Philosophy 101 (1/4)

Buenos dias!

In the past month I have (hopefully) answered your questions about where in the world I went (NOT the middle of the jungle), what I am doing (NOT running from the real world) and what kids have stolen my heart (all of them). However, many of you are probably still wondering how this “orphanage” works, the values the kids are taught and the general philosophy by which NPH is run. So for the next few blog entries I will be talking about the philosophy behind NPH international, which includes all of the homes (9 in total).

[Also, a side note, just like orphanage has been phased out of English it is also no longer used here. The more loving term is  “casa hogar” which roughly translates to “group home”.]

When Father William Wasson founded the first NPH home in Mexico in 1954 founded it on 4 pillars: Education, Love, Respect and Work. Each one of these aspects has a scriptural basis and is founded in the Catholic character of the home. Everyone here at NPH knows these pillars by heart and it is easy to seem them reflected in the everyday life here.

This week I want to focus on work and how all of the children here are taught the value of hard work from a young age. Why don’t you take a look at their typical weekday for yourself…

5:00 am-Wake up. Do chores and wash pajamas and clothes from yesterday.

6:30 am-Breakfast then off to school.

7:00-12:30 School.

1:00 pm- Lunch

1:30-4:00 pm- Homework, chores, wash uniforms and possible work in the fields.

4:00-6:00 pm- Free time, usually spent going on leisurely walks to pick fruit or playing soccer in one of the many fields. 

6:30-7:00 pm- Dinner, chores, iron uniforms for the next day and relax with the rest of the time.

8:00 pm- Bedtime. “A dormir y soñar con los angeles”

Even the littlest boys (as young as 5 years old) have daily chores, which they must complete three times a day. The most common chore is “trapear 5 veces” or mop the floors of the common area five times. Although I originally thought mopping the floors a total of 15 times a day was crazy, I have learned that in a house with 15 boys running all around it does make sense. About 2 days a week everyone is also called to work in the fields after lunch for an hour or two, helping collect the food that we eat. These jobs range from collecting rice, weeding onion gardens, tilling the soil and “macheteando” (macheteing)- the Nica way to mow the lawn. I am learning now that my childhood chore of vacuuming the house was nothing in comparison to what these kids know.

The children also get rewarded for all of this hard work. Each child is given enough clothing and shoes but if they want a new or special pair of shoes they also have the option of working extra. For example, the boys of my house wanted new sneakers so they worked in cleaning up a garden for a few days and were then given colorful new sneakers. For a sneaker fanatic, I could understand their overwhelming excitement to try them on!

All the children here have faced tough situations, one way or another. But with this commitment to work, they learn that they have the power and capacity to change their situation (to a certain degree). They learn to take responsibility for the cleanliness of their own home. They learn that even though they may be small, they can work just as hard and make as much of a difference as an older kid. For me, this is crucial for any child’s self-confidence and self-worth, and I am proud to be a part of it.

So that’s our lesson for the day!

Here are a few pictures of them enjoying powdered milk…

Now for a bit on my recent travels…

On my weekend off last week I ventured to the nearby city of Granada with Beatriz, another new volunteer. Monday was Independence Day for all of Central America from Spain so on Sunday we were able to watch a parade march through the town square. Every school in the city marched in the parade and many of them had their own bands. A few of the bands were truly amazing and a pleasure to watch. Not only did they have an awesome beat but the kids had the perfect attitude to go with it…

And I couldn’t help but record the only hipster glasses I have seen since I got here. I LOVED them…

I ended up hiding in the shade to avoid another sunburn and came across this man who had taken his grandson to watch the parade. I couldn’t help to take a few candid pictures after they asked for a picture…

And last but not least, my weekly food update...

After wandering around Granada all weekend, Beatriz and I found a great Canadian bakery for breakfast on Monday. I indulged in an apple cinnamon crumb cake and LOVED it. I know its not Nica food but I was feeling a bit homesick and this just hit the spot!

Sibling love!

Happy Hump Day!

Thanks so much for checking out my blog! A few people have told me how much they enjoy reading and checking up on me so I’m happy to report that I am still doing great and have even more fun stories for this week.

This past weekend was the first time I took part in the “Programa Familiar” in the home. Although two siblings may both be living here at NPH, when they are in different grades, live in different houses and rarely have the same free time it can be hard to maintain a strong relationship. The point of this family program is to bring each set of siblings together for some special activity, allowing them to cherish that special sibling love. Each families within NPH loves when it is their turn to participate, especially since each set of siblings gets to participate about twice a year. Running these family activities is another one of the volunteer’s responsibilities here so every weekend that I work I must spend either a morning or an afternoon with one set of siblings.

This weekend I had a boy from my house and his younger brother. Since I am not allowed to use names we will call them Bob and Carl (very Nicaraguan, right?). Bob is ten and extremely well behaved, only two years older than Carl but Carl has a small developmental disability and behavioral problems so the two don’t seem close in age at all. I was free to pick whatever activity I wanted to do with them so I chose to help them bake sugar cookies. What kid doesn’t love sweets, right? I managed to find cookie cutters in my house so they had a blast making hearts and letters and even a turkey.

While I watched Bob teach Carl how to crack an egg and later how to roll out the dough I was reminded so much of my “motherly” older sister. When the two started sneaking bites of raw dough and licking the bowls, I couldn’t help but see myself fighting with my two sisters over who got to lick the spatula. Whether it’s three girls in the states or two boys in Nicaragua, we’re all the same when it comes to cookie dough!

Although I’m not sure how much batter went into the cookies versus their stomachs, by the end they had a bunch of cookies to take back to their houses!   I can’t wait to work with another family in two weeks! Here are a few pictures of them...

