Easter

Gotta say, Easter was a bit of a disappointment for me. Of course if I was more religious I might describe the Easter celebration here as being very beautiful (or at least devout) but I think the level of commercialism that I'm used to made it hard to appreciate the festivities here without feeling that a part of it was missing. Namely the part shaped liked a giant bunny. I mean, I KNOW that Easter is for Jesus but the magical pact that exists between Him and the Easter Bunny seems to only be valid in the United States. There was no candy to be found, no pastel colored clothes and ham dinners. There was absolutely no mistaking that this was all about the resurrection of Jesus, and we celebrated with a 4-hour long mass, a viewing of Passion of Christ, and a final presentation of the Stations of the Cross in nearby Paramos. As riveting as all that sounds, all I wanted was a Cadbury creme egg and an Easter egg hunt.

I did end up getting part of my wish. They have a quasi-egg hunt here for the kids. I call it quasi- because it's only quasi-fun. Actually, I shouldn't say that. It was fun for the kids, they liked it. I'm just used to different things so I found it disappointing. They use REAL eggs here which is pretty cool. Someone has to blow the yolk out of all of them the night before (that's a lot of work for 200 eggs!) Once the hollowed eggs are dried, the kids paint the outsides and put glitter on them, normal fun Easter stuff. Then 50 of the eggs get money put into them (ranging from Q1 to Q250- .15c to $40). The eggs are hidden throughout the grounds and the kids go find them. Here's the part that sucks though. There aren't enough eggs for all the kids. There are 200 eggs for 400 kids and 150 of those eggs have NOTHING IN THEM. They're just empty eggs. There's no limit on how many eggs a person can get either, so all the fast kids ran out there and scooped up a bunch of eggs, meanwhile me and my kid in a wheelchair tried to get through the grass at a frustratingly slow pace. It sucked that he didn't stand a chance at finding any eggs. He didn't seem to care too much, but I was definitely sad about it.

I'm complaining far too much than I should be, guess I'm still a little bitter about it. Let me focus on happy things instead. We took some really great pictures while we were waiting for the Easter egg hunt. Check these out:

Here's Hannah with two little girls from the Baby's House

Me with Jocelyn, a little girl who I've taken on a few med runs.

And Rosita! She's adorable (love her curly hair!) but she's also challenging. (By the way, that lollipop is an independent acquisition. Don't want you to think I was lying before about them not having candy)

Stephanie hanging out with Emerson

And finally, me and my little terror Juan Carlos (not to be confused with the Juan Carlos who I teach Spanish to). As much as this little kid tries my patience, he's really adorable sometimes. He's one of the few special needs kids at NPH who's physically aggressive, but even then it's rarely done out of anger, it's almost like a compulsion. He likes looking at my tattoo and for some reason always points to it and says "Guatemala." That's immediately followed by trying to pinch my arm. If that's deflected, he'll either try to pinch my arm again or try to pull my hair. When the second attack is thwarted, he goes in for the bite. Thankfully he's totally predictable so I've never ACTUALLY been bitten. It's always the same moves in the same order. I used to get stressed when he'd go after me but now it's more amusing than anything. It makes me think of Mortal Kombat. PINCH! PINCH! (Finish him!!) BITE!!! It's Juan Carlos' special move.

After the Easter egg hunt I spent the rest of the day vegging out which was absolutely delightful. I'm glad that I'm having the chance to experience these holidays in another country but I'll be glad to get back to the normal rhythm of things when I get back (normal rhythm being gorging on chocolate all day and then eating dye-stained hard-boiled eggs for a week).