Día del Maestro

June 17th was the last day of school before the kids here at NPH left for a week of vacation. Approximately half our kids were able to go home to spend a week with their families, while the other kids at least got a week off from school. Friday also marked the day to celebrate “Teacher’s Day” here at NPH.

The day started off with presentations from each of the Básico classes for the teachers. There were traditional dances, songs (including one that Hugo sang to the music teacher entitled “I’m in Love with Your Daughter” now THAT was awesome!), skits, and competitions…including the one that I got roped into. They asked for 2 male and 2 female teachers to go to the front and after hearing my name from the audience I was corralled to the front for the presentation. Our task? To be the first contestant to pour soda from a bottle into a balloon…and then drink it out of the balloon. The challenge? The men got Pepsi…the women got some sort of weird soda concoction that tasted like a combination of 7-Up and cough syrup. Needless to say…I didn’t win…but I was ok with that…because the winner had to do it again! (My hands were also dyed red for a good 5 hours afterward…)

Traditional Guate dress

Girls doing a traditional Guatemalan dance

Hugo and Company singing "I'm in Love with your Daughter"...so much passion!

Racing to finish our soda!

A segundo class singing to the teachers

Acting the fool...aka completely drunk making fun of the Gym teachers

Anyhoo! After the presentations, each of the teachers was assigned to a classroom where the kids had prepared something special for them. In our classroom the kids had brought in the materials to make everyone sandwiches: bread, ham, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, ketchup, and mayonnaise…not exactly what I would have picked…but how can you say no? We ate our sandwiches and then it was time for all the English teachers to be judges at the festivities for Primaria.

The kids preparing our meal

Now when I hear “Día del Maestro” I’m thinking – awesome – a day for the teachers to have fun and relax, right?? WRONG. Instead of having fun and relaxing and doing nothing, the English teachers became judges for the Primaria games…and I got stuck with the stupidest game I’ve EVER seen ANYWHERE (and I’ve seen some pretty stupid games here…) Basically there was a huge bucket filled with water. The students were given sponges and told to fill a tube that was COVERED in holes (including a huge one on the bottom) with water so that a golf ball would pop out the top. Doesn’t sound THAT awful does it? Maybe you’ll change your tune when I say the tube was about 3 feet long and had roughly 100 holes in it. AND GO!

Trying to make the longest line of clothes and people...

Alphabet volleyball

The world's worst game.

The teams would try to achieve their task as a team together for roughly 3 of the 10 minutes they were supposed to be playing…and then they would forget about that impossible idea and instead begin pelting each other with the dripping wet foam sponges and trying to steal the hose out of my hand. I ended up completely soaking wet and covered in mud. Not exactly my idea of a fun way to celebrate teachers…

Star of the Moment

So I’m not exactly sure why I never did this in the past, but it’s about time for it to happen. Today’s “Star of the Moment” is dedicated to one of my favorite kids here at NPH, Hugo. Hugo is an INCREDIBLE kid. He’s in my Primero Básico class and is an excellent student – he’s always respectful, always raises his hand, and always gets good grades. He’s also just an overall sweet guy – always surrounded by friends, a great sense of humor, wonderful singer, and always laughing and having fun. Hugo is one of the handicapped children here at NPH. While I’m not exactly sure what happened, he walks on crutches. But he never asks for help and he never complains. Instead, he always has a smile on his face…like I said – an amazing kid :). And so for these reasons and so many more, I dedicate this post to Hugo :).

Excursión de Básico

Last Thursday (June 16) all of the teachers went on an excursion with the students of Básico to Esquintla, an area of Guatemala about an hour and a half south of us, to hang out, relax, and go swimming! A few of the teachers had been to this finca (farm) before and agreed it would be a great place for the kids – swimming pools, tons of open land to play on, basketball courts, lots of walking paths through a forest/jungle, and located on a river – perfect!

We set out at 8 am in 3 buses and arrived, drenched in sweat, and ready for some fun. I’m not going to lie – at first I was incredibly nervous. I mean, most of our kids don’t know how to swim and the pool was fairly deep (and the current in the river pretty strong), but once we got there, I knew it would be a great day to just relax and hang out with our kids (and amazingly most of them could reach the bottom of the pool – perfect!) We spent the day wandering around the jungle (after crossing the world’s most rickety/scary bridge), swimming in the river and pools, and eating what were supposed to be hamburgers… (and I also spent the time reading Bridal magazines – thanks for the latest one mom :) and answering questions about my favorite topic – my wedding! Woo!) Overall it was a really relaxing day and a lot of fun :).

The world's most rickety bridge...

Martin swimming in the river

Iris, Odelia, and Daniela

Hanging out by the pool

Corinna and I walking in the jungle!

DON’T EAT THAT

Last Wednesday Katie, Meghan, and I went up to the comedor to grab lunch – rice, beans, and carrots…pretty standard. But when we were walking out of the comedor, Yeimy (the librarian) ran up to Katie, whispered something in her ear, and then ran to sit down again. On the way out, Meghan and I started nibbling on our carrots until Katie told us “Don’t eat that.” Turns out, there were little beechos (aka beetles) in our lunch! (Don’t worry – not in the carrots!) When we got home we examined our plates a bit closer and, sure enough, they were covered in dead little baby beetles. They were so tiny, that if I hadn’t been told, I would have mistaken them for herbs and spices….which two of the other volunteers had already done and had eaten the whole thing… and which also begs the question…how many times has this happened since we’ve been here…and how many baby beechos have I already eaten??

