Baptism happens every day.

Monday is the official day on the Casa trip, formality, discretion, information. We made name tags with the kids. Lupita, the director, gave us the Talk and the Tour. She told our group that while the Casa started as a true orphanage, it has become more and more a catch-basin for kids who can{t find a safe place anywhere else--who are abused or neglected at home, whose parents suffer from extreme mental illness or povert. Many have been sexually abused, and it makes Lupita crazy when for no reason the kids are returned to unsafe homes from the Casa by DIF, the local version of DSS.

It was Susanna's birthday on Monday, and it seemed that no one was going to take much notice of the event, given scarcity of resources, people, money, focus. She was turning 17, but looks 13. Torivio was also having a birthday--turning 8, just like Rafe, but he looks about 5. We went to the grocery store and bought them a cake, tres leches, a gooey concoction that Mexicans (and I) adore.

We had it after the dinner of bread and raw milk that is donated by a local farmer. Susanna had been working in the kitchen, serving the meal to the younger children, but her work was done and she wandered around clutching a stuffed animal to her chest protectively, her eyes darting here and there. We made her sit next to Torivio in the place of honor of the dining room, and Pete played Cumpleaños Feliz on his trumpet, and we all sang, and put the cake down in front of the two of them, these children who have seen too much, whom people have not protected, have not celebrated. There{s a verb in Spanish--festejar. It means "to party," but it{s transitive, it takes an object: you party someone. We were partying Susanna and Torivio, something I get the feeling no one has done in a long time, maybe ever. We put the cake down in front of them, and you should have seen their faces, the spontaneous joy, the "who me? Really, me?" You should have seen their faces. I rarely cry when I come here, thinking I{m just the tour guide, but I could feel the hot tears backing up against my eyes. It was just a cake. just a cake.

Tuesday is the day on the trip when we really start to sink down into relationships, with each other and with the kids. The shyness is wearing off, the bodily functions and needs become more apparent despite our efforts to keep them private; we dig in to community.

Because the big schoolbus wasnt working, we decided to split the field trip for the medianos (the "mediums") into two, and take half to the lagoon one day, half the next day. We piled into the fifteen passenger van that my old church, second church in beverly, drove down and donated to the Casa a few years ago, and into Owens tiny rental car, with complete disregard for seatbelt laws, and drove in caravan two towns over to the place where springs emerge from underneath the mountains opposite the volcanos in this beautiful valley. The springs form an idyllic lagoon, all dappled sunlight and mossy rocks and fish in shady corners.

I was uncertain about the prudence of having so much fun so early in the trip--what about, after all, the REAL work? But when I saw those eighteen bodies go wild and jump in, off the rope swing, down the mossy sides of the lagoon, when I saw them sharing six spare tires to roll down the rapids into the next lagoon, when I put myself in a corner and saw the sun glinting off their hair, the water running down their sweet brown backs, I knew we were exactly where we needed to be.

The owner of the palapa hut where we rented tables and the privilege of an outhouse was named, aptly, jesus. He asked me if I knew jeffrey, another american. I know a lot of jeffreys, i said. this one is a pastor, he said--he brings people here to be baptized, he said. I can see why, i said, and looked again over to those children, our children, baptized themselves.

We ate ham sandwiches with avocado, pb and j (quite mysterious to them), swam and caught fish in empty soda cups and watched dragonflies and impossibly huge mariposas, butterflies, batting their wings and causing chaos in Somerville for all we know. We ate cookies and peanuts and made friends, language be darned, and jorge fell asleep on the way back in Andrea{s arms, small and frail and sweet.