Fools Of Us All - Chapter 17 (See August 4)

Tears would come later, I knew, but for now I was too tired and angry to care. I almost let that anger drive me to a fatal mistake, but Spin was paying more attention and he grabbed my arm before I could stumble around the corner without checking. Voices drifted down the hall, at least four of them, likely drawn by the sound of the blaster. But they had learned caution at this point and were proceeding with caution. That left us time to duck back and make some plans of our own.
A few minutes later we stood out in the relatively fresh air, the rain falling down our faces and matching my mood exactly. Why did you have to betray me like that? I had nothing, and you had come and shown me purpose, shown me that there really was something worth living for. Now I had nothing.
I was grateful for Spin’s silence. We walked for a couple of hours, dodging police cars and M.E.R.C. patrols. I wasn’t even thinking, just walking to get away. Instead, the smell of smoke and charred flesh brought me back to my senses and showed that I had gone back to the beginning. The remains of my old hideout stood before me. I couldn’t even begin to guess how long it had been since I had been here last, but there were no happy memories that remained. Only after twenty minutes of standing and staring did Spin’s gentle cough finally prompt me to action. With morbid curiosity I stepped through the door that was hanging askew from a single hinge, wrinkling my nose at the smell. A single, weak beam of light played across my body, the remnants of our weapons scan. I was heavily armed, but I knew that the automatic defences were no longer an issue so I just walked through the hole that used to be a door. Inside there was nothing left. Computers laid smashed, desks were splintered, and bodies were strewn everywhere. A smoking crater was all that remained of Dun’s old office, the walls collapsed around it. I viewed it all with a stoic calm, too numb to feel anymore.
That’s what I thought, anyway. There was nothing left that could be of any use to us, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I just stood and stared, taking a step or two every once in a while before a new memory hit me, flooding my mind with images that should be sad but which were instead tragic. My breathing was laboured now, but I didn’t notice, or care. Another step forward and I tripped, landing hard on the ground. I looked up, only to be confronted by the seared body of Dar, and that was it. I let it all out then, crying tears for the dead, lamenting the hand that life had dealt me.
I awoke uncountable times later, my throat raw and my hands sore. Spin was leaning against a wall, watching me with quiet concern. “Don’t scare me like that again,” he said gravely.
All I could do was nod mutely. My life had been flipped upside down so many times in the last week that I knew I could make no solid promise.

It's the same almost every day!

Welcome back to another edition of the occasional updating of my blog. As promised last time, like nine days ago, I will take you through a day in the dorms.
It starts with breakfast in the morning. That gets set out by 7:30. It is usually a simple affair, cereal, toast, milk, and juice. At the same time we have a lunch table set out - bread, meat, cheese, juice boxes (they are actually little juice pouches), yogurt, and some sort of desert. The kids make sandwiches to take to school. They have to be at the bus stop by 8:15, at least, technically they do. The bus is usually later than that. Some days we make a hot breakfast for them - eggs and hashbrowns, or waffles, or something like that.
After they are gone, we have our morning staff meeting. We talk about what needs to be talked about and we make sure we all know what is going on. Some days have long meetings, other days are quick. Wednesday we have larger staff meetings - sometimes all of the RAs together, sometimes the 'new staff', sometimes every single dorm staff member. Those meetings usually go until almost noon.
After the meeting we do things around the dorm that need to be done. This is when someone will go shopping for the dorm if it needs to be done. We usually go shopping two or three times a week, just to keep these guys fed. We do room checks, to make sure they are keeping their rooms neat (no one checks my room, thank goodness) and keep track. At the end of every two weeks those who kept their room extremely neat get a prize. It is during this post meeting time that we will often do baking for various occasions. We will make cookies or brownies for snack or for lunch dessert. Sometimes sports teams need snacks for the weekend.
After that we have some free time until around four when the kids get back from school. Around four there is a snack put out for the kids who come home then. Many like to stay after school and hang out with friends. Then they come home around six.
Once snack is eaten we hang out with the kids, doing whatever, playing ping pong or pool, or doing whatever. Supper is around six or six-fifteen. After supper many of the students have to do chores, AKA their 'gratis'. At 8 o'clock is study time for everyone but the seniors (the grade 12 students). We have to be supervising them during this time, making sure they are keeping relatively quiet and not bothering other people, even when they have no homework. That goes until ten o'clock. At ten-thirty they all go to bed, except for the seniors who have no 'bed time', but who are expected to keep up with their sleep and homework anyway.
That is a typical day. It doesn't sound too bad, but it can be quite tiring. Anyone with children can understand, I'm sure.
But I should go now. I will try to write more often, but it is hard to keep motivated to update regularly. Kids are tiring.
Auf Wiedersehen!

I need no title!

The young girl's scream tore through the train station. It was in German, but a crying child is pretty universal. We looked over to see a four year old girl standing on the platform, looking up at where her helium balloon was floating to the top of the arched ceiling that covered the middle of the platform. The string hung down tantilizingly close, but try as he might, the father could not quite lift the girl high enough to grab the balloon.
I looked around and realised that I was the tallest person standing at the station. I went over and tried to lift the girl with her father, but she was distracted by the strange man (me) coming over and couldn't reach. We let her down as the train had already pulled up and we all had to get on for the ride back home. "How much time before the train leaves?" I heard one of my fellow passengers ask. "A couple of minutes," came the reply. I scarcely paid attention. The balloon was at the highest point of the arch, the string maybe ten to fifteen feet off of the ground. There were pillars every few feet holding up the ceiling - round pillars with rings set at irregular intervals, rings that didn't even reach very high. But they looked high enough. I reached up and started climbing, quickly reaching the height I needed. Standing six feet above the ground I jumped towards the middle of the platform, reaching for that string.
I missed.
Time was running short, but I knew I had a chance yet. My line had been off, but I had the height and distance, I was sure. Byron came over, ready to lift me up on his shoulders, but before he was ready I clambered up the pole again. I lined myself up and with a burst of energy I leapt clear, willing my fingers to grasp the string. I landed, bending my knees, touching the ground. In my hand - one blue balloon.

