Mi Pepino.

When I was 20 years old I moved to Santa Barbara, Honduras.

I lived at a home for children, Hogar de Niños.

That was the year of mi Pepino.

Nahum was his given name, but mi Pepino was his special name. I'm not even sure how I came to call him my cuccumber. I just did. He never seemed to mind either, he would call me silly names too but none of them stuck on me like pepino did for him.

I remember one day we were laying on the benches in the court yard between the buildings. We were not really talking, we were simply sharing the love language of quality time. Then the little guy pipes up and asks me, "Sonya, what are we doing?" I replied, "Nada". Then without missing a beat he says, "In that case we must be pirates." He was referring to the pirates who don't do anything from Veggie Tales! Ah, what a kid. So smart and quick.

If you asked him his favorite book of the bible: Nahum. He liked that it talked about fighting and warrior things.

Another time he was playing with the other little boys in my room and they were pretending that my monkey was flying because they had seen a video clip from another volunteer that had a monkey flying across my the screen. I remember him asking me if he could have my monkey. I told him no because it was my special monkey that I had gotten when I was younger and I took it everywhere with me but that he was welcome to come to my room anytime and play with it.

There was a time when he and some other boys spent the night camped out on our bedroom floor and he woke up with nightmares. He had been having scary dreams about snakes. After he woke up several times I had him climb in bed and lay next to me for awhile until he wasn't so scared. He was awake for such a long time and the dreams had been so real for him.

One night some short term volunteers had given out glow bracelets to the kids. The little boys promptly went to their rooms and proceeded to open the glow sticks and splatter the glow all over themselves, their walls, their beds and anything else near by. The room looked awesome, the kids looked crazy and the event was an epic moment in letting children be children for me. After all it was non toxic and wouldn't show up after the glow died.

In the spring before I left was Mother's Day. Since most of the children at the elementary school were from the home that didn't leave them many mothers. Most of the children were not true orphans but mi Pepino and his three sisters were. I remember him asking me if I could come down to the school to watch their little performance for the mothers. After they recited their poem he found me and gave me a card with my name on it and saying how he loved me. He wanted me to be there so he could show me he cared.

When the sad day came for me to leave, I put off packing until all the kids had gone to bed for the night. The longer I could pretend it wasn't happening the better it would be for me and my denial. I knew I would never be the same because of the love the children gave me, but I certainty would never be the same because of the love mi Pepino gave me.

I wanted Nahum to know how much I loved him and how much he changed me. I wasn't sure what to do for several days, in fact when I finally thought of what I needed to do I argued with myself about it. Finally on my last night I realized I already knew the best answer. I needed to give him something I loved, something I valued and he knew I valued. My monkey.

It was 4 am the morning I left Santa Barbara, Honduras and I quietly walked to the little boys room. I opened the door and went over to his bed, the bed that I had been to many times over the last year. That night the boys had slept over at one of the ladies house who was in charge of the home. His bed was empty as I placed my monkey on his pillow. I knew he would find it in the morning after I was gone and I prayed that he would know that I loved him and would think of him often. It was then that my tears fell, they fell as I turned and walked out that door to the waiting truck that would take me to the airport and back to America. I changed that year. I grew, and I loved.

The greatest thing we can do is love people, to love them without concern of it being returned.

*This blog was inspired by the fact that Nahum is now halfway through high school and he has a facebook account. When I was there we barley had internet and we used floppy disks. Apparently he is still growing up even if I'm not there to watch him grow. I had heard he still has the monkey. I wonder if it still means something to him after all this time? I wonder. . .