Chocolate, Love, Dancing

Arminda makes us pizza for lunch and I fall asleep right after I lay down to take my siesta. I have nightmares that I arrive late to Alalay and the girls are sad. I wake up and dash out the door, on time. Alex and I buy chocolate bars for the girls. Each has a different flavor of crème inside- orange, pineapple, mint, grape, raspberry, lime. When we arrive the girls have not come home from school yet so we wait. They are so excited to get these big bars of chocolate and pick out their own flavor. Shirley takes an orange crème and thanks us repeatedly with dirty chocolate kisses. Mary takes a grape crème because that is her boyfriend Miguel’s favorite flavor. Anahi presents me with a woven thread bracelet that she has been making for me. It is red and black, my favorite colors and it the perfect size for my wrist. She gives me another one, blue and black, to go with it. I sit in the living room and Gladis tells me about her former job as a traffic zebra. The mayor offers all the children of appropriate age who live in halfway homes and orphanages jobs to dress up as zebras and direct traffic. It’s an okay job, you just wear this ridiculous zebra outfit and direct pedestrians at busy intersections. But Gladys says the uniform is really hot, even in the winter. And sometimes cars don’t listen so it can be dangerous. She quit after a week and they didn’t pay her so she went to the office today to complain. I was proud of her that she wanted to try to take care of this situation all by herself. I would have been intimidated at age seventeen to demand compensation for a week’s work. What a girl. As we sat studying flat worms for her nature class, Mary asked me to be her madrina for her quintera this November. I said I would be honored. Joselin and Anahi will have their quintera in a few years too, so I will be the proud madrina of three beautiful girls. Today as we were hanging out, coloring and doing hair, a song came on the radio. It was Bendita La Luz by Maná, one of my all time favorites. I danced with Shirley and Joselin to the song, twirling and spinning them all around the room until they were out of breath. Bendito Dios por encontrarnos. I couldn’t agree more. I got a special hug from Gaby today when she came home from school. She is such a quiet girl but she is always near me when she has free time from her chores and always softly smiling. I can feel her love in the simple things she does, like brushing my hair or playing little summer camp hand games. She has a bracelet that identical to what my mother and father wear, a simple string of wooden beads with pictures of Mary and Jesus on each bead. On the back it says Sergio & Gaby, her name and her chico’s name. She giggles and lovingly traces the letters with her fingertip. Maria was sitting drinking her tea and I came up behind her, singing the song, Ava Maria, cuando serás mia? She rewarded my antics with a great, hearty laugh. I love hearing it. As usual, when it was time to go, Anahi walked me to the door and I ate her with kisses and said goodbye. You always tickle me! she giggles with a crooked smile as her bangs fall in her face. Only four more days. My heart is breaking.