Yesterday was my most difficult day so far at La Casa de Panchita.  It was a sunday, meaning a day with the children.  I think there are four different groups that come to La Casa on sundays and they rotate each week.  This week´s group was very difficult.  First off it was a group of 22, which is bigger than normal, and of these twenty two we had 4 real problems and a bunch of children who were sweet but misbehaving.  Four may not seem like a lot, but it´s hard to keep everything together when you have to make sure that four little people aren´t running away or hitting someone else or another equally unacceptable thing.
Two of the problem children were actually brother and sister.  The brother, Edwin, was the most difficult of them all.  Carlos, one of my covolunteers, actually had to chase him around the park and drag him back to La Casa, arriving about 20 minutes later than the rest of us.  His sister, Pamela, was not quite as difficult but would refuse to do activities and leave the spaces we were in.  Both of them, however, would look for affection in little moments but quickly withdraw if it wasn´t given immediately. For example, I arrived late to the park because I had to do some stapling, and Edwin held out his hand for me to sit with him.  I couldn´t at that moment since I had to help the other volunteers and by the time I went back the opportunity was over.  Similar things happened with Pamela.  At then end of the day when we were discussing the two of them it seemed clear that their behavior was in some way a result of something going on at home.  The woman who runs the program, Joanna decided that she would ask the promoter from their district to do a home visit.  
We also talked about the general problems with discipline with the children.  Even the very sweet ones would wander away as soon as a volunteer´s back was turned.  the problem could come from the manner of discipline we use.  In La Casa de panchita we would clearly never hit a child but it is probable that discipline at home comes in the form of violence.  Since we don´t follow that line of discipline the difference makes us seem less authoratative to the children.  I was struggling all day, though I kept myself pretty well composed.  The last activitity, however, was the most difficult. We were sewing little purses with the children and I had two of the difficult children at my table, one wanderer and one well-behaved.  After insisting for the hundreth time that everyone sit down, no one touch the scizzors or glue and no one take things from the other table I needed a change of tactics.  I started speaking very directly to each child who misbehavied, asking them why they misbehaved.  I also expressed my feelings to them calmly, letting them know that their behavior had a personal affect on me.  None of the children are really bad and this way of speaking to them affected their behavior differently.  Even though it didn´t solve all of the problems completely, I think it reached them in a new way.  The important thing was to remember that I was dealing with people, not just misbehaving children.  Appealing to them in a different , more adult way worked.  
By the end of the day, however, I was exhausted and by the time Jessica and I got home we fell into bed.  

Today we´re going to be working on our english lessons and writing up the reports for yesterday, mostly paperwork.  We had originally planned to visit a school, but that fell through.  It´s a good thing though because this way we can catch up on some things we´ve fallen behind on.
So that´s it for now - Jessica and I really enjoy it when we get comments on our livejournal.  Anyone can comment, whether or not they have a journal, so please do!  

Emma