William Golding Meets Los Laureles
Last week was the first full week of sun that we have had since Thanksgiving so we decided to take advantage of it last Friday and head off to our favorite swimming hole in all of La Ceiba; La Sirena (The Siren). We opened it open to most of the boys that we're working with and that we know can swim and ended up with 32 rambunctious pre-teens loaded onto a public bus headed off to the mountains. We arrived around 11:00 am and spent most of the day there - Konrad and I spent most of the time acting as lifeguards and arbiters of conflicts and at one point we remarked to one another that we felt like we were in a recreation of "The Lord of the Flies". Kids just ran about in herds diving, climbing, killing wildlife and playing violent and semi-dangerous games. Little kids were commanded about by older ones, the teenagers grabbed more food at lunch time and meted out pitiful portions to the little ones...until we rectified the situation and I noticed that the smallest boys herded together and tried to avoid all the craziness that was going on about them by playing quietly in small pools of water or sitting on high boulders far and away from the older kids. We wondered what might of happened had we not been there and it got me to thinking that perhaps William Golding really knew what he was writing about. Regardless of the mayhem it was still an incredible day and I enjoyed it thoroughly as did Konrad and all of the boys.
Comments