Danika's New "Daycare"

Lisa and the rest of the Zamzows, I regret to inform you that you have officially been replaced.

Perhaps replaced is the wrong word, substituted is more like it.

For those of you who didn't know Lisa's Daycare, it was Danika's home away from home while I worked in the States. Providing for Danika's every need, any toy Danika could want she had at her fingertips. Books, blocks, toys that made noise, walkers, bouncers, outside toys. She had it all. If she was hungry, she ate. If she was thirsty, she drank the nice cold milk waiting for her in the fridge. She enjoyed the heat when it was cold, and cold when it was hot. She was comfortable. She was content. She had no idea what was coming...

Today I sit at work while Danika is at her new "Daycare".
In Honduras, there is no such thing as a Daycare, no place to go to bring your kids when you work. As a female, once you have children, you stay home to mind them, bottomline.
If you want someone to look after your child, you have to seek them out.
And it's not your middle aged, educated, retired teacher kind of person (sorry Lisa, you're only middle aged in numbers, in spirit you're in your 20's). It's a 14 year old drop out whose family couldn't afford to send her to school anymore and now sells tortilla at a stand in town, kind of person.

I found my new "Nanny" in the shack next door. She says she's 14 but in all reality is probably more like 12. She stays with her mom, dad, and 5 brothers and sisters in a tiny one room shack made out of plywood and not much else. The floor is dirt and there is nothing in it but a mattress and a stove. I was desperate to find someone so that I could work, and she said that she would work for 1500 lempiras a month ($90). My job required me to work 6, sometimes 7 days a week and I knew that I would never find someone else that would watch her everyday. Plus, I didn't have a vehicle so I had to find someone close to where I was living so that I could pick her up and drop her off on foot. I knew that my money was quickly running out and I needed to work bad if Danika and I were going to stay here in Roatan. So I made a decision and trusted God.

And just like that Danika had a new "daycare".

The first day I dropped her off I packed a bag the size of a small suitcase with anything and everything Danika would need. The girl and her family don't speak English so I brought along a translator to tell them what she can and cannot eat, that I perfer she doesn't use plastic things, that we don't use conventional medicine, to make sure to re-apply our natural organic bug spray every couple of hours, to make sure her bonnet stays on to keep her out of the sun, that she likes to nap in your arms, and on and on and on. The girl politely listened to everything and I teared up as I handed over my baby girl.

I rushed home 10 hours later to pick her up as nightfall was approaching. As I approached the shack I saw my bag sitting exactly where I left it. A moment of panic hit me as I immediately regreted my decision to leave her there and was sure that I would hear horror stories of all the things Danika was exposed to. I realized that I didn't know enough Spanish to ask all the questions that I was dying to ask about Danika's day and why they didn't use anything that I brought. I ran to get a friend to translate.

And here is what I found out:
Danika's first day away from me was spent playing on a piece of cardboard in the grass in the beautiful Caribbean sun, taking a four hour nap in a hammock, eating a healthy meal of homemade beans and rice, and enjoying a freshly squeezed mango as a snack. She spent the afternoon playing with the rest of the children in the neighborhood fussing over her and trying anything and everything to get her to laugh. She spent the late afternoon taking a walk by the Caribbean Sea and listening to soft Spanish songs sung by 3 generations of Spanish women. She was bathed in a warm bucket of rain water in the back of the shack and was exhausted from her activities. When she saw me, she reached for me, and then immediately looked back for her Nanny.

I felt ignorant for lecturing them on all the things that I had that morning, and ungrateful for thinking that they were less sufficient than a Lisa Zamzow just because of there circumstances.

Once again, I was humbled.

The second day I picked Danika up, she didn't even reach for me.
Shefina (my mom away from my mom) says with a laugh that by next week she will like her Nanny more than me. I tell her that that's not even a little bit funny as I try to conceal the tears welling up in my eyes.

I put into perspective the incredible lesson that I learned about myself in all of this. I always thought that I was a non-judgemental person, but I immediately judged them because of their circumstances and assumed that because they were poor and Spanish that Danika would not be in good hands. When in the end, Danika couldn't be in a better place. She is surrounded by a different culture and different language other than her own, and will learn to appreciate all walks of life, not just the ones who look and talk like her.

Shefina laughs as she watches me feed Danika her dinner and says that she's sure Danika's first word will be "tortilla".

I look at Danika and tell her that it better not be; Danika just smiles a toothy grin up at me and goes back to working on her banana.