OCD

My OCD has taken on new heights. What began with a single Q-tip and a desire to rid a crusty ear of wax has turned into a full-blown obsession with cleaning out all the cracks and crevices in every orphaned little body.

Here's the thing about orphans: though we bathe them every morning, they somehow still manage, probably because of their sheer numbers, to be extremely dirty and scrappy-looking. It might also be because of the mullet-cuts Sor Maritza gave them. The workers themselves are always running around in a grand manner of Getting Things Done, but we OSSO volunteers have more time to play with the kids and teach them things and, if you're me, clip their toenails.

And oh, how they are in need of clipping! They grow so fast and with 28 kids, I feel like I spend every afternoon in the pursuit of trimmed nails, as well as wax-free ears, snog-free noses and lint-free crevices.

I think this is weird of me, but I can't help it.

The kids themselves seem to like the one-on-one attention and the feeling of Q-tips in their ears, though most of them squirm when it comes to pushing back their cuticles.

In other news, I've passed on the Casas torch to one of the new girls (who I guess really isn't so new after all) named Hillary. I'll still be going with her for the next week, but won't have to plan any more activities, which is something of a relief. I didn't like too much the pressure of planning, especially on days like yesterday, when it rained and our idea of playing with a giant parachute was foiled (I ended up reading "The Screwtape Letters" to them for an hour and a half.)

To Mom: yes, I chopped my locks. Last October. Now my hair is in a weird growing-out phase and it's not a pretty sight, so I try to keep it from being out of a ponytail as much as possible. Also, one of the other girls came from beauty school and she layered it so as to make the growing-out less painful, but instead it made me slightly resemble a mushroom.