This is a true story, written here for posterity's sake. The little girl was quite happy to have her balloon back, and quite entertained. She was an adorable little girl. The father was grateful, and I think a little amused as well. We had been speaking English amongst ourselves, so I'm sure he knew we were foreigners, but he managed a 'Thank you' in English, and I realised I don't know how to say 'You're welcome' in German, so I said it in English. It was fun getting to be the hero. There was spontaneous clapping from other train passengers when I grabbed the balloon. I've never been spontaneously clapped at before. Just one more new experience for my German days.

Next up I will be taking you through a typical day in the dorms. Stay tuned!

'Sup?

All right, one week down. Already? Wow, I thought I just got here today. I guess not...
I figured I would take the time to talk about 'ma boiz', um, that being the students in my dorm. I'm cool.
The name of my dorm is Maugenhard. It is so named because it is in the town of Maugenhard. Town is a loose term, there isn't anything in the town besides houses. Understand what I mean by that - there are only two things that you can purchase in the town. First is fruit from fresh fruit stands set out in front of people's houses. They don't even man them, they just expect you to take the fruit you want and leave the money. And people do! Crazy, non? The only other thing to purchase is cigarettes, and those aren't at a store. They are in a vending machine. That happens to be right across the street from the dorm. Also, the street is just over one car width wide. It is two way traffic. So that is the dorm location where we cram in 30 guys between the ages of 14 and 17, grades nine to twelve, or freshman to senior.
The guys are great, I love 'em all. We have some young guys, first year away from school, unsure about what is going on and a little shy. One is a Korean lad who has been living in Istanbul with his family. He is a funny guy, very polite and obedient (that won't last). He still bows to people when he greets them, at least people he doesn't know, which is a Korean thing. It is funny because there are certain behaviours that seem pretty standard for someone of his age (he's in grade nine) back home, certain social graces that may be lacking and attitudes that are still, well, juvenile. That is not a bad thing because they are still young and growing and learning. Well, this Korean child is basically exactly the same, even though he was raised in a Korean/Turkish culture. It boggles my mind how alike people are, especially kids.
I debated with myself over whether I would use the names in the this post, but right now I'm not going to. The short reason why is that I just don't feel comfortable with indiscriminitely putting other people's names out on the internet for anyone to see. I guess I may be over-cautious on this point, but I would rather be that than cause problems. The internet has as many bad points and people as good, so for the moment, the kids shall remain anonymous.
Back to my guys. We have one guy who is in grade twelve and he is 6'6" tall, and quite the trash-talker. He has a bit of that black athlete hip-hop vibe to him. It would be easy to dismiss him as another cocky punk, but then you spend some time with him and see that he is rather caring and kind. Don't get me wrong, he talks big and is that fun sort of trash talky attitudey person, but he is not mean and generally follows the rules. I feel like I can trust him (though who knows, maybe in a few months I will be locking him in his room or something, but I don't think so). It's entertaining, that's for sure.
I won't go through all of them, one by one, because that would make this post much too long. There are ten or eleven Korean students, three black students, one Mexican, and the rest are white folks, but most of them have spent their time in different countries beside North American ones. One was born in Mali or Namibia, or some African country like that and has spent most of his time in Africa. It is quite a diverse group.
There are some who like to play video games, and others who are more into sports. We have some amazing musicians, and though I haven't had a chance to see it yet there are apparently some phenomenol athletes, though I can believe it. Some guys are quite mature, and others are still developing. Some are quiet, others are loud. One guy is pretty much all mouth, but it is not a bad thing. He isn't a bad guy, he just talks alot, and is quite entertaining. I love that boy! It is hard to get him to do what he should sometimes because you can't be upset. He is defying me, but in an entertaining fashion.
Likes young'uns everywhere they push the edge when they can, but they know to follow our directions when we give them. We are rather lenient because we don't think they need to be living in a military boot camp. We set the boundaries and let them bend them, but if they are broken then we snap them back and let the rope out slowly as they earn it. I like mixing metaphors.
Please pray that they would continue to be blessings to me and not become burdens or curses. Pray for one child who is rather young and almost not ready to be away from home - it has been a tough first few days, but it is improving. I want it to work out for him, but pray that we would have wisdom in knowing what is best, and that he would find some friends to anchor him here, some people that he connect with here in a deep way. And praise God with me that things are going well. I wasn't sure going in how it would be, but now I feel like it is going well. One final prayer request - the dorm mom's niece was recently (as in last week) diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She (the niece) had surgery to remove her thyroid last Wednesday and it was more complicated than originally thought. The cancer had spread a bit further than they realised and they ended up taking out a nerve that controlled her vocal cords and had to graft a nerve from somewhere else so that she could talk again (apparently you can do that). So Cindy (the dorm mom) flew out to Prague where her sister and her family are living and helped out with the family as they went through this. Pray that the girl would recover completely and that the cancer would be gone, and that Cindy would be able to return here able to fulfill her role here, which is not exactly an easy job all the time, and is not made easier by issues such as this.
Peace out!