Anniversario-Dances/Songs/Cheers

Ready for the presentations to begin--each group sat
together with their flags and their mascots.

This year NPH Guatemala celebrated their 15th anniversary! Casa San Andres has been open since 1996 and has become a family and a home to hundreds and hundreds of children, tios, volunteers and employees over the years. This weekend we celebrated the anniversary in style.

Anniversario is no joke here at NPHG--we started rehearsing in our teams over a month ago. The entire house from babies, to tios, volunteers and employees were all divided up onto 15 different teams. Each year the theme is different and this year it was the departments at NPH--so the teams ranged from la escuela (school) to la granja (the farm) with 13 others in between. My team was mantenimiento (maintenance)--with our mascots being a hammer and a nail--creative right?!? We had been rehearsing once or twice a week over the past six weeks to come up with a dance, cheers, a play and other things to represent maintenance and our spirit for NPH. This past Friday was the beginning of annviersario and the big day of presentations of the groups.

Me and Wilson--he was one of
our mascots--a nail.

We started off the day singing "Las Manañitas", a traditional birthday song here in Guatemala, to the kids at 5am. Some of the older kids got up and sang with us and we also set of bombas (small fireworks) to make sure everyone was up and ready for the day. While we were singing outside their windows the lights flicked on and all their faces appeared in the windows--it was too cute. Once everyone was awake we went up to the cancha/basketball court and enjoyed some hot chocolate.

The rest of the day was spent making sure all of the finishing touches were done on our presentations. The presentations began at 2pm and the cancha was filled with spirit--yelling, cheering, singing, dancing and laughing until around 7pm when the events for day one had come to an end. Each group was given the opportunity to present in front of the others and the judges. My group after many (not so fun) rehearsals put on a dance and a play, which all finally came together in the last hours.

Cliníca--all dressed as nurses and doctors!

José was the mascot for the clinic--the red cross.

Granja (farm) representing the animals at NPH.

Jardenaría (garden) covered in flowers.

Escuela (school) came into the cancha on their "school bus".

The day was all about celebration, love, spirit and unity and it could not have been more apparent Friday night--the cancha was on fire with all of the above.

TEAM SPIRIT!

Running of the flags--every hour or so all the teams would run
into the middle with the flags screaming and cheering.