When was the last time you felt like a complete and total failure? Was it the first week of your new job when you didn’t want to admit that you had no idea what you were doing? Or perhaps the first three sleep-deprived months of parenthood when you asked yourself who the HELL decided you should be entrusted with the life of a tiny, completely dependent human being?

My latest pit stop in the land of frustration and self-recrimination happened only 5 days ago…

With the early afternoon sun feeling fresh-out-of-the-dryer warm, I tilted my face skyward and tightened the straps on my backpack. As I ascended away from the Avenida Del Sol, the cobbled streets made way for dust and piles of garbage and clusters of dilapidated buildings replaced the stately cathedrals. Locals in brightly coloured ponchos manned weathered wooden carts brimming with fruit or overflowing with products ranging from individual chicklet gum packages, to socks and sparkly hair barrettes.

Fresh from my 2-hour Spanish lesson, I practiced what I would say when I greeted the kids at the local police station and wondered if the girl of So Intense – I Can Almost Taste It would still be there. My fellow volunteer had wrapped up her IVHQ program, so today I would venture into the locked room for 3 hours on my own with a group of detained Cuzco kids whom the police had pulled off the streets and who would be held until a decision could be made about what to do with them.

You’ll be fine! You can handle this. You have games, colouring – it’s no problem that you can’t speak Spanish. I cycled through my little pep talk on repeat.

On arrival at the police station, I greeted the rifle carrying guards with a pretty convincing “buenas tardes” (good afternoon) and even slipped in a “¿Cómo estás?” (How are you?). A couple of them looked up long enough to nod briefly and then one of the female officers trudged up a worn staircase behind me.

I could hear the commotion before my sneakers even hit the landing and by the time I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the room, through the window in the door, every part of me wanted to run – to flee back down the stairs, back through the dusty streets and back to the safety of the tourist filled Plaza D’Armes.

Inside the room, kids between the ages of 3-19 occupied every surface. They hung from the bunk beds, clustered around the tables, and banged on the door. The officer unlocked the padlock and almost had to push me inside. Instantly, a swarm of hot bodies pressed up against me. They grabbed for the Monopoly, fought over a puzzle and yelled to get my attention.

“Senorita, senorita….” the rest of the words blended into a blur of noise as I struggled to break up disagreements while a little boy with honey coloured eyes tugged at my jacket sleeve. I crouched down beside him as he spoke animatedly in my ear, but unfortunately I had to keep repeating: “no entiendo” (I don’t understand).

A pot of beans, rice, and potatoes arrived shortly after I did and thankfully helped to camouflage the overpowering scent of urine. With no utensils, the 18 boys (yes, I counted) used their dirty hands to shovel food into their mouths, while the three girls took turns passing one of the only spoons around.

My head began to pound as the afternoon went from bad to worse. The chess/checkers game became an arsenal of weapons as they whipped pieces across the room at each other. To distract them, I pulled out crayons and the sheets I had photocopied from a colouring book. Then, while I thought they were colouring, I attempted to stop the chess war and like a game of “piggy in the middle”, each child pointed to someone else in the room and pretended they did not have game pieces stuffed in their pockets. While I had my back turned (finally putting the pieces back in the box), more objects flew across the room and it only took me a few seconds to realize they had broken the crayons into bullet size pieces and the free-for-all had resumed.

A few hours later, when I finally banged on the door to be let out of the room, my hair was dishevelled and my nerves frayed. I trudged back down through the streets feeling heavy hearted about my failure to speak Spanish, my failure to organize any productive activities, and my failure to show the kids any kind of strength of character or discipline.

But, after an hour of sitting in a cafe, staring blindly at the people surging past, the feelings of failure began to fade and I started to laugh about the craziness of my completely imperfect afternoon. At least I made it out alive and they didn’t kill each other! That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?

You see – the past couple of years have taught me that nothing is perfect. Life is filled with imperfect people (Mr. Right Doesn’t Have to Be Mr. Perfect) and imperfect situations. Situations where we feel like we are in over our heads, or we can’t make the impact we imagined we could, or life has kicked us in the pants. But, I’ve learned that the point is not for everything to be easy; the point is to keep showing up.

So, that is exactly what I did. Every afternoon, I showed up and every day, it got easier. The 21 kids came down to a manageable number of 8-12 and we found a rhythm for the games and the colouring where no one got hurt and we could communicate, even without a shared language. By the end of the week, I saw their faces light up when I (and my backpack of goodies) arrived. I saw the beauty of their personalities and their hearts beneath their often tough exteriors. Life has not been easy for them and yet they keep showing up and showing more resilience than most of us could imagine. On Monday, I didn’t know how I could possibly volunteer there for one more day and by yesterday I had tears in my eyes when I said goodbye.

The situation for these children is far from perfect and, like so many of the heartbreaking issues I’ve witnessed on this Adventure of Hope, I wish I could do so much more. I have to constantly remind myself that sometimes in life, it’s not about perfection. Instead, it’s about showing up for people, doing your best, and believing that sometimes just being present (in all of your imperfect glory) is enough.

I will leave you with this great quote I just found by Karen Nave, “Sometimes we strive so hard for perfection that we forget that imperfection is happiness.”