Tia Time

How to entertain twenty girls between the ages of 12-14 for four days....

This past week was Semana Santa and all of the native employees left and spent the week with their families--that left all of us volunteers in charge of the children for four days. Scary! We all took over in the roles of tias/tios (cargivers) in our respective sections from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday morning. Most sections have two volunteers and then they had one or two años de servicio (older kids doing a year of service at the home before continuing school) to help out throughout the week....in my section just me and one año de servicio and twenty girls.

I was so nervous going into the week. What am I going to do with them all week? Will they listen to me? Will they do their chores? Will they go to bed on time? There are so many more of them then me. To my surprise, with a few glitches, the week went better then I could have imagined. It was so nice to be able to spend the time with my girls and get to know them even better. When you spend twenty four hours a day with someone you get to know them on a whole different level. They were all so responsible and did what we asked of them, which allowed us a lot of free time to fill with fun activities. And what did we do to pass the time you ask? We got creative.

We painted easter eggs to hide for the big easter egg hunt on Sunday morning.

We went on walks to visit the animals at NPH and feed the baby goats.

We dressed up in funny costumes and had a photo shoot.

We made guacamole and watched movies and latin american soap operas.

We had a bonfire with all the girls in the girls house and roasted marshmallows.

It was a very long week--but dare I say... it was fun!!!!! I have so much respect for the tias/tios after spending a week in their shoes. It is not an easy job to try and raise twenty kids. I am glad I was able to give it a try and this was only a practice round for the three weeks we spend in the sections over Christmas! Wish me luck.