Niños son niños

My first Tuesday in the afterschool program, we had the kids make masks. Here´s the finished product, en masse on the slide in the back.

They´re called los niños de las calles. They all have homes, to one degree or another, and at least one other person resides in the same place. Though not technically homeless, they´re only a step or two away. In the hours after school, they rely on a church program, two full-timers and a revolving door of volunteers to help them with their homework and give them an alternative to street life -- and going home.

The kids are kids, 7 to 12 years old, and just like any other kids anywhere in the world. They want to play. They want friendly, personal contact. They don´t want to be hungry. They want help with their homework, or with tying their shoes. They don´t want to be afraid.

That´s why they come to the afterschool program. We´re friendly, we provide assistence, we let them play -- without a sense of pain looming over them. We give them a little structure -- homework before games; no hitting; showers before dinner on dinner day.

A couple of new pals pile on for a picture. My mask, made the day after Peru tied Argentina in a World Cup match, had soccer balls on it and said, Estamos un equipo. We are a team.

Monday is a shortened day for the kids, as the staff meets to plan the week. Homework first, for those who have some. Then, we play games with the kids, like chess and checkers and little memory card games. We watch them in the little tiny patch in the back with a slide and momkey bars and rocks -- not gravel, but fist-sized rocks, covering the ground.

Tuesday, homework first, then some games. Then we made the masks. We tried to encourage creativity and expression.

Wednesday, we played Bingo. Whenever a kid won (and every kid did, eventually), I would yell Biiiiiiinnnnnggggggooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo like the South American soccer announcers yell goooooooooooooal after every goal. The kids loved it. After I won and got my candy prize, I ran around the middle of the room lifting my sweatshirt over my head and yelling like the players do.

I can`t imagine the diet these kids maintain at home, but judging by the reaction to the French toast, it doesn`t include butter and maple.

Thursday is shower day, because none of these kids have any hot water at home, and most of them do not have a shower or bathtub. Just a sink with cold water. All of the kids are dirty when they show up between 2:30 and 3 p.m. Some more so than others.

Thursday also is usually the least-attended day of the week. One day each week usually was some kind of dinner day. So, I had the great idea of putting the two together, and letting the kids know that they had to take a shower, in hot water, with soap and a towel, before getting dinner.

We gave showers to 20 kids, close to if not a record, according to the staff.

El gringo loco, who takes one helluva photo, mans the stove. Ray, a Brit, was the butter man and Jill, a Scot, doled out the finished toast.

I then cooked French toast for about 40 kids (we were running out of time and had to halt the showers). They never saw anything like it and never tasted anything like maple syrup. About 8 little girls, 7-10 years old, were killing themselves trying to help me. They were desperate to help. It`s weird ... they get so little at home, anything they get from us is special. It`s really sad, but still, they´re kids, and they don´t know any better and they don´t care, and they´re funny.

The boys were, surprise, the more energetic on Friday, park day.

Friday was park day. A little soccer, a lot of spinning kids on the carousels, pushing kids on swings. The park charges 50 centimos to get in, about 17 cents, and most of the kids never go unless it`s with the school. They can´t afford to.

The kids call the volunteers profesor, or profesora, or -- more informally, profi. Friday, there were about nine kids playing with us the whole time and calling me profi whom I later realized were not with our school program. It`s a poor neighborhood, and all the kids want.

Girls will be girls, hey? They prefer portraits to action shots.

The girls tend to be a little more possessive of the staff. One of them will grab your hand and hold it for half an hour. They´ll try to dominate your time, making you play the same game over and over. The boys are more hit and run. They`re all nice. They`re all desperate, without knowing it, for attention and love. Many have rotted teeth. Most have one pair of shoes. Many will drop out of school solely because they can´t afford the school uniform.

Next door to the school is a cantina. And next door to that and next door to that. They`re just 15 by 15 foot rooms with picnic tables. They serve chicha, a type of corn beer fermented in the back rooms. At 6 p.m. on my first day at the school, a Monday, the three cantinas were packed, with 20-30 people in each. Before walking 100 meters, I passed four places where men had urinated on the sidewalk in the very recent past. At 6 p.m. on a Monday.

These kids have incredible obstacles facing them, and, in the land of family, ironically family is their biggest hurdle.