A Day with Nando

To describe Rigo would be nearly impossible. He is the spacy, bothersome, low-ability, short-tempered scapegoat of my class. Rigo is also hilarious, silly, has more personality than most students, a soccer fiend, and loves his parents more than anything else in the world. Rigo is a never-ending nightmare in class but one of my absolute favorites when he is out of school. It really is hard to put into words the strange amalgamation or negativity and slapstick comedy that is Rigo. You just have to see it to understand--4 months of observation should be enough.

In part because Rigo is such a difficult student, I have had the pleasure of getting to know his family over the course of the year. Well, that and Samira lived with them during her homestay, so we go over there a lot--just to go. They are a warm, welcoming family and eternally grateful of the service we are providing them, mainly because the parents never had access to this type of education. I even get to call Rigo by his nickname, Nando, when at their.

Rigo's family is also one of the poorest families at our school but only with in the past 2 years has it gotten so bad. 

Don Rigo, Nando's father has been sick about 2 years. In the past 24 months there has been a growing mass on his prostate that has caused him unmanageable discomfort to the point that he has been using a catheter for a few weeks now. However, it was not until this year that the pain has completely taken away his ability to work and provide for his family. This has put an unimaginable financial strain on the family. And on top of it all he required a very expensive surgery to remove the growth. 

This past Thursday Don Rigo received his surgery by virtue of an anonymous donor and his personal efforts to lower his blood pressure so that they could safely perform the surgery. This surgery had been pending for the past month and a half and has been a constant worry for his family. 

Rigo (Nando) however, had not seen his father or mother since last Wednesday. So on Saturday Samira, Andrea and I took Rigo on a little field trip to San Pedro to see his dad. Above anything else Rigo absolutely adores his father, even more than soccer, which is really saying something. But upon reaching the hospital (about a 2 hour journey in the sweltering heat and many bus transfers) Rigo was not allowed upstairs because he was too young.

He didn't show it, but if you knew Rigo you could tell that he was very upset. So he waited downstairs for an hour while we met with his dad and made jokes about how he didn't want to eat another cucumber for the rest of his life. After visiting hours were over we went downstairs to meet Rigo and take him back to Cofradía. This last part was a bit of a surprise to us as we had plans in San Pedro, but we couldn't leave him in the lobby of this hospital until his cousin went home.

Nando looked pretty hungry and depressed but it was hard to tell which was worse. But we had to cheer him up and also get some food in his body. So we decided that we would take him to eat first and then go home.

I have never seen a child identify a Pizza Hut stand in a mall food court faster than Rigo did on Saturday. There was not a shadow of a doubt that he wanted pizza and nothing was going to stop him. But it was at the counter that I realized this little 10 year old boy could not have been farther out of his element. He was not sure what to do when the woman asked him for his order and when he went to retrieve his food, he completely missed the pickup spot. But he definitely knew what to do with his slices and his iced tea.

After that Rigo wasn’t so quiet. Samira and I talked it over for a little and realized that he must still be pretty bummed about not seeing his dad. Since we were at the mall, we thought it a good idea to check the kids’ movie times to see if there was something playing.

The decision was made in about .9 seconds:

“Rigo, is there anything else you would like to do while we are here in the mall?”

“No.”

“What about a movie? Would you like to see a movie?”

(head shaking furiously in the affirmative.)

And there you have it, I saw a dubbed version of Rango with one of my students and got more enjoyment out of listening to him giggle and watching him squirm with excitement than the movie itself. But now I kind of want to see it in English so that I know what happened.

Rigo would never admit it, but despite not being able to see his dad, I think we turned his bad day into a pretty good one. It was also a great opportunity for me to spend some time with him and show him that even though I get mad all the time for the way he acts in class, I still care a lot about him and his family. Whether he understands that, I will never know. And chances are he is going to take someone's pencil tomorrow and everything will be just like normal. 

But that might not be so bad.