For those of you that've been asking about my mailing address, here it is! Letters and goodies are gladly accepted :D (but before you get too excited, check shipping costs! It might be more expensive than it's worth)
Shawn Carroll (Voluntario)
Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos
Apartado Postal 4
Chimaltenango
Guatemala, Centroamérica
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Carnival!
Learned information of the day: Germany celebrates Carnival and apparently its HUGE there. Since we don't really do anything for it in the US, I'm kind of clueless about it. This weekend was the big celebration in Germany and Holger my German roommate was very nostalgic about it (he was singing German Carnival songs for DAYS and hung balloons up in our room). Lucky for him, most of Central and South America celebrate it too! The school had a day off from classes Friday and everyone had an assembly in the cafeteria. I'm still kind of confused as to the purpose of it, Holger told me that in Germany its a holiday for getting drunk and kissing strangers. I was really curious how that was going to translate into this setting, but here it was more like a parade with costumes. They also had singing and dancing contests which of course the kids loved (ALL kids love to perform). I had to take a kid on a med run in the morning, so when we came back it was just in time for the dancing contest.
As you can see, gender was irrelevant for this glorious Carnival. It's hard to see in that picture but there are two boys who had been dancing together all morning. They were the crowd favorite until the little kids joined. That little chubby kid in the striped shirt had some seriously good moves! He went on to win. The fact that he's the assistant director's son probably didn't hurt his chances either. I don't have a pic but there were also two girls slow dancing and one was in drag! Naturally it made me miss NY.
Next was the parade. I figured out late in the game that my phone takes really crappy action shots, so sadly I don't have much to show you. There was some pretty impressive costumes from the older kids made of garbage and cardboard boxes. I dont have a pic so you'll have to take my word for it. Here are some little kids in costumes! (Sorry for the bad action shot)
Agh!! So cute! That's Jordy as the pirate, God I just want to eat that kid, he's so adorable. Kudos to Myriam (the volunteer who is the teacher at the Montessori) for her awesome costume design!
During the assembly these two random girls sat on my lap. I haven't a clue who they are (stranger danger is non-existant here) but I'm including this pic in case I eventually get to know them and want a momento of our first encounter.
After the festivities all the staff (including the folks who work in the clinic and office) had to help the kids scrub out their sections. It was like a big spring cleaning, furniture was pulled out and curtains were taken down. It's amazing how fast things can get done when you have twenty kids to help. It was so efficient, five little girls with brooms and another five following behind them with mops. At one point a little girl slid down a banister with a bucket of water (no lie) and I think you can guess what song was stuck in my head after that...
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I'm an awful person, I know ;) I feel like I should add a disclaimer stating that while the kids do frequently break into seemingly-spontaneous choreographed song and dance routines here, they do not in any way share the sentiments of the children in that video.
After our cleaning was done (and I checked all the girls for head lice, something I'm getting remarkably good at) I headed to my section to watch a movie with the special needs kids. Last week we watched Pinocchio (pronounced in Spanish as Peen-ow-cho) and they LOVED it, they've been talking about it all week. This week I decided to continue the Disney theme with "La Sirenita" (The Little Mermaid). The attention span wasn't quite the same, though most of them made it through it. It never occured to me before that when they make a big movie like this, not ONLY do they have to hire a whole other set of voice actors to record the dialogue in Spanish, they have to rewrite all the songs so they rhyme! It's crazy! All the songs have the same melody and stuff, they just say completely different things. Por ejemplo...
Part of Your World:
(English Version)
Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collections complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm a girl...
A girl who has....everything
Look at this trove, treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you'd think
Sure, she's got everything!
I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty
I've got hoozits and what's its galore
You want thingamabobs? I've got twenty.
But who cares? No big deal. I want moooooooooooore
I want to be where the people are
I want to see, want to see em dancing
Walkin around on those... what do you call em?
Oh, feet!
The ease with which I was able to recall all of those lyrics should cause me embarrassment, but it doesn't. Okay, so now here's the Spanish version of the same song translated back to English... (obviously it's not going to rhyme now because it rhymes in Spanish)
What do I have here? How lovely!