I guess it’s no surprise why I just had parasites for the third time since being here…

Teaching a real lesson

Sometimes teaching English here at NPH I feel like I can’t get my point across. Either the kids don’t understand why they need to learn English (or pay attention or be respectful), or they don’t feel like listening, or on some days, they flat out just don’t like you. It happens.

Last Tuesday I was just having one of those days – the kind where you can’t help but feel like everything’s going wrong. I went to my fifth grade class and everything was more or less alright, but one of my best students, Rivaldo, was misbehaving. After class I asked to speak with him and he kept giving me the cold shoulder, wouldn’t listen, and walked away from me. After a little goading from his 5th grade teacher, he finally came outside to speak to me. I asked what was going on and how he was feeling and he immediately got defensive and said he didn’t do anything wrong. I said something to the effect of: “Rivaldo – you are a really smart boy and you are one of the best behaved students in the class. I would really like it if we could work together to improve your behavior,” and the like…this went on for a good 5-10 minutes…

Now, I’ve had this talk many times in the past few months with various students trying to get to the root of a certain problem…yet none of them has ever responded the way that Rivaldo did. He looked at me, almost with a tear in his eye, and told me that he was going to change his ways…and that he was a good student…and that he knew he could do better. And that was that.

A lot of kids here at NPH are completely unaffected. They don’t understand the impact that their words and actions have. They don’t understand that they are really good kids and that they can choose the way they act and the way that others perceive them. They don’t understand how they affect other people, and a lot of times, they don’t receive positive individualized attention when they’re having problems. A lot of times here I feel like I’m not making any sort of difference in these children’s lives. But then something like this happens, and I remember why I’m here.

Last Kermes!

Last weekend (June 11th…I know…I’m behind again) was my last Kermes ever here at NPH. Needless to say, I wasn’t too excited about it (although I was THRILLED that it was the last one!) They’ve definitely been flops in the past and I wasn’t too enthusiastic over the theme – “Carnival.”

I was assigned to the group for the water balloon toss and thought…alright. This could definitely be worse. I showed up last Saturday afternoon ready to fill water balloons and was amazed to find all the kids excited to play all the various games that were set up. Among them we had: ring toss, a relay race putting on different clothing and running across the comedor, a new version of musical chairs (music played and when it stopped the kids had to be the first to grab an empty soda bottle in the middle), toss the beanbags, and of course, the water balloon toss.

Maria tossing a bean bag

Playing "musical chairs"

There was a major different between this Kermes and others in the past. Usually the tios and tias bring all of the kids and they play games in sections. In addition, the kids are normally herded between every station according to a set schedule. Instead, this one was completely free – kids could come and go as they pleased and play whatever games they wanted…and what we thought would lead to disaster actually lead to a really fun day!

Michael with Yay yay doing his monkey impression

Luis Fernando aka "Weecho" aka adorable baby!

My station started out INCREDIBLY hectic – kids grabbing water balloons from all angles, stealing them, taking one and having their partner take one so they could continue to play even after they got out, etc. It was exhausting (especially while trying to take pictures at the same time!) But after a few minutes we figured out how to get ourselves organized and everything went smoothly. The kids stood in line, respected the rules, didn’t push each other, stopped stealing the balloons, and waited for their turn – it was amazing (and unheard of!) The kids had a great time playing and we had a constant influx of visitors :).

Water balloon toss!

Yeimy and Jhoselin didn't really understand the balloon toss...but I think that might make them more adorable...

After each round/game, the winners were given tickets with their name and section on them to be put into a raffle prize drawing. Normally at Kermes kids play in teams and the whole team gets little prizes like key chains or pencils. This time around, however, the kids played individually…meaning the prizes were a LOT more awesome than normal (aka games like Connect 4, soccer balls, beanie babies, books, marker sets, etc.) The kids were soooooooooooo excited about winning something for themselves that they had earned and everyone had a wonderful time – it was seriously an amazing Kermes!

The kids ready to get at the prize table!

Getting my nails did

Last Thursday we English teachers got an interesting proposition from one of my students, Alexander:

“How would you like to get a massage and manicure right now?”

Umm where do I sign up??

Alex lead us to the Belleza – the beauty workshop – where the kids have been learning how to give hand massages, manicures, and pedicures. I plopped down in a chair and relaxed myself as another of my students, Jhoselin, got to work on cutting my cuticles and giving me a massage. Although it certainly needed work, she definitely earned points for diligence, giving me an almost 20 minute hand massage – it was great! After that she got to work painting my nails – a French manicure. Now…it was FAR from the best manicure that I’ve ever received, but I can certainly say she tried and that she had an excellent sense of humor about it. Every time she would mess up she would just look me in the eyes and say “borralo” (erase it) wherein I’d wipe my hands on the towel and we’d start over…it took us a while…and even after roughly 30 minutes it was barely presentable, but it was a LOT of fun to say the least – talking to her about life and her future, gabbing on like school girls about boys – you name it. While my manicure left something to be desired – she definitely had the “therapist-style” manicurist vibe going on :-p.