As far as school, this past week was surprisingly nice. On both Tuesday and Friday several students were missing so we were down to less than ten students in every class. This ended up being a blessing because I was finally able to give the individual attention I wanted to! Without such a large group, the students behaved better and listened while I explained new material. I got all the way through a lesson plan and we had time for games! In one class there were only 4 students so my co teacher bought them all cookies and we ate and played and had a great day. Although the other kids missed the lesson, those that were there truly benefited from the class. At the end of the day I could say that I had showed love and attention to every student in my classes. What more can I ask?

Since a post of mine wouldn’t be complete without mentioning some great food I ate…this past Friday I tried my first Nacatamale! No, this is not a typo. It is a Nicaraguan tamale (get it?), which is what every guidebook tells you is the typical food here-besides rice and beans. Like any other tamale it is wrapped in a plantain leaf with a corn based filling but these have meat, peppers, chili peppers, potatoes and, of course, rice. My co-teacher brought it to me as a “snack” during our mid-morning break on Friday. When she brought out a cup of coffee and two pieces of bread “to help with digestion” I realized snack may have a different meaning here…Nonetheless, I finished it all and loved every bite. Tamales can be pretty tasteless but the Nacatamale has so many flavors! Since we are entering the corn harvest now I am crossing my fingers that we start eating Nacatamales for lunch or dinner. I will keep you all posted. As for the recipe, everyone here knows how to make them so I am also planning on learning how. We’ll see how that goes…

Until next time!

Cheesey times

Hey everyone!

I just realized I have now been here in Nicaragua for over a month! How crazy is that? It definitely feels like more than that, with all of the new things I’ve learned, relationships I have formed and crazy things that have happened.

To start off, here are some updates on my boys…Last week one of the older ones in the house (he is 16) moved to another boy’s house in order to even out the number of kids in each house. It was sad to see him go but the house is all of twenty feet away so I still see him a few times a day!

Last week during dinner a few of the boys began to practice the new rhythms they had learned on the marimba. (The marimba is a cousin of the piano that looks like a xylophone and is used in folk music here.) A few other boys joined in and before long, I had an impromptu dinner and a show! These ten year olds were just having a blast finding new beats, I couldn’t resist taking a video. Check it out below! After the concert somehow I started showing them music on my iPhone and they ended up requesting Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. Now, I knew that Jackson was famous and that Thriller was one of his more famous songs but I was not prepared for what happened next. They started doing the dance! Exactly like in the music video, one boy played Jackson and the rest started in “graves” (aka lying on the ground). Then one by one they came up and did the zombie walk. It was so much fun to watch and see how this facet of American culture had really spread all over the whole world. After that night, I promised to download some more music so we can have more dance parties. I may have graduated college in May, but there’s no way I’m giving up my weekly dose of ridiculous dancing!

Teaching has been the most challenging part of my new life so far. There are so many things I want to be able to share with my students but I have been hitting quite a few road blocks along the way. Although I may come into class with a great lesson plan, chances are I will not get to the majority of it because of a host of problems, bad behavior being the most common.  The kids behave extremely well outside of the classroom, but once they enter it some of them throw rules to the wind. I am slowly learning how to keep everyone interested, in their seats and attentive but it is tough going. Given the difficult family situations and somewhat chaotic classroom environments that the students are subjected to, I do not blame them for our troubles. I only hope to continue to find ways to overcome these setbacks so that everyone can benefit from my class.

On a totally different note, this past weekend I had time off and went to the Island of Ometepe, which is where NPH was located until a big move to our current location in 2008. However, at that time a volunteer in occupational therapy stayed on the island because she was providing therapy for the local children and didn’t want to leave them without therapy. With the support of NPH and other volunteers, she founded a clinic on the island. Now six years  later, she has just opened up a center in it’s own location and is running it through NPH.  How cool is that!? She really is an amazing person to have achieved this.  The kids here are always talking about how cool the island is and how much fun it is so we finally decided to come check it out and see the new center at the same time.

Here is one of the main rooms of the new occupational therapy center. 

Check out the awesome mural that covers the whole room. 

The island has two large (and active) volcanoes and sits in the center of Lake Nicaragua so it has quite a few beaches and fun things to do. Along with the other volunteers, I visited a natural pool that came from  a river that runs through the middle of the island.

This is the natural pool we visited. 

Here is a view of one of the two volcanoes. 

 I also visited and hiked around a lagoon and then spent a day at the beach. As most of you know, I LOVE to hike so being able to go on a short hike was really great. Plus my parents sent me an amazing care package full of treats so I had a delicious Kind bar along the way (THANKS Mom and Dad!).

Two of the volunteers I was hiking with enjoying the beach after hour hike. 

Me and my Kind bar!

For dinner one night I had a piece of lasagna that had real mozzarella cheese in it! In Nicaragua the only type of cheese is queso fresco, which I am only slowly learning to like. As a huge cheese fan, having real delicious cheese for dinner may have been the best thing about the entire weekend. I am still gushing over that cheese thinking about it 4 days later! Who knew cheese could make me so happy?

From a single Michael Jackson dance to a simple piece of cheese, I am learning that it truly is the little things in life that matter. When I slow down a bit and take the time to appreciate the little things, I realize I am surrounded by little notes from God. These notes are filled with messages of love, whether the love with which He shatters cultural differences and brings people together (dancing with my boys), His love for those with physical handicaps (a center in the middle of rural Nicaragua) or His love for me (in the form of cheese). It isn’t hard to find these notes from God; they are all around us. All we have to do is open our eyes and let our heart be filled.

Until next time!

Here is the lagoon we hiked around. 

A view of the beach...