Friday

All week we have been getting ready for a big event today at the school. It was the day that the "Reina del Colegio" was chosen--the school queen. One girl from each class was nominated to be a candidate, and today they each had to model five different outfits and answer questions, and then the judges (me and two other ladies) chose which one would be the queen. All week we've been making decorations and banners and flowers, decorating their dresses, getting food and music...it felt like we were getting ready for a wedding. Yesterday for hours we sat in the living room and made the decorations, sending Brandon to the store every fifteen minutes to buy more tissue paper or glue.

Then this morning we set everything up in the street and all the kids came with their parents. Even the motorcycle shop was closed for the event. This is quite a big deal here. They had a table set up for selling food to raise money for new uniforms. All the girls and their "escort" boys were so cute, especially the kindergarten and first graders. The sad thing is that out of five girls, only two don't win, so it was very sad for those two. And it made me sad because I was one of the judges, and the girls we didn't choose were crying afterwards. After all the work they put into getting their outfits, I think they should all win something. But overall everything went well. After subtracting all the expenses, our "fundraiser" raised a grand total of ninety quetzales and forty cents (about eleven dollars).

After it was over and we were cleaning up, I could see that there was something going on with Martha and some of the teachers, but they were trying not to let anyone know. They were looking a little bit worried, and then one came up to me and quietly asked if I had seen two-year-old Dillan at all. He is one of the daycare kids, and had disappeared in all the activity. They were trying to not let people know that they had lost him, but after a while we were sending people out in all the streets to look for him. Martha was so scared she just went in the back and later told us she literally couldn't stand up. We had kids searching the school and people in all the streets searching.

After a long time, one of the women was asking the ladies in the streets and the stores if they had seen him, and Doña Carmen, who sells fruit a couple blocks away, said she had seen him. Rather than bring him back to the school where she knew he was supposed to be, she had brought him to a neighbor who had him in her house. The two of them were trying to get Martha in trouble for not taking good care of her kids. They absolutely refused to give him back. So for about an hour, we all sat in one of the classrooms, everyone worried and talking at once about what we need to do. Martha was just frantic, worried that she would get into so much trouble for this. We were trying to call the mother, who was at work and had not been told anything.

Finally Zoila went to the police with Erick to try to get the boy back. Technically, there was not proof that he belonged at the school, because they don't have any paperwork for him. But the police knew about Martha and her ministry and trusted their word. So eventually, after Zoila had argued with the two women and gotten yelled at a lot for not taking care of the boy, the police went with her to the house and got Dillan back and brought him back to the school. Meanwhile, his mother never heard about what happened until she came to pick him up after work hours later. Martha was scared to tell her what happened, but she took all the blame and just said she was so sorry. The mom just started crying but she didn't get mad at Martha, which Martha was so relieved about. In the end, there is a police report with Martha, Doña Carmen, and the woman who had him in her house--Martha for not caring for the boy, and the two women for kidnapping him.

So that was the excitement of the day. They have been talking about it for hours now. The event this morning has mostly been forgotten after everything this afternoon.