The Normalcy of Overcoming Adversity

With the intention of reflecting on my experience thus far in Mexico, I read my journal entries from my first month at NPH, July 2009. I was comforted to find optimism, vigor, and enthusiasm for the coming year. I wrote about my fear of living in a Spanish-speaking world and working with high schoolers. I mentioned my excitement in meeting new people and living with volunteers.

What most caught my attention was my initial amazement and written detail of the life stories of my kids and co-workers. When I first arrived, each pequeno seemed to leave me goggle-eyed. Upon hearing their stories of overcoming abuse, extreme poverty, and abandonment, they became something almost superhuman in my mind. I had this overwhelming want to "rescue" them and be that person in their lives who unconditionally supported them and helped them see what the world could offer them if they only punched their pasts in the face and set on forward. It was like I would act out some Hollywood movie.

Unconsciously, over the following months, that mentality faded. As I lived side-by-side with my kids they became "normal" to me and a little more human. I never thought about their reasons for being in NPH. Instead, they have become my lovable, teenage brats with whom I have trials and tribulations as would any guardian. They have annoyed the crap out of me when they refuse to go to bed or make me late for church because they aren't done with their make-up. They have made me laugh when they imitate my gringo accent. We have had countless conversations about the most meaningless and the most important things.

I don't mean to overwrite what they have overcome or want to say that their adversity is something we don't see in the home. Every week we have heartaches here: a girl who leaves the home because she no longer wants to be in the house and can't yet see the benefits of staying in school through university, a boy who is failing all his classes or gets into fights at school resulting in suspension or expulsion, or others who have such depression they don't want to get out of bed and cry themselves to sleep at night. But what I do mean to say is that at first I was unsure how to approach these kids because their adversity was all I thought about. When really, what I have learned is that by putting their pasts at the back of my mind, I feel I have been able to be there more fully for them. My relationships with them have been formed without any basis in their reasons for being at NPH.

We're all human. Just born in different places into different circumstances. When we can look past that, that is when we can help one another. A truly rewarding relationship must be a reciprocal one. And ironically, by my kids' adversity becoming normalcy, I've been able to learn from them more than I would have otherwise.