Día de Los Padrinos Celebration!!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, last week and this past weekend were all about prepping for el Día de los Padrinos or Godparents Day. In all of the NPH homes and offices, May is Godparents Month and in each home, there is a special day full of activities to thank the godparents for all of their support and to give the kids a little extra something from their sponsors! It was a celebration with 300 plus people and tons of activities this year so we needed all hands on board!

The whole crew...the multiusos was full!

Some of the boards Pili drew as decorations!

The stats of number of sponsors from each country!

On Saturday, the festivities began at 10:30am with a mass of gratitude for all of the godparents…meanwhile, a group of local sponsors living here in the DR came rolling in to spend the day with their godchildren. This was fun because there were godparents who had never been out to NPH before as well as kids who had never received a godparent visit before!

The International Women's Club in Santo Domingo sponsors 10 kids here!

Rance and his godmother from MSC!

Godparents and godkids signing their names!

After mass, we had a program in the multiusos. This included some dances by our dance-lines here, a flute melody, a song on guitar, a poem done by the new boys’ house, a number with drums, a couple testimonials from some of the older kids, etc. It was really quite a good show…I think everyone was entertained!

Mass with everyone in their colors!

The program led by Ricardo and Danilo!

Moises and his band!

Older kid dance line!

Following the program, we had a yummy lunch complete with Russian salad (i.e. potato salad with lots of veggies), roasted chicken, and yellow rice. Plus for dessert there was fruit salad…it was yummy, yummy, yummy! And the Santa Ana girls prepped all the fruit and served all the food to the visitors—they worked their butts off…I was quite proud!

The visitor table (or should I say tables!)

Sta. Teresa boys enjoying a special meal!

Following lunch, there were yet more activities…we had a guy come in with a karaoke machine and a bunch of the older kids really got into that as different salsa and merengue tunes blasted over the sound system in the multiusos. We also had 3 blow-up bouncy castles come over along with a cotton candy machine, which, of course, the kids went crazy over! Besides that, we got a good game of 4-way tug-‘o-war going and some volleyball in. Finally, we finished off the afternoon with ice cream for all made right here at NPH! It was a long, exhausting, fun day, so all of our hard work and planning really paid off in the end!

Karaoke really took off!

Bouncy castles for the younger kids!

Mr. Junior enjoying to the max!

Eridania says hello!

Tug-o-war...i.e. tira y jala!

In other news, we continue to be busy preparing with the Canada and US trip kids…this week in our training, we did a photo shoot in addition to working on English. Plus we have officially started to fill out the visa forms for the Canada boys…

And last but not least, Wes arrived last night!!! Wes was the volunteer English teacher for a full year here and he left this past July (nearly a year ago—wow, I’ve been here SO long!) We took one of his boys, Lionardo, to the airport to pick him up. Needless to say, it was QUITE the adventure…yep, escalators, elevators and STRAWS for the first time ever for Lionardo! We were laughing so hard we were crying :) Not to mention, it was awesome to see Wes after such a long time!

Yep, first time Lionardo ever used a straw...so naturally, Christian taught him how to use two...

...and then three...hehe...

Wes and Lionardo...two peas in a pod...

Up next: a visit from my uncle Rick and cousins Chrissy and Brianna on Thursday!! Also, piggie update...they're getting bigger...and I keep getting dragged over to the pigpen by kids anxious to see them!