I Guess This Means I'm In the Club

When I started working here in the office at NPH, one of the leaving volunteers told me that "Doña Eugenia -- she takes care of you."

Doña Eugenia is sort of like the "office mom." She cleans, makes sure there is always coffee and tea in the kitchen for us, and (once you've, for lack of a better word, been "accepted" into the office's family) she randomly brings you little presents of food and fresh flowers. She is awesome.

This morning, I bumped into her in the kitchen, and she offered me a piece of the pastel de zanahoria (carrot cake) she was slicing up and passing out to the office. Yum, so good.

And just now, she came into our office with vases of fresh calla lilies. It's normal for her to give one to Vilma, the full-time employee who works across me from, but today I got a vase on my desk too!

I guess this means I'm in the club. Love it. :)

Bye Bye, Casa Cinco

The good news: we have finally all moved out of Casa 5 -- the visitors' house where 9 new volunteers have been crammed 3 to a room for the past 3 weeks. We are in our new, permanent house, with our new, permanent rooms! We can finally stop living out of suitcases, and I can finally start decorating my walls with the obnoxious number of photos I brought from home!

The bad news: the visitors' house had way better amenities. The visitors' house had a microwave. No microwave in our house. The visitors' house had a sink in the kitchen. We don't; we have to go outside to the back of the house to use the outdoor pila (stone trough for washing dishes and clothing). And, the visitors' house had an automatic coffee maker. Take a look at what we have instead.

Yeah, now I know I'm an idiot in the kitchen, but I definitely wasn't the only person who sort of looked at the black cone-shaped piece of plastic and thought, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

It sounds easy enough. Just pour a pot of boiling water through the filter with the coffee. Well, think again. You have to use one hand to hold the filter in place the entire time, or else you'll have hot water and soggy coffee grinds all over the kitchen. You also need to have the patience of a saint. In about 20 minutes, we had enough for maybe one small cup of coffee. Lastly, you need some seriously seasoned taste buds. The coffee is b-i-t-t-e-r. Even the strongest of our coffee drinkers had a tough time drinking it without making a semi-disgusted face.

Letizia and I still have the keys to the visitors' house.

That's it. We're stealing that coffee maker.

Making coffee sin coffee maker. Not for the faint of heart.

Supersize Me, Por Favor

This weekend, Sam and I had one of those “Oh, we’re not in the United States anymore” moments.

Saturday morning we took one of the beloved chicken buses to Chimaltenango (or just Chimal, for short), the town 20 minutes away where we can find a grocery store and mall-like commercial center. We went just to grocery shop but then decided to take a detour over to the Taco Bell in the food court next door.

Pathetic that we visited a U.S. fast food chain? Kinda. But hey, when all you see is rice and beans three times a day, recognizable fast food chains are about the best thing that could happen to you.

Gross that we chose Taco Bell? Kinda. I never eat Taco Bell back in the States, ew. I’m just not a fan. So Saturday I stuck to a safe menu decision – a Pepsi and Cinnamon Twists. Pretty delicious.

But anyway, back to the point. We both ordered “mediana” sized drinks, deciding that we were really craving those fountain sodas and would splurge on a medium cup. So when they handed us our kids’ meal sized cups, we politely reminded them that we had ordered medianas.

“Um, those are medianas.”

What??? Saddest day ever.

Our “medium” Pepsis were about the size of the palm of my hand, and when we looked to see what a small cup must look like, I kid you not, it was probably no bigger than a Dixie cup.

We realized all of a sudden, that oh yeah, everything is ridiculously huge in the U.S. The average medium-sized drink in the States is probably close to a half gallon. Geez.

Oh well. Next time we’ll just have to make sure we order the Super Grandes.

The NPH Guatemala Philosophy

Yes, you know I'm working at an orphanage, but there's more to it than that. NPH is not your average orphanage. At the very least, life here for these kids is probably a lot different than what you're picturing in your mind at this very moment.

Well, allow me to set the record straight...and let you in on life at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Guatemala.

NPH Guatemala began in 1996, the year the Peace Accords were signed to end the 36-year Civil War in Guatemala (the longest civil war in Latin American history). The Civil War nearly ruined the country, leaving 200,000 dead (in a country only the size of Tennessee) and another 50,000 missing (or fleeing the country).

Today, NPH Guatemala is home to roughly 350 children between the ages of infant and 26.

When new children come to NPH, the home must accept all brothers and sisters under the age of 16, no matter how many children are in the family. If it's a family of 10, they all come together. No one is refused.

Once in NPH, children can never be put up for adoption. The idea is that stability is what's most important for success. NPH believes that you can't feel safe if tomorrow your younger brother or best friend might be taken away. When they enter NPH, they are told that this is their family now.

During their three years of middle school, each student is required to study in one of our five talleres, or workshops, and graduate with a certificate in their trade. The five talleres are the panadería (bakery), the carpintería (carpentry), the herrería (iron or welding workshop), the belleza (beauty salon), and the cosería (sewing workshop). The belief is that while higher education is priority #1, it doesn’t always guarantee you a job (even in first-world countries, thanks economy). NPH wants each of its kids to have a trade they can fall back on if needed. The talleres also exist to keep the NPH house self-sufficient. All bread (to feed all 500 children, volunteers and employees) is made daily in our bakery. All furniture (beds, desks, benches, lamps, even toy trucks) for the home is made in our carpentry and welding workshops. Anyone can get their hair cut, colored and done up for free in our belleza, and clothes – from the school uniforms to pajamas to extravagant quinceañera gowns – are made in our sewing workshop.

