Because Fifty Just Wasn't Enough

Sometimes life does know how to make it too hard for you.

The July and August have been extremely emotionally draining, stressful and tough months for me, personally and professionally.

I have been teacher training for five weeks.

Most of the time my son was staying with his father.

I love doing teacher trainings and I absolutely love our special education teachers.

They are amazing people who everyday put themselves out there for their students.

In a culture where disabled people are shunned and considered demonic.

And where just four years ago a disabled baby was burned by her parents, extended family members and other people from their village.

Because her father was certain that she wasn’t really a baby but a Supay Wawa.

A demon born from a relationship between a human woman and a jungle demon, Supay.

When these teachers are called disabled teachers and shunned by other teachers and their village’s members.

They continue, and fight for their students’ rights and lives.

Many times much harder than the parents themselves.

We had two weeks vacations and went to the beach with my son.

A beautiful time that we truly enjoyed.

At the end of the August it was time for my son came home and get ready for the school.

We also started the last, and toughest, week of the teacher training in the beginning of the September.

Just when my son got back and started school.

I just didn't have strength anymore; I would go to work, get back home, eat, try to spend time with my son while conscious and sleep.

There was no strength or time for anything else.

On top of everything else, September is Mutsuy Killa here in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The beginning if the so-called dry season, so called because it's never really dry and it never really stops draining.

But what it does do is drop the humidity level from the normal 98% to only 94% and the daily temperatures raise over 100 Fahrenheit.

Making me wonder how sane I was when I decided to come live here.

But on the last day of our training I was reminded why the life here is so wonderful.

The special education teachers had organized a birthday party for me.

They made a speech, in Kichwa, and it was amazing how much I could understand them.

It was also heart wrenching when they told me that I'm there mother.

This wasn't the first time, I have been called Mama Joanna by them few times before but now it was official.

I have over 50 Kichwa children, and quite a few of them are older than I am.

But now I was prepared and I also had some cultural background.

In Kichwa culture women that lead and share their knowledge are called Mothers.

It is an honorary title, and one that is not easily given.

Mothers are life givers, and venerated as the source of life and wisdom.

It is a huge honor, one that I don't really feel that I deserve.

But like I told them, I have always felt that God has called me to have a big family.

And I could not understand why He only gave me one son.

But it was because He had fifty more waiting for me in the jungle.

I just needed to follow Him and find them.