It's treasure that I discovered!
It's very easy to say
That it's not lost anymore
That that you see around you
Is so abundant, so splendid
It makes you think that I don't need more gifts
Since I have thousands.
Although sometimes I don't know what they are
You want thingsamabobs? I've got twenty.
But truthfully, I want moooooooore
I want to go someplace special
I want to see a beautiful dance and
Walk with those...what are they called?
Ah, feet!
See?? Same basic idea, but different lyrics. So now its my goal to memorize all the Disney songs in Spanish so I can sing along with the kids, er I mean improve my vocabulary... ;)
After the long day a bunch of us played a really awesome board game called Mensch Argere Dich Nicht. It was actually called something else in English but I can't remember what; I just googled it and it gave me the German name since it's a German game. Anyway, it's really similar to Sorry! except you work in teams and use cards instead of dice to determine how many moves you can make. As you can see, we're all operating on a budget here. Maybe for Christmas I'll buy everyone game pieces so they can retire the pasta shells and chewing gum. It was a ton of fun, made me think about all the card games with mom and the family. (In case you're wondering, my team totally won :)
(Addendum: I just actually read that article on google and have now determined that this is not that game we played. It's kind of similar though so I'm keeping it up here)
As you can see, gender was irrelevant for this glorious Carnival. It's hard to see in that picture but there are two boys who had been dancing together all morning. They were the crowd favorite until the little kids joined. That little chubby kid in the striped shirt had some seriously good moves! He went on to win. The fact that he's the assistant director's son probably didn't hurt his chances either. I don't have a pic but there were also two girls slow dancing and one was in drag! Naturally it made me miss NY.
Next was the parade. I figured out late in the game that my phone takes really crappy action shots, so sadly I don't have much to show you. There was some pretty impressive costumes from the older kids made of garbage and cardboard boxes. I dont have a pic so you'll have to take my word for it. Here are some little kids in costumes! (Sorry for the bad action shot)
Agh!! So cute! That's Jordy as the pirate, God I just want to eat that kid, he's so adorable. Kudos to Myriam (the volunteer who is the teacher at the Montessori) for her awesome costume design!
During the assembly these two random girls sat on my lap. I haven't a clue who they are (stranger danger is non-existant here) but I'm including this pic in case I eventually get to know them and want a momento of our first encounter.
After the festivities all the staff (including the folks who work in the clinic and office) had to help the kids scrub out their sections. It was like a big spring cleaning, furniture was pulled out and curtains were taken down. It's amazing how fast things can get done when you have twenty kids to help. It was so efficient, five little girls with brooms and another five following behind them with mops. At one point a little girl slid down a banister with a bucket of water (no lie) and I think you can guess what song was stuck in my head after that...
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I'm an awful person, I know ;) I feel like I should add a disclaimer stating that while the kids do frequently break into seemingly-spontaneous choreographed song and dance routines here, they do not in any way share the sentiments of the children in that video.
After our cleaning was done (and I checked all the girls for head lice, something I'm getting remarkably good at) I headed to my section to watch a movie with the special needs kids. Last week we watched Pinocchio (pronounced in Spanish as Peen-ow-cho) and they LOVED it, they've been talking about it all week. This week I decided to continue the Disney theme with "La Sirenita" (The Little Mermaid). The attention span wasn't quite the same, though most of them made it through it. It never occured to me before that when they make a big movie like this, not ONLY do they have to hire a whole other set of voice actors to record the dialogue in Spanish, they have to rewrite all the songs so they rhyme! It's crazy! All the songs have the same melody and stuff, they just say completely different things. Por ejemplo...
Part of Your World:
(English Version)
Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collections complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm a girl...
A girl who has....everything
Look at this trove, treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you'd think
Sure, she's got everything!
I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty
I've got hoozits and what's its galore
You want thingamabobs? I've got twenty.
But who cares? No big deal. I want moooooooooooore
I want to be where the people are
I want to see, want to see em dancing
Walkin around on those... what do you call em?
Oh, feet!
