Day 5

Well I"ve done well thus far with working with the people at Mother Teresa's but today brought new people and very sad experiences. I"ll begin on a bright note of one of the new men that I worked with. Today I did not stay in the small room with 28 men, but instead moved to new and different rooms throughout the first floor of the building. Little did I know that the reason I haven't seen these men in the room I work or in the courtyard is bc they are bedridden.

Brighter note is what I said, right. I went to a man who needed a heating pad on his lower back. As usual, I made my rounds of heating pads, left them for about 10 minutes and then began massaging as needed. This individual was fully clothed when I brought the heating pad. When I came back 10 minutes later, he had pulled his pants down, apparently to give me a full and clear place to massage, and I was staring at old man bum. Not only was it old man bum but he was wearing tighty whiteys with a logo, Boston! How crazy is that! Pretty funny. Anyway, lower back I did. I also worked on his neighbor who was blind and kept asking if i was married, cute.

As mentioned before, I have been dealing with the poverty and intensity of my work rather well, 2 days and all... One of the rooms i was sent to was a man i was to massage his lower back, arms, and legs. Just beginning to write about him my eyes are welling up bc of the vivid visual i have. this man is so weak and fragile that he cannot leave his bed, cannot sit up, and only speaks in a whisper. His arms and legs are not round like yours and mine but flat and thin. He is literally skin and bones and the thought of rubbing them made me cringe. He could barely communicate with me and I was so afraid i would hurt him. I have honestly never come so close to someone near death in my life and it is still very different from someone we know dying and losing weight perhaps at home. Sigh. This man has no family, barely any contact with people, and just waiting to graduate from life. I told him I would stop by tomorrow and and his eyes opened a bit more which i'd like to take as a good sign. I pray that no one in this world has to go through what this poor man is going through. He will stay with me for a long long time.

I don't want to leave today's blog on a depressing note so I will say that I escaped to another new area outside Surco called Miroflores. It is on the water with lots of shops and restaurants and is probably the prettiest place I've seen yet. I'm getting some good ideas about souvenirs as well. Also, trying to book a ticket to see some glaciers this weekend after work. Tomorrow we're taking some of the men out of the home and going to play soccer in the town, should be fun. I also get to take pictures!