Marlin & Nora

Here are two of the beautiful older girls. They have both been down there for years. I never saw Marlin for the first 6 months of going down there until Ben & Noah came down and she started sharing her story and photos of her family and quincineta with Ben. Nora knows english, and I met her on my first trip in March when she bonded a lot with Beka Knott. They both play the violin and practice diligently to improve their natural talent of music.

This past weekend, we didn't help out in the kitchen as much as we normal would... Yet, when Keith and I helped out on Sunday night, it was a total blast. Marlin is a girl that takes responsibility very seriously, so when little kids come up with their cute little pathetic puppy dog faces and ask for an extra slice of lime, lemon, or an orange, she says no. Yet, I try to sneak it to them and hope they think I am ignorant to the rules. Well, let's just say she totally called me out on it. She told me that I do not have the ability to say no when the kids stick out their bottom lips and say please. To make her point even more, she started to ask me for oranges and would imitate them. I kept telling her no and told her that I can do it. We continued playfully arguing as she was trying to teach me a lesson, and then after the kitchen was clean, and the oranges still were not passed out, Keith and I left. She then sent someone to come get me and tell me that I needed to help pass out the oranges. I went back to the kitchen and then told her that I will not help because she thinks I can not say no. It was so awesome, and we were laughing and yelling so much at each other. It's crazy, because it's times like where I realize that all of the kids pay attention to us, even when we're not necessarily spending time with them. I try to always spend time with her, but there are quite a few times where it just doesn't happen for some reason or another.

Nora... oh how everyone fell in love with her back in March of '06. I rarely get to spend time with Nora because she is in charge of the little kids a lot (so is Marlin really) and so the time with both of them is split because I'm trying to spend time with all of them as well - and face it, how much quality time do you get with people when there are little kids climbing all over you? Anyways, between that and all of their violin performances, my time with them is scarce. Yet, this weekend, the other group was taking 19 of the older girls to where they were staying for a meal. We thought there was going to be other things as well, but not so much. We didn't eat until 7:45, so we had over an hour and a half just to entertain ourselves. I spent a bunch of that time with Nora. We played Chinese Checkers and then just sat and talked in the chair for a long time. I learned about how she is going to be taking Italian and French this year in school and how she is going to major in languages in high school. I learned so much about her life and we went back and forth from speaking in Spanish and English, and it was just such a beautiful time. We also read a really weird story about pigs in a magazine, and we laughed and told stories.

These girls are beautiful on the inside and out, and spending time with them this weekend was such a tremendous blessing. They are two that will be there for a long time - they don't have the hopes of going home someday, and I am so thankful for all of the time I got to spend with them.