Family

This weekend, my uncle passed away.

I'm sad, but there's a strange comfort about being here at NPH. Being in the presence of my kids, of kids who have lost so much more than I have at a far younger age than anyone should, has calmed me. I feel far from alone.

I realized that I have become part of another family. And as long as I'm with my second family, the grief is bearable and loneliness a long way off.

Every 15 Days

To say “every two weeks” in Spanish is “cada quince días,” or literally in English “every 15 days.” Fifteen, you say? One, from the US as least, would question why it’s not fourteen.

Just as two weeks are referred to as every 15 days, every week is referred to as every eight days.

In English class, the kids this week are learning about budgeting and living within their means. They each had to chose something they spent on daily that isn’t a necessity, then calculate how much they spent a year on this.

Sonia said she spent $2 pesos a day on candy. So they teacher calculated how much she spent per year like so:

$2 pesos x 8 days x 52 weeks = $832 pesos

...my world is altering. I’m questioning my definition of a week. There are seven days in a week, aren’t there?

Translating

With these past two weeks, I feel I can now add “translator” to my resume under job experiences.

As I’ve mentioned, the kids produced Romeo and Juliet last Thursday. They’re doing so under the direction of three directors from Holland who have funded the play. They speak, as it seems, every language on earth – except Spanish. The poquito of Spanish they speak makes it difficult for them to communicate with the kids and staff here.
Sophie and Naomi to the rescue!

We became the official translators of NPH. We’ve decoded English to Spanish and vice versa, running into problems only when the Dutch start speaking in Dutch because they get confused when switching from English to Spanish to Dutch, then back again.

The UN is my next step.

Día de los Santos

Another delayed blog entry for a day that cannot go by unmentioned: Día de los Santos, or All Saints Day, celebrated on November 1st.

To celebrate All Saints Day we had mass. The kids had the opportunity the week leading up to the day to write in a book the names of their loved ones who had passed away. During mass, Father Phil read every name the kids had written. Over at least the next five minutes, more than 100 names were read. As the names of their passed parents, siblings, relatives and friends were read, the kids bowed their heads, some whose eyes were filled with tears.

It was a reminder for me of how much they have lost, but an even greater reminder of how strong they continue to be.

Michael Jackson Tribute

At NPH in American style Halloween we had a costume and dance contest. Many of the kids got really into it, while the directors, caregivers and volunteers did our own rendition of the thriller dance.

Pictures will explain it all.


Some of the boys in the costume contest.


Sophie and I with Alex


Dancing thriller...or the attempt.

Día de los Muertos

This post is a little delayed, as Día de los Muertos was on October 31st, but I couldn’t let the day go with no mention.

Día de los Muertos is done a little differently down here than Halloween in the US. Black and orange, pumpkins, and hay rides are all American traditions (that derived from Mexico’s much older tradition).

The children here though have taken some of the US traditions and put on a twist. Trick-or-treating is done November 1 and 2 at anytime during the day. You must sing a song, and stores and restaurants are the most popular sites on the route to ask for candy.

Judgment Day

A couple of weeks ago, I was a judge. Elected from the various office workers of NPH, I had the grand pleasure to judge the ofrendas at the High School.

Ofrendas, or offertories, are made for Dia de Los Muertos to honor the dead. They’re like alters, each with four levels and specific components. They need food, for example, to welcome the spirits, and a photo of the one honored.

Each grade and concentration in high school made an ofrenda. I walked around to each, listening to the explication of each ofrenda and judging how closely they followed the components of an ofrenda. I docked off points for references to Halloween (such an orange and black color scheme).

They were beautiful.

Fonts

At NPH we take t-shirts very seriously.

I’ve been in more than a couple meetings with half-an-hour or longer discussions about the design, color, and message of our latest t-shirt need. This week our t-shirt project concerned those participating in Romeo and Juliet.

First concern addressed: Color
Options: blue, green, red, maroon?
Conclusion: we settle on 6 different colors (why just one?) for who knows what number of different groups.

Second concern addressed: Logo
Options: heart w/arrow, no arrow, two hearts, one heart?
Conclusion: we settle on one heart, no arrow. Whew.

Third concern addressed: Font
Options: scribbly, block, white, black, outlines, slanted, italicized?
Conclusion: none arrived at. Decide to print out 20 fonts from an art program to decide at a later date.

Suffice to say, after half-an-hour, we came to somewhat of a conclusion for our Romeo and Juliet shirts.

We won’t know for sure though until we have a prototype. We must revise that first ;)

Like I said, at NPH, we take t-shirts very seriously.