Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Spoons, Spoons, Spoons

This weekend, we played with spoons.

Every six weeks, all of the volunteers here at NPH Guatemala organize what's called a Kermes. Directly translated, it means fair or carnival. Here at NPH, it means a collection of whatever games, activities, food, or crafts we think that 350 kids from age infant to 20 would find fun. In reality, Kermes means two hours of pure chaos (but in a really really fun way).

Oh, and did I mention that Kermes has to have a theme?

The theme of this month's Kermes was "Spoons" or "Spuns!" as we wrote it on the flyers (because spelling it out in Spanish phonetics was cooler than using the actual Spanish word, "cucharas").

We set up about eight stations of games. Some involved variations of the card game Spoons while others literally used spoons. Kids were free to run around from game to game trying to win prizes, and boy did they run. They were nuts.

Last but not least, we also used our Kermes funds to invest in a granizada (snow cone) maker! The granizadas were a ton of work (every volunteer house had to fill their freezer days before with bags of water to make ice, and Sarah and I hand-squeezed lemons until our hands stung), but it was totally worth it. The kids loved it, and now that the volunteers have our very own granizada maker, we can have margaritas every night!

(Just kidding...or am I?)

Normal game of Spoons with cards, but they had to grab their spoons from a bucket of soapy water.

The spoons obstacle course haha. They had to carry a ping pong ball on the spoon the entire time.

Trying to throw spoons through the holes for points. This one was hard!

Spoons with GIANT cards. This was pretty funny.

Hockey -- using spoons instead of hockey sticks.

And finally, the spoon catapult. One of my favorites.

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