The ease with which I was able to recall all of those lyrics should cause me embarrassment, but it doesn't. Okay, so now here's the Spanish version of the same song translated back to English... (obviously it's not going to rhyme now because it rhymes in Spanish)
What do I have here? How lovely!
It's treasure that I discovered!
It's very easy to say
That it's not lost anymore
That that you see around you
Is so abundant, so splendid
It makes you think that I don't need more gifts
Since I have thousands.
Although sometimes I don't know what they are
You want thingsamabobs? I've got twenty.
But truthfully, I want moooooooore
I want to go someplace special
I want to see a beautiful dance and
Walk with those...what are they called?
Ah, feet!
See?? Same basic idea, but different lyrics. So now its my goal to memorize all the Disney songs in Spanish so I can sing along with the kids, er I mean improve my vocabulary... ;)
After the long day a bunch of us played a really awesome board game called Mensch Argere Dich Nicht. It was actually called something else in English but I can't remember what; I just googled it and it gave me the German name since it's a German game. Anyway, it's really similar to Sorry! except you work in teams and use cards instead of dice to determine how many moves you can make. As you can see, we're all operating on a budget here. Maybe for Christmas I'll buy everyone game pieces so they can retire the pasta shells and chewing gum. It was a ton of fun, made me think about all the card games with mom and the family. (In case you're wondering, my team totally won :)
(Addendum: I just actually read that article on google and have now determined that this is not that game we played. It's kind of similar though so I'm keeping it up here)
Monday, February 13, 2012
General update
Things have been going really well at NPH. I've been getting into some kind of routine in the clinic which is cool. I graduated high school juuuust as Power Point was getting popular so I managed to avoid ever having to use it before. My main job responsibility here is to give workshops to the kids and staff, so this week has been dedicated to learning how to use it. I'm doing pretty good so far. I'm sure my Spanish is atrocious in the slides but I'm planning on having Martin and Estella edit it with me before I show it to the doctor :P My Spanish continues to get better, in a few more weeks I'll be ready to post a video of me talking to wow all you folks at home! I'm also getting to know the nursing staff better. Today one of the nurses actually sat down at my table to talk to me! I hope that doesn't make the nurses sound like snobs, its just that they're usually really busy and our conversation never gets further than, "Hi, how was your night? That's nice." I've been making more of an effort to make conversation with them and get to know them a bit better. They seem really great. Tia Rosa and I have been bonding too. She keeps nagging me about eating more, she says she doesn't want my mom to think that she isn't taking good care of me here. I keep telling her that I'm trying to lose weight but she ignores me. Or maybe I'm saying it wrong. Maybe I'm accidentally saying, "You're right, please feed me more." That would explain a lot... Today Tia Rosa asked one of the nurses to teach me how to pass meds which was a HUGE step. I've been pretty hands off up until now so maybe this means she's ready for me to be more of a help around the office. I hope I can do meds for them, I want to feel like my degree is going towards something here. I've been giving shots pretty regularly which has been fun. For the most part the kids are really good with getting immunizations. Of course there are a few who I need a little physical support, but thankfully Willowglen prepared me nicely for that ;)
I started giving my English lessons! I met with my old Spanish teacher and talked with her for two hours over lunch. Her English was actually really good, she just needs some practice with conversation. I also met with Juan Carlos, the guy from the eyeglass store. Did I tell this story already? I forget. I don't think so. Well, a few weeks ago I went to Chimaltenango (a neighboring town) to pay for some eyeglasses that we ordered for the kids. The man who makes the glasses and I struck up a conversation and he asked me to help him out by making a phone call to the United States. He was interested in buying a machine from ebay that's used to cut lenses, he just wanted me to call the company that makes the machines to see if they sell spare parts in case he needs them. Apparently he wanted me well prepared for the phone call because he had me watch youtube videos about how the machine functions and read websites about it. I made the call for him and he bought me a soda, all was good. I went back to there the following week to bring kids for their appointment. This man (Juan Carlos) approached me and asked me if I could give him two hours of English lessons a week. I agreed to do this past weekend as a trial, so we met up at the McDonalds in Antigua. (Side note: Um, crazy beautiful McDonalds. Check this place out!)
