the team met for dinner. The waiter finally broke down and spoke to us in English that he enjoyed serving us since we were very nice people. Thus validated we headed off for a good night's sleep to prepare for another day.

- Sarah