Wow, where to even begin?
Christmas was a whole new level of intensity at NPH to put it simply. Basically
for the 10 days leading up to Christmas through the day itself, there was not
even a spare minute to sit down, breathe for a sec, or even sleep. The term
exhaustion doesn’t even begin to describe how some of us volunteers felt
afterwards. But we made it through and more importantly, we know that Christmas
was special for our nearly 230 kids at NPH!
1. Las Mañanitas
For the 10 days leading up
to Christmas, every morning at 6:00am, we did a reenactment of the Nativity
scene which included going from house to house singing until finally, at the
last house, Mary, Joseph, and crew came out. We all then went over to the
Nativity scene set up by the basketball group and did some more prayers and
song and ended each event around 7:00am with tea and crackers. This past
Saturday, it was the volunteers turn to be in charge. I was a very pregnant
Mary! And then on the last day, on Christmas eve, we all finished by going to
the nearby batey and celebrating with all of the people there!
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| When it was Santa Ana's turn to host! |
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| Avriel as the star and me as Mary! |
2. Kola Real Christmas Party
Our kids are lucky enough
to get to attend a couple of Christmas events, thanks to our generous sponsors.
Kola Real, a local soda company, made Christmas really special this year by
inviting all of our kids to come to the capital for a party. The day started at
1:30pm when they sent four coach busses over to pick everyone up. Our kids were
more than content before we even left site as they each got their own seat and
soon realized there was a flat screen TV on boarding playing Ice Age 4! Things
only got better from there. We arrived in the capital an hour and a half later
to the sight of tons of blow-up bouncy shapes, cotton candy, popcorn, and of
course, Santa Claus! Everyone got their picture taken in a new T-shirt and
green Santa hat that they were given. Besides Santa, Frosty the snowman, the
gingerbread man, and various other winter creatures showed up and best of all,
there was a HUGE dinner to end the night. It was an event to remember!
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| Chilling on the coach bus! |
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| Josi with Santa and his elf! |
3. Pig-Killing
So as I’d heard about for
nearly a year, we kill some of our pigs for Christmas dinner. As Pili and I
were headed into the office around 8:00am on Friday morning, we happened to
notice smoke coming up from the conuco (farm) and we realized there were two
pigs tethered on ropes. We got over there just in time to see pig #1 get killed
by getting smacked with a huge log. Next, some boiling hot water was poured all
over them as the workers scraped off the skin and hair. It was quite an
experience to see! And the kids there were shocked that it was the first time I
had ever seen a pig get killed!
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| A bunch of us watching as they cleaned off the pig just after killing it! |
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| Scraping off the skin after pouring on boiling hot water... |
4. Outreach
On Saturday, we had our
annual Christmas outreach. We had two groups of kids go out to two different
communities and give away containers full of food to community members as well
as put on a program for the kids in the area. I went along with the group to
the nearby community of Santa Fe, and as always with Outreach, it was a success!
I was very proud of our kids…they did a great job interacting and giving of
themselves!
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| Katerin and I ready to go! |
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| The whole crew at the church we worked out of! |
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| What a cutie! |
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| Sack races! |
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| My new buddy! |
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| Yolanda found a friend! I love how responsible our kids can be with babies! |
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| Amauri giving away one of the baskets to a family! |
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| Giving another one away! |
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| Katerin giving one away! |
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| The whole crew including kids, volunteers, tias, and Marijo! |
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| And yes all 15 of us did drive home on this tiny truck! |
5. La Noche Buena (i.e. Christmas Eve!)
This was a day that was
MUCH prepared for in every house. Here, it is typical for the festivities to
start up around dusk so we had a 7:00pm mass. Following mass, was the big
Christmas dinner (this of course, included the big) and the dance competition!
Each house had spent the prior week preparing a dance to showcase for this big
night (including the volunteers)! I worked for HOURS with my house on prepping
a dance to go with a merengue version of “Last Christmas” that is sung in
Spanish and English. The girls picked the song and then three of my girls
(Esperanza, Belkis, and Katerin) and I came up with the dance moves which we later
taught to the house. Nearly all of the girls participated which was good to
see! Hands down, our best rendition of it was on Saturday night as we performed
for everyone! Things ended around 11:30pm that night as the kids went to bed
with the promise of gifts in the morning!
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| Rehearsing the dance! |
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| ...This year, to save me from tears... |
6. Christmas Gifts!
After hours and hours of
gift prep and organization, everyone got together in the multiuse center at
10:00am on Christmas Day for the passing out of the gifts! Per tradition, each
kids receives a shirt, pair of pants, and pair of shoes on Christmas day. And
then on January 6th, Three Kings Day, the kids receive the fun
stuff! We went house by house handing out gifts and snapping pictures with
Santa Claus! A big thanks to CESPM for making this day possible!
