Hola! Me nombre es Salma

 So a little story about why my blogis about her.  I’ve just been a little homesick lately and I haven’t seen my sisters in five days and this has got to be the longest I haven’t seen them since 2006. Hearing that we are going to be visiting Dolores Mission Church was exciting for two reasons:  first because I only visualized it from the description of the book and I was very excitedabout seeing the roots of progression in the “flats,” and second, because I wanted to experience the location at which one point, it was the top areas of danger and gang banging in Los Angeles. 

Little did I know that we were going to be actually interacting with children and tutoring them in whatever it is that they need help with.  Today we visited a few places in the Dolores Mission Church community and Dolores Mission School stood out to me.  So thisis where the story of Salma comes in. 

I wanted to work with younger children so I chose kindergarten to first grade students.  I had Nicholas, Jaimie, and Salma.  Nicholas and Jaimie were both done with their homework so I was left with Salma.  I had a conversation with Salma while she does her homework and these were a few things that I know about her.  She is 6 years old, she’s in kindergarten, she wants to be a doctor when she grows up, and she talks about her mom’s new car. She was a very polite little girl and even ask “Would you please go tothe bathroom with me?”  She reminded me of my sister and she also helped to keep me up because I’ve been tired, only having 2-3 hours of sleep and having a 6 am to 10 pm day filled with the“unknown” and “surprises.” 

Being able to help her with herhomework made me realize that although I don’t have the best patience in the world, I know that I have to constantly remind myself that I need to have that patience and try to put myself in others’ shoes.  So I did a great job having patience with children today, especially with Salma. What makes our bonding time even better is that I didn’t only help her with her homework, but I also read her a book. Then we went outside and she took photos with my camera and we played agame of freeze tag.  She also gave me ahug before she left with her brothers and her hug was so sincere and it made mefeel good about myself.  It was more of a constant reminder that of the saying “good things come to people whowait.”  I waited and had the patience with her when I’m not at my best and the outcome was the relationship that Ihave built with her and the difference that I made in her life for being there for her today, spending those precious three hours with her. 

With this being said, it made me realize that the day might not start off great, but if you have the patience good things will come.  Also, appreciate children and be the best mentor for them as you can be because they are our future and how we teach them will be carried on into their future lives and be that positive influence in their lives to do great things in life.  This also made me realize that I miss mysisters a lot!

Well that’s it for my blog. I’m going to catch up on some sleep now. Have a great night/day!

Kristeme
Chaminade University :-)