Being a Tia is HARD.

In case the title of this post doesn’t say enough, I would NEVER EVER want to be a Tia here at NPH. They have BY FAR the closest relationships with the kids and they definitely spend the most time with them, but being a tio/tia is like being a parent for 20 kids who are all the same age ALL THE TIME. It’s one thing to raise a FEW children at a time, but 20 of them? SERIOUSLY??

The way our Christmas schedule works here is 2 days on (working), and 2 days off, with 2 different shifts (turnos) that alternate with this pattern. All of the volunteers and the newest round of local tios and tias (who have been working 4 months or less) alternate turnos taking care of the kids. After our few days of induction last week I had Tuesday and Wednesday off. I literally spent them watching Entourage (BIG thanks to Mr. Watzman!), making a TON of guacamole (thank heaven it’s avocado season again!), sleeping A LOT, and generally being lazy.

I wish the bliss could have lasted. At 7:30 on Thursday morning I was snapped back to reality when I went to my newly formed section of 11 girls (a combination of the 3 youngest sections of girls). Three girls are from my section, Angeles, (Magdalena, Vilma, and Rosa), 2 from the next section up, Fatima, (Johana and Flor) and 6 from the Maria Magdelena section (Yocari, Cindy, Marta, Karla, Sandy, and Nancy). WHAT an array of girls…for the most part pretty good, although there are certainly one or two diablos thrown in there with the mix. I spent Thursday and Friday watching the section with Carrie (another volunteer) and Tia Claudia, a new local tia, in addition to “tocando vela” in between.

“Me toca vela” (literally “the candle touches me”) means that in between my 2 days working, I slept in the section with the girls. What a treat THAT was. The other 2 tias left and I was left with 11 teens and pre-teens, a blasting radio, and a girl or two who did NOT want to listen to directions. Let’s just say one cleaned up her act, and the other ended up doubling her chores and unable to attend the next night’s activities (more on “La Posada” to come)… After her teenage antics (by the way – mom and dad – was I ever THAT annoying as a 15 year old??? PLEASE tell me no!), the rest of the night continued without any problems…although trying to wake up 11 girls at 7 in the morning is NOT a pleasant experience to say the least…

The next day our section did a LOT of coloring, card game playing, and playing with babies (I brought some of the girls to hang out with the babies on the sand volleyball court – those kids could fill water bottles with sand for DAYS!) Overall a pretty uneventful day (minus the same little trouble maker running off with her friends for the majority of the day - don’t worry – she was still in NPH, she just wasn’t doing what she was supposed to…teenagers!) HA! Anyhoo, the biggest drawback was really just me being exhausted all day from sleeping in the section. Other than that, just tiring. Did I mention it was tiring? VERY TIRING. Only 9 ½ more days of being a Tia (but who’s counting…)