So I get there a little before we're supposed to meet, he calls and says he'll be 15 min late. I buy a value meal and am just finishing eating when he walks in. He comes over and is like, "I'm so sorry that I'm late, let me buy you lunch." I say, "Thank you but I just ate, I'm fine." He says, "Absolutely not, I insist." Me: "Thanks, but I'm seriously not hungry. Next time." "Him: "No, no, I'm buying you food." I realize he's not going to take no for an answer, so I say, "Okay, you can buy me lunch but let's wait an hour for my stomach to settle." Him: "No, no! I'm buying you lunch now." So he walks away and comes back with the exact same thing I just ate. I had to sit there and eat a SECOND value meal. Dear lord. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time. The lesson with him went really well though. I had warned him ahead of time that I'm not an English teacher, I could just help him practice his conversation. That worked well for him since his English is actually pretty good. I agreed to meet him every Saturday for lunch and practice. He's going to pay me 50Q (not much, but I felt bad taking ANY money from him and he insisted. It's enough to buy fresh vegetables and fruits for the week :) He's also going to buy me lunch AND he's going to give me a free eye exam and make me glasses!! Woohoo!! Having an extra pair of glasses is a luxury I've never known. Now I can change them with my outfits, how fashionable!
After my lunch with Juan Carlos I met up with Tia Rosa and her friend Ezekial. They both want to learn English and are at a beginners level. I wasn't really prepared to TEACH an actual class, I had warned her that I could only practice conversation but I was able to wing it pretty well. We went over colors, numbers and months and I taught them the verbs "have" and "am". It was probably way too much to go over for our first class, but hopefully they remember something from it. Hopefully I didnt scare them away completely. I'm going to go to the English office at the school tomorrow and see if they have some material that I can borrow. Apparently Stephanie and Charlotte are teaching some of the older kids English in the evenings too, I might try to help them with that to see if i can get some ideas for my classes too. It's totally cool, I'm actually really excited about this! I hope I can help them out, especially Tia Rosa who has helped me a lot already.
Okay, random picture time! Estella has discovered the Camera+ app on my phone and has been having fun. Here's me working.
Jordy's been visiting often. He associates me with my music so now whenever he sees me he says "Hakuna Matata!!" It's his favorite song on my comp. I really need to download some Spanish kids songs, my English ones do nothing for the kids here.
Speaking of music, I really want a copy of the Adele album. I need to start bugging the other volunteers for music.
I started giving my English lessons! I met with my old Spanish teacher and talked with her for two hours over lunch. Her English was actually really good, she just needs some practice with conversation. I also met with Juan Carlos, the guy from the eyeglass store. Did I tell this story already? I forget. I don't think so. Well, a few weeks ago I went to Chimaltenango (a neighboring town) to pay for some eyeglasses that we ordered for the kids. The man who makes the glasses and I struck up a conversation and he asked me to help him out by making a phone call to the United States. He was interested in buying a machine from ebay that's used to cut lenses, he just wanted me to call the company that makes the machines to see if they sell spare parts in case he needs them. Apparently he wanted me well prepared for the phone call because he had me watch youtube videos about how the machine functions and read websites about it. I made the call for him and he bought me a soda, all was good. I went back to there the following week to bring kids for their appointment. This man (Juan Carlos) approached me and asked me if I could give him two hours of English lessons a week. I agreed to do this past weekend as a trial, so we met up at the McDonalds in Antigua. (Side note: Um, crazy beautiful McDonalds. Check this place out!)
