Sandra

Sandra is my life saver. She just turned 16 years old, yet already has so much to teach me. With my two sisters gone, I’ve found myself alone in the house quite often as my oldest sister is usually busy. There have been many days when I’m left to fend for myself food-wise with pretty much nothing in the refrigerator. Sandra has willingly come over all of those days and helped me put together something pretty decent for lunch. She’s taught me how to cook a whole variety of food, start a fire, dance to raggaeton, and how to enjoy the simple things in life. She’s always making sure I have everything I need and acts like my mother half the time. She’s helped me so much in my garden and took me on an adventure to visit a school in the neighboring community. I genuinely enjoy her company and I find myself at a loss whenever she’s not around. We joke around constantly and tell each other almost everything. Is it weird that my best friend is 16? Anyway, her mom left over a week ago to go to argentina in order to see a doctor because she’s been having a lot of problems with her legs. Who knows when she’ll be back. Her dad works in a neighboring town and is gone all day, every day. He’s also violent with the kids while drinking and rarely lets them leave the house when he is around. So, in the meantime, Sandra is responsible for keeping up the household… cooking, cleaning, washing her dad and brother’s clothes, and caring for the animals, yet somehow she still finds time for me. Granted, we can’t go work on my house anymore together because she needs to stay and watch her house, but she’s always over here (we live right across the street from each other) or inviting me to her house to have mate dulce. She is a doll, and I have so much respect for this little girl. I look back at my life when I was 16 and I never had any of the hardships she has, yet she is always happy with a great attitude. Not only does she not complain, but she does everything with a smile, laughing her way through the hard times. My peace corps goal is to be more like Sandra.