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| Maria del Carmen and Ditania! |
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| All 220 plus gifts ready to go! |
7. Piñatas
At 2:00pm on Christmas
day, after a lunch in the park, all of us gathered in the multiuse center once
again for the breaking of all of the piñatas. Each house made a piñata and
there was quite a variety: a heart, a butterfly, a bumblebee, a pig, a tarantula,
an elf, a dinosaur, a Christmas gift, a panda. And then there was our piñata: a
flower. Now I gotta say, I had NO CLUE how difficult a flower piñata would be
to make. About a week before Christmas,
I pulled some piñata options off of Google Images and my girls decided
on doing a flower. Simple I thought: 5 balloons you paint them, stick them
together, and FUAH: a flower piñata. SOOOOO much simpler said than done. What
Google Images doesn’t account for is the extreme humidity of the Caribbean, which
basically prohibits anything from drying (the fact that I can take a shower at
7:00am and still have wet hair at the end of the day should have tipped me off
on this!) And it a piñata sits there for awhile without drying apparently the
balloon pops and it is a piñata no longer. So making 5 balloon piñatas actually
meant making about 15 of them and still having problems with them drying,
exploding, etc. Finally, we get 5 roundish, dryish piñatas and we paint them as
a house (I was adamant that my house make the piñata, not just me!) And then, I
smartly decide that the girls would love glitter so I bring a bunch of that
over and off course all 5 get doused with it. Fast forward to the assembly of
said piñata. There is no glue gun that works, no super glue, and fairly limited
amounts of tape on site. DANG. So I am lucky enough to find a roll of clear
packaging tape and I went to town. Between all of that tape and a lot of
finger-crossing, I SOMEHOW got the piñata all together including the candy
inside. Have you ever tried taping something covered in glitter? NOT EASY.
Anyways, it’s finally Christmas afternoon, and it’s Santa Ana’s turn for the
piñata. I’m watching them put it up on the rope willing it not to all fall
apart. Somehow it made it up. Somehow it stayed together. And actually it took
about 5 or 6 girls whacking it to get it to fall apart. That right there was my
Christmas miracle. And never ever again will I make a piñata unless someone
pays me an obscenely large amount of money!
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| The whole darn process... |
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| Finished product! |
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| How do we put it up, Kristen?? |
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| Yacqueline taking a few swings... |
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| Next was Maria del Carmen's turn... |
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| Followed by Erika... |
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| And it's down...time to grab the candy! |
8. Other Christmas Festivities!
I have to say that my
favorite part about Christmas day was the giving of my gifts to the girls. For
months, I had been working on finding photos of each of my girls when they were
younger to give to them along with a photo of them today. From there, my mom
helped me find some cute little bags, pencils, stickers, socks, and of course,
chocolate to add to the mix. So while everyone was doing piñatas, I borrowed
the keys from my tia and snuck up to the house will all of the gifts and put
them all under the tree. I went
back to the piñata party and when it ended walked back to the house with the
girls. We go into the house and gils head straight for their rooms not even
noticing the pile of gifts under the tree until Valentina walks in and screams
“YOU ALL, THERE’S GIFTS UNDER THE TREEEEE!!!” Thus commenced the screaming,
jumping, and running around. It was loud and it was precious! Each kid
scrambled to find their very own bag! And guess what? They all loved it!
“Gracias Kristen, gracias Kristen, muchas gracias! Later on, I went to find
Wilson and give him his Christmas gift from my family as well!
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| All of the photos I gave the girls! |
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| Secretly putting the gifts under the tree while everyone was at pinatas! |
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| The mad dash after Valetina's announcement! |
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| Muy contentas! |
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| How cute are they!?! |
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| Me and Belkis! |
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| Wilson with his new Drake tshirt! |
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| Cristela and me! |
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| Tia Elena with the potholders my grandma made for her! |
Overall, the Christmas
season was crazy, but it was also really special. There may not have been
Christmas cookies, lots of Christmas music, or snow, but I noticed that people
seemed to focus on the real meaning of Christmas a lot more. It has been a
special experience that I will never forget, and I got to share it with some of the best kids in the world!
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| Making Christmas ornaments as a house! |
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| Eridania decked out for Christmas! |
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| Katerin! |
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| A special Christmas delivery from Becca's family! |
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| Gotta love finding centipedes this big in your house! |
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| For the volunteers' Christmas dance, we were little elves! |
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| Making Christmas cards with the house! |
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| Daniela at the tree! |
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| Carolina oh-so-proud of the sunflower that she grew! |
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| Hanging out on the patio after receiving some fun Christmas games! |
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| The Nativity scene inside our chapel! |
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| Us volunteers in Zona Colonial in the capital... |
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| We went to the Romeo Santos concert on December 15th! |
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| Best concert OF MY LIFE! |
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| I'll give you my heart give, but you gotta promise...prometeme mami... |
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| Cute little Catia! |
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| We somehow managed to fit in going to a San Pedro Estrellas baseball game! |
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| My roomie, Janine, finished her two years this week and went back to Germany! |
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| Baseball at its finest! |
