The second had-to-be-there story this weeks comes from just a few days ago. But first, it involves knowing two of my favorite kids here: Jose (whom you've all met before In Which TJ discusses behavior) and his brother Jordao (The one about what Jordao wants to be when he grows up).
For those of you that forgot, Jose is mentally handicapped and we think physically too. We only think physically because legally he's 13 and currently the size of a 7 year old. He lost a tooth last week. A baby tooth. That he still had. He has problems talking due to his gigantic tongue and will probably remain in second grade the rest of his life (which if he remains the same size nobody will notice).
Jordao is in second grade with Jose, except he is a normal size, for a 14 year-old. (Jordao entered school last year for the first time as a 12 year-old in first grade and has a long way to go as far as catching up is concerned.) We last heard from him when he said when he grows up he want to be a pilot. Jordao has the problem of not being able to perceive communication. We're not sure if his difficulty is in the hearing or the thinking (thus wanting to be an airplane when he grows up).
Both Jordao and especially Jose are often the source of entertainment. This morning, I watched the two of the play soccer for about an hour. With only each other. It was the most heated match I've ever seen here---arguing and levying penalties for tripping (the ball was the one doing the tripping). Whenever somebody scored it was the most unbounded joy I've ever seen. And they played the entire length of our field (80 meters/88 yards).
Being here in the orfonato is the best environment for these two that society literally views as worthless. And here they are loved not just for being who they are, but also for the endless amount of entertainment they provide (see this morning's soccer game). They can also be very difficult and stubborn, but much of that is attributed to their mental conditions. They require a little more patience than normal kids do. They are also extremely attached to each other and live in a delicate balance of being one another's greatest friend, greatest protector/defender, and greatest tattle-teller.
Yesterday, Jordao got to do the tattling. When they came back from school Jordao ran up to me to tell me something really important. I was in a crowd of about five or six boys at that moment. Once Jordao finally caught his breath to be able to talk Jose came running up shouting his rebuttal before Jordao had even had a chance to speak. Unfortunately for us trying to understand what was going on, Jose was just shouting “Nuh-uh. He's lying.” over and over as loud as he could. Finally we got Jordao to start talking.
“Jordao, what happened in school today?” I asked. Jordao replied, “Today in school there was a fight.” I pressed Jordao, “Who was fighting?” Jordao said what we were all suspecting, “Jose was fighting.” So far Jordao that had said nothing we couldn't already have figured out from the protesting Jose. What Jordao said next surprised us.
“Jose was fighting with the pencil sharpener.” After a moment of stunned silence from us, the observers, we burst into laughter. This was just so hilarious for two reasons. The first was because we all know Jordao has a trouble with words. (Just the other day in church he came up to me to say that his bones hurt. And then when I asked him which bones he inexplicably pointed to one of the only parts of his body that doesn't have a bone, his nose.) We all figured that he meant to say the fight was about a pencil sharpener, so for him to say Jose was fighting with the pencil sharpener was beyond funny. The second reason that caused the laughter to continue for minutes on end was that we all pictured Jose actually fighting with the pencil sharpener. This is the same Jose that once spent fifteen minutes furiously wrestling against a jump-rope because he was practicing for snakes and then started crying when he lost and needed to be untangled!
We eventually figured out that Jose needed a pencil sharpener in school and wanted to borrow one from Riquito, boy in the orphanage in Jose's class. Jose, after being refuse and not understanding why, got upset and angry and upset and started demanding the pencil sharpener more and more (the difficult side of Jose's condition). Riquito eventually had enough of it and decided to start beating up Jose.
Most all the kids here, but not all of them, understand that Jose is a little different and requires more patience to deal with, so this is not a daily problem we're dealing with. When he used to get frustrated and angry we told him if he didn't stop that lions would come and take him away, but he wised up to that after a while. Now we're back to using just good old fashioned patience and love instead of implausible threats.
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