The Special Olympics!

One of the highlights of our first week here was taking the kids to the Special Olympics in San Salvador. They made it out to be some big deal down at the stadium and it totally wasn’t. We were literally the only participants. The Hogar had organized a band that would march around the track to start off the events and when we started marching at nine am, not a soul was in the entire stadium to watch us. Sam and I were cracking up. But the kids sure loved it. Memo had a huge drum set around his neck and Xiomara and Maria Antonia were dressed in ridiculous cheerleader skirts leading the group as “baton twirlers.” However, Xiomara’s skirt was stretched to full capacity about to pop and she just shook her booty and held the baton. Occasionally she would try to do something fancy like pass the baton under one of her legs but she would have to stop walking and bend over and try to do it which would hold up the whole parade. It was hilarious to see her stop, lift her chubby leg with her black high tops, and then keep walking again. I wish I had gotten it on camera but I was pushing Dorita so I had no free hands. In fact, I wish I had gotten the whole parade. They made little Stiven (the cutie with the balloons below) wear a yellow sun outfit and walk at the front, and he was bawling from the noise. It was one of the more ridiculous things I have ever seen. They then had several races and events like the shotput with only the Hogar kids participating. I was shocked by how some of the kids can take off! It was really fun.