Daniel Wagner

I will say that through volunteering at Casa de los Angeles my conscience —- something like the cooperation of intellect and soul —- has been afforded the opportunity to capture and cognize a thing that I have in the past, only seen fleeting in myself. Donna, the founder, responded with these words when I asked what I would be doing at the daycare: “The most important thing that you can do here is be —- just smile and be here for the children.” More important than any physical task I would ever be asked to perform, is that I make my presence positive and attentive to and for the 54 children at the daycare. Casa de los Angeles asks only that I devote my self, mind, body and soul, to filling the vacancies in its abandoned, underprivileged and, in many ways, broken children, with love, care and undivided attention. I repeat this to myself with a kind of faithless uncertainty as Annalee (my fiancé) and I pass under the red bougainvillea, which laces Casa’s tan ochre exterior, and through the black iron gate entrance for our first day of volunteering. I am vulnerable here for I speak little to no Spanish.

As Annalee begins to converse with some of the mothers and their children, I sit down nervously on a bench in the center court adjacent to the sand box. Stripped of the ability to communicate , I am truly a naked soul here. I long and I pray to be employed. Within seconds a robust young boy is climbing all over me. It seems that my hair, being red as it is, is somewhat of a novelty in Mexico. As he runs his fingers through my beard the words “barba” and “roja” roll from his tongue and light themselves upon their definitions in the vague residual repository left in my mind from high school Spanish vocabulary quizzes: “beard” and “red”. “Si.” I reply, as I then proceed to ask his name: “Como te llamas?” As he flies from my lap his lips leave me with a soft “Manuel.” It is time to help feed the fifteen or so babies. After standing, silently and awe struck in the U-shaped amphitheater of high-chairs, choired by the cries and indiscernible vocalizations of their occupants, I finally ask Mari the teacher how I can help, “Puedo ayudar?” I cannot pluck even one word from the first fluid command she gives. Seeing me perplexed, she signs to me, via body language and demonstrations, that I should begin to feed the babies who have bowls of food placed on their high-chair trays. As this is the first time I have ever fed babies, I am obliged to report the following: some of them love to eat and to be fed: some of them love to eat but deplore any form of aid. They either turn their mouth-closed heads away as the spoon approaches, or, after I surrender, proceed to disperse their food over face, tray, body and floor. Having brushed their teeth, or the gummy lack thereof, both Annalee and I are excused from the infant room.

I move on to the two year old room since, as they too are in the process of learning the language, our intellects will hold that affinity. (Further, and for the same reason, I would surely be mocked by the older children.) I look around the room, the children are scattered about playing with random toys. As the linens of my assigned busy work fall to the floor below leaving me in that naked, un-employed place I pray to know how I can be of aid. Just then, one of the children, a girl, Adelina is her name, approaches me, “Chico,” she addresses me, “Dame un liblo,” as she point to some books on a shelf. I hoist her up and allow her to retrieve the book of her choice, wanting me to read to her. Twenty-five percent, that is probably about how much of what I am reading I understand. My life was fashioned in this simplicity for almost three months. At the end of each day Annalee and I would leave the daycare and let the narrow cobblestone streets of San Miguel de Allende lose us —- though we had never been so found.

Editor’s note: Daniel Wagner was with us in the Fall of 2005. As a philosopher he brought to us many interesting, thought provoking conversations. When asked to write some of his thoughts for our newsletter, it took him just over a year to give birth to a 23 page reflection. Needless to say, this is only a smattering of Daniel’s precious thoughts.