So I get there a little before we're supposed to meet, he calls and says he'll be 15 min late. I buy a value meal and am just finishing eating when he walks in. He comes over and is like, "I'm so sorry that I'm late, let me buy you lunch." I say, "Thank you but I just ate, I'm fine." He says, "Absolutely not, I insist." Me: "Thanks, but I'm seriously not hungry. Next time." "Him: "No, no, I'm buying you food." I realize he's not going to take no for an answer, so I say, "Okay, you can buy me lunch but let's wait an hour for my stomach to settle." Him: "No, no! I'm buying you lunch now." So he walks away and comes back with the exact same thing I just ate. I had to sit there and eat a SECOND value meal. Dear lord. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time. The lesson with him went really well though. I had warned him ahead of time that I'm not an English teacher, I could just help him practice his conversation. That worked well for him since his English is actually pretty good. I agreed to meet him every Saturday for lunch and practice. He's going to pay me 50Q (not much, but I felt bad taking ANY money from him and he insisted. It's enough to buy fresh vegetables and fruits for the week :) He's also going to buy me lunch AND he's going to give me a free eye exam and make me glasses!! Woohoo!! Having an extra pair of glasses is a luxury I've never known. Now I can change them with my outfits, how fashionable!
After my lunch with Juan Carlos I met up with Tia Rosa and her friend Ezekial. They both want to learn English and are at a beginners level. I wasn't really prepared to TEACH an actual class, I had warned her that I could only practice conversation but I was able to wing it pretty well. We went over colors, numbers and months and I taught them the verbs "have" and "am". It was probably way too much to go over for our first class, but hopefully they remember something from it. Hopefully I didnt scare them away completely. I'm going to go to the English office at the school tomorrow and see if they have some material that I can borrow. Apparently Stephanie and Charlotte are teaching some of the older kids English in the evenings too, I might try to help them with that to see if i can get some ideas for my classes too. It's totally cool, I'm actually really excited about this! I hope I can help them out, especially Tia Rosa who has helped me a lot already.
Okay, random picture time! Estella has discovered the Camera+ app on my phone and has been having fun. Here's me working.
Jordy's been visiting often. He associates me with my music so now whenever he sees me he says "Hakuna Matata!!" It's his favorite song on my comp. I really need to download some Spanish kids songs, my English ones do nothing for the kids here.
Speaking of music, I really want a copy of the Adele album. I need to start bugging the other volunteers for music.
Scavenger Hunt
Ugh, I've been so bad about writing. I get super lazy after working in the clinic all day and when I get home all I want to do is lay in my bed and play games on my phone. I've been sewing a little more which is good, I need something to reassure myself that I am in fact productive. Right now I'm working on a gift for my sister which is absolutely delightful, I wish I could post pictures but since it's a surprise you'll have to suffer with curiosity for a while.
So aside from our normal 8-5 jobs, the volunteers have different projects that we're responsible for every month. One of them is called Projecto Familiar and I'm really in love with it. The way things work here at the orphanage, the organization wants to try to preserve the family as much as possible for the kids. They have a rule that when a caregiver wants to send a child here, ALL of the children under 16 have to come, not just one (this also helps to dissuade families from having lots of babies they can't afford and just sending the new ones to us). This means we have a lot of sibling groups here. They see each other in passing and during recess, but they don't get to spend a lot of alone time together (with 400 kids here, alone time is hard for anyone to come by.) They started Projecto Familiar to give the kids a chance to hang out alone with their brothers and sisters; we bring them to the park in town or out for ice cream for two hours. I had my first one the other day with a special needs kid and his sister. Since it was my first time I got to buddy up with another volunteer, Bianca. The kids were really cute, they've only been here for a few months so this is all new to them. He ran right up to her and grabbed her hand and wouldn't let go for the entire time. They walked ahead of us and just whispered a lot to each other. Of course it made me think about how it would be for me and my brother and sisters here which made me get all choked up. I'm definitely missing my family a lot :( My first solo-Projecto is this week so we'll see how that goes!
The other thing we're required to do is called Kermes. It's basically one day every two months where the volunteers need to plan a big activity to keep all the kids busy for two hours. They've done all sorts of projects in the past with limited success. Kermes was yesterday and our theme was a scavenger hunt! Now I happen to love scavenger hunts anyway, but to add a little twist to this one, once the kids were separated into groups we tied them up! It was hilarious. Each group had about twenty kids in it of varying ages. We took rope and fed it through their belt loops, basically connecting them into a chain. They had to coordinate their walking to keep from falling, so they ended up moving really slowly. I got off a little easy on this Kermes. Instead of having to lead a group of kids through different stations, I was responsible for making a campfire! The last station of the scavenger hunt was a box of marshmallows for the campfire. Some of the other volunteers made a ton of dough and the kids were able to make bread over the fire too (which absolutely fascinated me. Why have I never heard of that before?!) The kids LOVED it. We blasted music and had a dance party while we ate our food, it was really fun. Here are a bunch of pictures!