NPH will provide all children with free schooling (including university level), as long as they want it. But in between school levels, the kids are required to complete años de servicio (years of service). After finishing middle school, they have to serve one año de servicio before they can attend high school. After high school, they must serve two años de servicio before they can attend university. The idea is that NPH will provide kids with top levels of schooling, but they have to earn it. An año de servicio must be spent doing some kind of work that gives back to the NPH Guatemala house, helping run the very place that raised them. Many students work as caretakers for the younger kids, help teach in the classrooms, or work in the talleres. The año de servicio students are some of my favorite to see around the home. Watching the 17 year-old girl run the entire bakery herself or the 18 year-old boy tote around two infants all day long and look like he’s loving it makes it clear to me that these “orphans” might be way more prepared for the real world than any of their privileged American counterparts.

And finally, many of the children here still have regular contact with their biological families. I’ll admit, this is still one of the harder things for me to grasp. Children come to NPH not necessarily because they are orphaned, but often because they cannot be fed, clothed, and educated properly by their own family; Guatemala still remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America. NPH believes that it’s important to allow all children to keep these familial ties if they want to. The home hosts two or three days a year when family members can come visit NPH, and nearly two-thirds of the children here leave during Christmas break to spend three weeks with their biological families.

So there you have it, a little insight into the unique philosophy that is NPH.

It’s really hard to put into words, and I know it sounds incredibly cliché, but when you’re here, you don’t feel like you’re at an “orphanage.” On average, these kids seem happier, more responsible, and more competent than kids their age in the U.S. So without even thinking, my mind just decides they must have had a "normal" upbringing – just like me and everyone else, right? It sounds stupid, but sometimes I look around and think I’m just working at some Guatemalan boarding school or something.

It literally is a daily thing for me: to remind myself where they’ve come from, to realize I really can’t even fathom it, and to just sort of be in awe.

Finally, Some Photos on Facebook!

I uploaded photos to Facebook! However, it took me like 2 hours on my internet connection, so this might only happen once a month or so. There are 2 albums right now -- one from San Pedro and one from Antigua. Next task: take photos of NPH so I can show you all where I live! Be on the look out for that one!

(Note: You can view the photos at these links whether you have Facebook or not.)

Click here for photos from San Pedro.

And here for photos from Antigua.

Happy viewing!

You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

...At least when it comes to typing.

I complained in an earlier blog about how the Spanish language keyboards were impossible to use and how I couldn't stand them. Well, I am now eating my words.

In my office, my computer obviously has a Spanish keyboard, so that's what I type on the majority of my day. But, I have noticed during the past few days, that when I try to type on my own laptop at home at night, I type all the wrong keys. My hands have re-learned typing...in Spanish.

And so here's a fun run-down of some of the Computer 101 that I have had to re-teach myself. Enjoy!

• The @ symbol for email addresses (oh so crucial when I need to log in to Facebook, duh) is not on the number 2.  Instead, it hangs out with the letter Q. When you want to use the @, you hold down a new key -- the alt gr -- that's to the right of the space bar and then hit Q. It took a while to get the hang of that one.
• The quotation marks are with the 2, the / is with the 7, and the parentheses are on the 8 and 9.
• Both the question mark AND the apostrophe have moved to the right of the zero. That one was especially tricky to remember.
• To create accent marks, you hit the button to the right of the P (nothing happens) and then hit the letter you want to type. It magically creates an accented letter!
• Something I think is genius: the button to the left of 1 has the symbol for degrees (°). So handy!
• And of course, there are extra keys, like the ñ the ¡ and the ¿
• Oh, and the Shift keys are tiny. That's one thing I don't like very much.

I've also had to re-learn some of the keyboard shortcuts. Now...

• Control + B is Find (Find = Buscar)
• Control + G is Save (Save = Guardar)
• Control + N is Bold (Bold = Negrita)
• Control + K is Italic (Italic = Cursiva = sounds like K?)
• Control + S is Underline (Underlined = Subrayado)
• Control + E is Select All (not exactly sure why)

Fun, huh? Guess I'll have to re-learn U.S. keyboards in a year. :)

Guatemalan "Time"

Most people realize that the United States operates on a slightly more OCD-type of daily schedule than much of the rest of the world, especially when it comes to work and school. We like our deadlines and our quotas, and we like punishing people when they don't make theirs. We value punctuality and organization, and tardiness is frowned upon. We like when our companies run like well-oiled machines, and we probably don't even mind the pressure it creates.

Well, the country of Guatemala does not operate this way. It's not that this fact itself surprises me. I knew to expect it, and I experienced it in Greece too. What's hilarious, is just how unorganized this nation is sometimes. Here's our (all the American volunteers get a big kick out of it) favorite example so far:

The 2010 school year "started" yesterday. Note the quotations around "started."

As of this past Friday, NPH's school hadn't finalized the schedule for English classes. Nearly all 350 students here are required to take English classes, but somehow the schedule just couldn't get put together. Apparently, three months of summer vacation isn't enough time to figure it out. So, no big deal, says Guatemala. We just won't have English classes Monday.

Or Tuesday.

Or Wednesday.

We'll let you know tomorrow (Wednesday evening) if Thursday is a go.

After talking to our Volunteer Coordinator, we learned this is standard in Guatemala. Nowhere in the country is the first week of school expected to actually include schooling. It's sort of just a free week. Teachers needn't worry about having classes ready, and students needn't bother with showing up and expecting to learn.

Oh, Guatemala. (But aren't the kids just adorable in their school uniforms??)