Some quick thoughts on FLENI.

Today I got to do some floortime with Belen, and then watched some classrooms, and some really basic therapy that looked like discrete trials to me. I talked to Belen for a while; I really like her. She’s, I believe, about seven years older than me (she laughed and told me I was young when I said my age), and she’s quite patient about letting me speak in Spanish, which is nice. (She speaks English, but not too much better than I speak Spanish.) I wonder if a lot of these women are married, or if they’re putting career first; I wonder if they have other jobs, especially those that only work at FLENI for a few hours.

The kids here come every day, or a few days a week, or even just a few hours a week, for therapy. The plus side is that, for those who need it, there are all sorts of types of therapy: physical therapy, music therapy, kinesthetics, occupational therapy, speech therapy, floortime, basic behavioral autism therapies…so for the most part, the therapists who work with each kid are tailored to what that child needs. Thus someone with severe language difficulties will maybe be working a lot with a speech pathologist, and so on.

It’s weird, though, to realize that Belen, for example, is in a leadership position (of a sort) here at FLENI, while when I am her age I may still be in school. Like: how very strange that our educational systems are so different. I like that I have a lot of time to consider, and think, and decide; I don’t need to know where I want to end up, now. But still.

Last night Rachel and I bought pasta and sauce and made it with some veggies in the kitchen at my hostel; it was nice to eat something we had made ourselves. I am going to go and write some emails about apartments, now.

I have been trying to write stories, but I’m lazy and uncreative. I am terrified of not wanting to write at all while I am here.