The girls waiting for the start of Kermes
And the boys. They're separated by gender a lot.
Here are the kids walking while tied together
Here's me and my buddy Dacia. We do a lot of medical appointments together.
Charlotte and one of the boys from her section (Pablo? Pedro?) showing off his well-done bread
Gustavo and another boy who I don't know. Gustavo is a cute kid. He's close to being non-verbal but has been becoming very friendly and affectionate as he's been getting settled in to NPH
This kid wanted his picture taken, too. I'm not really sure how he got a face full of flour since the dough was all pre-made...
This is Carlito. He was into cooking way more than eating, he kept asking for more dough.
In fact all of them loved cooking the bread. Here's a mob of ravenous children attacking Kristina and Janelle trying to get more dough
This kid is adorable too, though its a crappy picture of him.
This girl's my buddy too.
This kid had such a ridiculously large stick, it was hilarious
Me, Charlotte and Hanna
It was a really awesome time! Once again I was a little surprised by the difference in supervision here. The basic attitude is "if they do something stupid they probably won't do it again." When everyone was done making their bread a bunch of kids dumped the rest of the firewood in, making an enormous bonfire. The staff were just like, ok, our job here is done, the fire will burn out. We just left a horde of crazy children running around a bonfire. Guess everything was fine though, there were no crispy kids waiting in the clinic this morning ;)
So aside from our normal 8-5 jobs, the volunteers have different projects that we're responsible for every month. One of them is called Projecto Familiar and I'm really in love with it. The way things work here at the orphanage, the organization wants to try to preserve the family as much as possible for the kids. They have a rule that when a caregiver wants to send a child here, ALL of the children under 16 have to come, not just one (this also helps to dissuade families from having lots of babies they can't afford and just sending the new ones to us). This means we have a lot of sibling groups here. They see each other in passing and during recess, but they don't get to spend a lot of alone time together (with 400 kids here, alone time is hard for anyone to come by.) They started Projecto Familiar to give the kids a chance to hang out alone with their brothers and sisters; we bring them to the park in town or out for ice cream for two hours. I had my first one the other day with a special needs kid and his sister. Since it was my first time I got to buddy up with another volunteer, Bianca. The kids were really cute, they've only been here for a few months so this is all new to them. He ran right up to her and grabbed her hand and wouldn't let go for the entire time. They walked ahead of us and just whispered a lot to each other. Of course it made me think about how it would be for me and my brother and sisters here which made me get all choked up. I'm definitely missing my family a lot :( My first solo-Projecto is this week so we'll see how that goes!
The other thing we're required to do is called Kermes. It's basically one day every two months where the volunteers need to plan a big activity to keep all the kids busy for two hours. They've done all sorts of projects in the past with limited success. Kermes was yesterday and our theme was a scavenger hunt! Now I happen to love scavenger hunts anyway, but to add a little twist to this one, once the kids were separated into groups we tied them up! It was hilarious. Each group had about twenty kids in it of varying ages. We took rope and fed it through their belt loops, basically connecting them into a chain. They had to coordinate their walking to keep from falling, so they ended up moving really slowly. I got off a little easy on this Kermes. Instead of having to lead a group of kids through different stations, I was responsible for making a campfire! The last station of the scavenger hunt was a box of marshmallows for the campfire. Some of the other volunteers made a ton of dough and the kids were able to make bread over the fire too (which absolutely fascinated me. Why have I never heard of that before?!) The kids LOVED it. We blasted music and had a dance party while we ate our food, it was really fun. Here are a bunch of pictures!
The girls waiting for the start of Kermes
And the boys. They're separated by gender a lot.
Here are the kids walking while tied together
Here's me and my buddy Dacia. We do a lot of medical appointments together.
