Proyecto Familiar

Last Wednesday was my first “Family Project.” Part of a volunteer’s job here at NPH is to participate in 2 proyectos each month. The projects are 2 hours where biological brothers and sisters (and sometimes cousins) get to spend time with each other. The kids look forward to projects because unfortunately they only happen about once every 3 months.

For the new volunteers, it’s recommended that we do our first project with an old volunteer, kind of to get the hang of things. For my project, I was paired up with Leeah and a group of the 3 most adorable boys you’ve ever met: Esteban, Marcos, and Luis. We had asked the boys what they wanted to do a few days before, but they came up empty handed. Without a clear goal of what we wanted to do for the project, we set out for Parramos (the closest small town, about a 10 minute walk from NPH) with a soccer ball and a deck of Uno cards. The children, all who live in different sections, seemed to take a little while to warm up to each other. To me it seemed strange that they were so distant, but then again, they don’t get to spend much time together, and the age difference – from 14 to 11 to 7 – was pretty big, yet over time they slowly started to warm up to each other.

While our project was anything but planned, I think it turned out to be a success :). We played a LOT of soccer, a few hands of Uno, and then concluded with some pollo frito y papas fritas de la calle (fried chicken and French fries from the street vendors…don’t worry – I still have yet to eat street food…). Although I think I’m going to find that proyectos are a little awkward for the volunteer (being the coordinator but also an outsider…) I think it’s going to be a great way to get to know a lot of the kids here at NPH.