Thoughts from the bottom of the oatmeal pan

The indiscernible words tangle with a familiar melody, the sounds floating through the sticky kitchen as I impatiently clean green beans. Leti is singing again. It’s Monday morning, the start to another predictable week at the Hogar. Everything about my life here has become predictable. I wake up at 5:15 every morning, and get out of bed at 5:30, just in time to drag the world’s sleepiest boys out of bed. After showers and devotions, we eat breakfast. I could probably survive here without a calendar or clock. I can tell you what day of the week it is based on what we’re eating. After breakfast, sometimes I stay in the kitchen to help Andrea, the cook, until I teach. Monday is one such day. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m still full of slightly burnt oatmeal or because it’s barely 7:30 and already sweltering, but I feel crabby. And Leti is singing. She sings every morning while she wipes the tables. When she’s not singing, she’s asking me questions from halfway across the dining hall in her warbled voice. Most of the time I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I have discovered a trend in topics, even if the transitions are random. One minute she’s telling me about Christmas, and then BAM, we’re talking about babies and how they like to soil their diapers. I stick to safe responses, usually ‘yes’ works quite well. I say yes because if she’s just asked me a question and I didn’t understand it, she’ll think I did and move on anyway. If she just made a statement, and I agreed with her, she’ll be happy. It’s a win-win situation.

I continue to clean the beans, wishing I could drown out Leti’s voice. I’m not sure what is worse, her singing or her incessant chatter. I guess I should clarify something first. Leti is mentally handicapped in some way. Unfortunately everyone here just says she’s crazy, but that’s a very shallow diagnosis. She just turned 27 years old, but this would not be obvious to the casual observer. She has to be directed in everything she does. She drives Andrea nuts every day because she always runs off before she’s done. She also has a mean streak. She’s been known to get in fights with the other girls. Just two weeks ago she and another girl got into a fight at the sink. It wasn’t like they just started to scream at each other, no, they were pulling hair and clawing each other’s faces and arms. Leti also once gave an unsolicited buzz cut to a girl while she was sleeping.

My desire to escape makes me work faster. I’m ashamed of my thoughts; even though they don’t leave my lips, they leave a bad taste in my mouth. My attitude and thoughts are kind of like the bottom of the oatmeal pan, burnt and ugly. They may be hidden from sight, but all it takes is a little stir of the spoon and their bitter essence pollutes the rest of the pot or my day.

We’ve been studying about love in our Sabbath School quarterly. I find it fairly easy to talk about loving people when I’m sitting in the shade on Sabbath morning, but it’s a different story when Monday morning rolls around and I’m faced with putting those words into actions. This is the ultimate challenge for me this year, loving. I want my love to fill those around me like a good bowl of oatmeal, but the challenge is making sure I don’t let my thoughts burn on the bottom. I’m going to start with Leti.