Charlotte and one of the boys from her section (Pablo? Pedro?) showing off his well-done bread
Gustavo and another boy who I don't know. Gustavo is a cute kid. He's close to being non-verbal but has been becoming very friendly and affectionate as he's been getting settled in to NPH
This kid wanted his picture taken, too. I'm not really sure how he got a face full of flour since the dough was all pre-made...
This is Carlito. He was into cooking way more than eating, he kept asking for more dough.
In fact all of them loved cooking the bread. Here's a mob of ravenous children attacking Kristina and Janelle trying to get more dough
This kid is adorable too, though its a crappy picture of him.
This girl's my buddy too.
This kid had such a ridiculously large stick, it was hilarious
Me, Charlotte and Hanna
It was a really awesome time! Once again I was a little surprised by the difference in supervision here. The basic attitude is "if they do something stupid they probably won't do it again." When everyone was done making their bread a bunch of kids dumped the rest of the firewood in, making an enormous bonfire. The staff were just like, ok, our job here is done, the fire will burn out. We just left a horde of crazy children running around a bonfire. Guess everything was fine though, there were no crispy kids waiting in the clinic this morning ;)
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Jordy's story
Just wanted to share this quickly. A little boy came into the clinic and the nursing supervisor asked him to tell me a story. This little guy Jordy is apparently known throughout the orphanage for telling really extravagant tales about giants and pirates and the like. I didnt get a long one since he was a little more interested in listening to my music, but it was still adorable. Side note, if you hear news that I kidnapped a kid and am now on the run in Guatemala, no need to wonder who I took.
I can't really tell what he's talking about, but I know it has something to do with a duck in a river who's cold and hungry.
I can't really tell what he's talking about, but I know it has something to do with a duck in a river who's cold and hungry.
Some shots of the other volunteers
No big surprise, but I've been spending a lot of time hanging out with the other volunteers. It's been really cool, they're all great people and it's been fun getting to know them. I was a little concerned at first what types of folks would be here with me. The crowd is definitely different than the sorts of people I've been hanging out with in NY the last few years, and I definitely miss that scene, but the people here have been very open and nice. It's also been cool to talk to people who are a lot more religious than I am and get a reminder that it's possible to be Catholic and still be open-minded. I've been stereotyping religious folks for a while and it's good to be called out on it.
Like I had mentioned in an earlier post, there are 24 of us here volunteering, 12 of us just started and the other 12 have been here for six months already. There are actually more people from Germany here than from the US. Apparently Germany has a mandatory year of military or volunteer service after high school for all men, so non-profits are huge over there. They just did away with that law this year so there's been a drop in the number of male volunteers, but there are still a ton of Germans here.
Out for lunch in Antigua with the group (missing two). Around the circle starting from the left: Janelle (US), Me (US), Charlotte (US), Nicole (Ger), Ani (Ger), Marlene (Austria), Stephanie (US), Veronika (Austria), Elena (Italy) and Liz (US). Only missing Holger (Ger) and Karla (Guat)
Me and the girls stopping for some ice cream. Interesting experience when you dont know what flavor anything is and you have to order by color. Makes it a little more exciting :)
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo...
This is all 24 of us. I'm going to name everyone. I'm the handsome one in the blue.
The 12 newbies
Like I had mentioned in an earlier post, there are 24 of us here volunteering, 12 of us just started and the other 12 have been here for six months already. There are actually more people from Germany here than from the US. Apparently Germany has a mandatory year of military or volunteer service after high school for all men, so non-profits are huge over there. They just did away with that law this year so there's been a drop in the number of male volunteers, but there are still a ton of Germans here.
Out for lunch in Antigua with the group (missing two). Around the circle starting from the left: Janelle (US), Me (US), Charlotte (US), Nicole (Ger), Ani (Ger), Marlene (Austria), Stephanie (US), Veronika (Austria), Elena (Italy) and Liz (US). Only missing Holger (Ger) and Karla (Guat)
Me and the girls stopping for some ice cream. Interesting experience when you dont know what flavor anything is and you have to order by color. Makes it a little more exciting :)
But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo...
This is all 24 of us. I'm going to name everyone. I'm the handsome one in the blue.
The 12 newbies
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