The Warm Fuzzies

"I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight."
Percy Shelley

In our last three months in Ecuador we have endured cold showers, seven hour bus rides through the jungle without air conditioning, kids throwing up on us, and the Ecuadorian government refusing to let us become legal. However, these things seem trivial when compared to something I like to call the "warm fuzzies." The warm fuzzies are little reminders of why we are here, and they have made our time here worth while. The first time when one of the kids, Angel, cupped his grubby little hands to my face and said, "Te quiero Tesha," or "I love you, Tesha," I thought my heart would burst. That was only the beginning.

The warm fuzzies come in different shapes and sizes but they're mainly due to kids that we work with. Every morning when we arrive at the orphanage there is one little boy named Fabian who runs up to me as fast as his little two-year-old legs can carry him. While he is running, his chubby face spreads widely in a smile and he yells, "Tesha, Tesha!" as he runs. I scoop him up in my arms and he hugs me tightly. It is one of the best feelings to be loved by a child.

Another time that's sure to give me the fuzzies is when we come in the evenings for music. As part of our program at the orphanage, Pete and I come two to three times a week to teach and sing songs with the kids. We sing in both English and Spanish, and we've been amazed at how fast they learn! My favorite song to sing at music time is "Old McDonald" because the kids love to choose the wildest animals for Mr. McDonald's farm. Inwardly I laugh as together 15 toddlers and I sing "Old McDonald had a tiger" and then we all roar as loudly as we can. Sometimes, after music, when we're tucking the kids into their beds, I hear them drifting off to sleep singing softly, "E-I-E-I-O."

Many times after music, we arrive at our house just as the sun begins to set. Sometimes, Cayambe, the third highest peak in Ecuador at almost 19,000 feet, is just visible through the clouds. This produces a different kind of warm fuzzies which is more of awe for such a majestic mountain. Recently, it was an unusually brisk evening and we could see Cayambe clearly from our balcony. Pete and I took a blanket out to the balcony and watched the sun set turning the mountain beautiful shades of red and purple.

Living in Ecuador with its many inconveniences, causes us to remember that the small trinkets of joy that we get from working with kids or witnessing the beauty in nature are some of the most rewarding experiences in life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best when he wrote, "Tell me not, in mournful numbers life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art; to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul."