The Hogar del Niño Project

Searching for volunteers!

2012-02-18T21:19:00.001-07:00

We need some great volunteers for our summer session! Please leave a comment if you are interested in more information about volunteering!

We would appreciate everyone's help spreading the word about this awesome opportunity to volunteer! Please post our blog button, write about the Hogar on Facebook, etc.

We were recently featured on a craft blog: http://sweetcsdesigns.com/archives/3250 Check it out!

For ideas of how you can help spread the word: http://fyionrachandry.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-need-your-help.html

Thank You!

2011-11-29T19:55:00.006-07:00

Dear Hogar Project Donors,

We are grateful for your support in helping change lives this past summer in El Salvador. It was a very special experience for us, and without your support it wouldn’t have been possible. The kids rely on you and your generosity. Thank you for making a difference in the lives of very special children!

Projects that you made possible:

Through your help, we were able to improve the medical clinic. We built five partitions that are being used in the clinic to provide a quieter and cozier stay to kids that are sick. Also, we built a quarantine room that is used by the clinic to prevent outbreaks in the Hogar. A few years ago, the swine flu created many problems for the Hogar medical staff. The doctors needed more resources to stop the spreading of the swine flu. This new room will help the medical staff better control contagious outbreaks and keep the kids healthier.

Three days a week we taught an afternoon class to the kids. They loved it! We did crafts and art projects, played games, learned ways to improve behavior and learned about other cultures. The kids looked forward to this and loved learning.

We taught English classes to the workers of the Hogar. Through this class, workers were able to develop study plans to help them learn English through their studies. We would meet once a week for one hour teaching workers vocabulary, sentence structures, verbs and whatever other questions they had. We taught them ways to continue their English studies without the need of a teacher.

We helped other volunteers build a sensory garden for the physical therapists to use with the kids. The sensory garden is full of fun activities for the physical therapists to use while doing therapy with the kids.

We also had fun painting all of the kid's rooms to create a positive visual stimulation. The kids got really involved and told us what they would like painted in their rooms. The girls mainly wanted butterflies, flowers and princesses. The boys mainly wanted race cars and sports. The kids were so happy to have a fun painted room rather than just a plain white room.

Last but not least, we were able to do some graphic design work for the Tropicana Band who puts on concerts to raise money for the Hogar.

Thank you for your support! It has greatly improved the children’s lives and brought miracles to the Hogar. The Hogar Staff is very thankful for what you do and so are we! We enjoyed our time at the Hogar and miss it greatly. We created such wonderful and sweet bonds with the children at the Hogar and miss them dearly. We are so grateful that we were able to help the children and for all of the love they shared with us. Thank You!

Sincerely,

Bridgette and Travis Hall

Graphic Design Logo for the Foundation

2011-05-27T22:53:00.005-06:00

The Foundation needed me (Bridgette) to design a logo for the musical group "Tropicana" who has concerts to raise money for the Hogar del Nino Orphanage.

I designed 6 different logos and this is the one they picked.

I then created 3 different color studies for the logo. Still waiting to hear which one they will choose. Tropicana is having a concert May 31st where my logo will be shown.

red, orange, yellow:

turquoise, orange, green:

red, blue, yellow, green:

Sensory Garden

2011-05-27T22:23:00.004-06:00

A group of volunteers from Florida came for 2 weeks and we helped them build this sensory garden the kids will use doing physical therapy.

we painted rocks and laid them out in a path we made.

telephone the kids can talk/hear through.

this is made for the kids to feel and walk on the different textured tiles.

this is for the kids to hit each pole to hear a different sound.

Murals

2011-05-27T22:01:00.005-06:00

Animals:

Beach scene:

Sun, flowers, butterflies:

Racecar:

Afternoon School Class

2011-05-27T20:46:00.009-06:00

Table Manners:

We taught the kids about table manners.

Object lesson: We gave each of the kids each a graham cracker and a napkin. We taught them to say please to receive the graham cracker and then to say thank you when we gave them one. We taught them to chew with their mouth closed and then to wipe your mouth and hands after they were finished eating.

And then of course, we drew a picture of the manners and they colored.

Community Living:

We taught the kids about the community they are a part of at the Hogar. We taught them about all the people that are in their community and how we should all work together.

Kids participating in class.

We then made a map of the Hogar and explained about all of the people that make up the community.

They then colored maps of the Hogar

Edwin's is quite the arteest!

Food Pyramid:

We taught the kids about health and the food pyramid.

They then made pictures of some of their favorite foods and put it on the correct spot of the chart.

Noche Especial!

2011-05-05T21:21:00.013-06:00

First Noche Especial:
We had our first Noche Especial with Geovanny, Efrain, and Alonso. We brought them up to our casita and played Candyland (which is now Geovanny's new favorite game), ate chocolates, laughed a lot, and had a lot of fun! We really enjoy Noche Especial because we are able to give individualized attention to the ninos that come to our casita.

Candyland!

Geovanny hoping so bad that he gets the card he needs to win

Geovanny won!

Efrain and his cool headband

Alonso and his cool headband

Second Noche Especial:
We had our second Noche Espial with Ana, Walter and Nahum. (It was Ana's and Walter's first time ever doing Noche Especial so they were especially excited to come!) We played Uno, had chocolates, built REALLY tall castles out of Jenga blocks and then watched them fall (Ana would laugh very hard when the castle would fall), made bracelets, and listened to Ana sing her famous "Papaya" song. It was a lot of fun and we loved laughing and spending time with the ninos!

We made cards for Ana, Nahum and Walter that had chocolates, a lei to put on when they got to our casita, and a cup for some Coke.

The chocolates are very delicious!

The gang has arrived!

We're Here!

2011-04-23T14:12:00.003-06:00

We arrived at the Hogar del Nino Orphanage Tuesday afternoon and are absolutely loving it! We have spent time to get to know the ninos and are already creating special bonds with them. They are so adorable and very loving!

A little about ourselves:

Travis and I (Bridgette) met at Brigham Young University-Idaho September 2009, and got married September 2010. Travis graduated from BYU-Idaho last July with a Bachelors degree in Sociology, and will be starting a Masters Program next fall. I graduated about 3 weeks ago from BYU-Idaho with a degree in Art- Emphasis Graphic Design. We both love experiencing new cultures, being involved with humanitarian aid, the outdoors, etc.

We will try our best to keep you updated on all the meaningful and fun experiences we have while serving here at the Hogar del Nino Orphanage. We feel very privileged to be here and are very excited about all the adventures we will endeavor on.

-Travis & Bridgette Hall

The murals

2010-08-04T08:10:00.002-06:00

The murals

2010-07-19T20:21:00.006-06:00

Mark and I were looking for a project that we could do that would stay with the kids even after we'd left. After thinking about it and considering different ideas we decided to do murals in the rooms of the kids. The people that will benefit from this the most are the ones that don't receive any attention from people that come because they are considered the "scarier" ones because they scream and will abuse themselves. I found studies that talked about the benefits of having art in the rooms of the disabeled. The studies showed that through the art stimulation the people were calmer and happier. The studies also found that it positively affected their healthy by lowering their blood pressure. We've had fun thus far. Although the paintings aren't all done in the pictures we have sinced finished them but haven't taken new pictures yet.

Happy Birthday Giovanni & Roberto

2010-07-04T16:57:00.002-06:00

This past month was Roberto& Giovanni's birthdays! Big 18 & 28! We had them up for a noche especial to celebrate and we bought tres leches cake (which is the typical hispanic cake with three different kinds of milk poured all throughout it) and they absolutely loved all the attention! We gave Roberto a kite for his birthday. Now the trick will be using it when there's wind outside and not rain :)

Giovanni is of course Mr. tie man. He's been telling us about his birthday since the first day we got here and he told us exactly what he wanted-a tie! The good thing is ties are so cheap here it wasn't a problem.

Yummy tres leches!

Blowing the candles out! These pictures are a little bit backwards

A bunch of activities we've done over the past few weeks

2010-06-04T18:18:00.003-06:00

We helped all the kids make different butterflies and they were pretty dang cute if I do say so myself. I have them all in our house now I'm trying to decide if I should make a mobil of them or something.

This was our superhero trashbag day. They were pretty funny how some of them got into it. Nahum thought he was a luchador and kept wrestling people and jumping on tables.

Up, up, and away!

Dominos! The cool way of doing it!

This was our dance club night. The kids LOVE dancing to music and they thought it was even more fun with the glow sticks.

In our class right now we're learning about the body and the different senses. This day was our sense of smell day so we blindfolded them and had different smells and had them guess what they thought it was. It was funny to see the different faces they made as they smelled stuff.

Reading has been a huge part of our stay here. Brayan is a little boy who loves one on one attention. If he doesn't have you all to himself he will drag you away from the group. I read every single one of those books on my lap to him and he listened to every word. I was pretty suprised because with most of the older people they don't have the patience to listen to all of it so I basically tell the story based on pictures.

To celebrate the anniversary of the Hogar a famous singer from El Salvador came and serenaded the nuns and the kids. Everybody was singing along to all of his songs and the girls loved him. They would all run up for a chance to dance with him and hug him. He was pretty good!

Memo is quite the character! I don't know where he get's his dance moves being they're a little shadey but one day during a fiesta with everybody watching he does this little stripping dance where he takes off his shirt slowly and swings it around his head! Then he was shaking his hips and everything! We about died laughing. I think the funniest part was that the nuns were right there laughing too!

Here we go!

2010-06-04T18:07:00.003-06:00

So I kept waiting to start blogging about our time here because I thought it'd be kosher to introduce ourselves. This obviously hasn't gone to well so I'll be brief and let the rest of the posts act as an introduction. Mark and I met teaching at the MTC. I had just returned from my mission and started working there and that's how we met and were eventually married. We both speak spanish which has been a huge plus being here. I'm studying spanish translation and Mark is in the accounting program. That's it for now!

This is a random picture of us that I had on my computer. It's the only one that wasn't wedding or crazy poses:)

New Volunteers! The Update!

2010-05-26T12:50:00.001-06:00

We have new volunteers at the Hogar! Shanna and Mark Warr (a young married couple) arrived there mid-May, and they are already doing a fabulous job. They both speak Spanish fluently, and we are so excited about the work that they are going to do at the Hogar.

I hope they don't mind me referring you to their blog for photos and updates. Here it is: loveandwarr.blogspot.com.

There is a hilarious recent post about their Super Hero Trash Bag Fashion Show with the kids...check it out.

They will start posting updates on this blog soon!

2010-03-24T08:30:00.008-06:00

We had a fun activity with the kids as part of the Olympics. We drew a huge picture of a man and named him Pablo. Then we had a throwing contest with a sponge soaked in paint and had them throw it at him. Depending on where they hit they would get different points, in the end no one cared about their score, but they had a lot of fun with the paint. We made racing bibs for each kid that we thought would be participating, and you can see Lauren and Alonso wearing theirs. They loved their racing bibs and were always sad to give them back, so we had a closing ceremony and said they could keep them all and gave them medals. They were really excited about that.
Herman Umbelina invited us to go to a concert thing with some of the kids. It was a cool concert and there were kids from all different schools there--it was during the day. Afterward we went to a pupusaria in Los Planes with them. The kids were really excited to eat out, and it was a lot of fun. This is Lauren with Carmencita (left) and Xiomara (right) making goofy faces.
We took our week vacation to Costa Rica. We went to Parque Nacional Tortuguero. It was super fun and did boat tours and hung out in the little village that was there on the river.
On the other side of the village of Tortuguero is the ocean, so they are surrounded by water basically. It was a beautiful beach, and we had a lot of fun playing there.
After Tortuguero we went to a little town called Puerto Viejo. It is hippie central and so chill. We ate at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant and had a lot of fun.
We were suppose to go snorkeling, but our tour was cancelled because of bad weather. This is us being really sad. We hung out in the town and did more shopping until we found a lady to do our hair.
She gave us extensions! It was a deal too, she only charged about $30 each. It took four hours each to get it done, so that took basically all day. The next morning we did some more things in town, then went back to San Jose to catch or 20-hour bus back to El Salvador. Awesome trip though, lots of busing. We left on a Monday and came back Sunday. It was good to come back adn see the kids. Some people didn't recognize us with our new hair-dos. We actually stick out pretty bad here in El Salvador, it is not a touristy or hippie place (except for some beaches).
This is a night we had in the Comedor. There are student volunteers here from Canada. They hung out with us and the kids and it was a lot of fun. They seem to spend a lot of time with the kids, and it's been a good experience working with them. . . so far.

2010-03-07T14:11:00.006-07:00

We did a parachute activity during one of our classes. I think the kids could play with the parachute all day, they loved it just as much after half-an-hour as they did when we first started playing. This was a fun day and we just played a bunch of different games for class. Some worked better than others, but it was fun to just play with them.
THis is when we presented Efrain with his new communication book. He really likes it, and it's been very rewarding working with the kids and seeing how much they enjoy them after all the hard work that's gone into putting them together.

For our last class we taught the kids some random things about Asia. I dressed up as a chinese person and I came out speaking jibberish that sounded like chinese-ish. We taught them how to bow as a salutation and they really liked that. We had them color kimonos and taught them about fortune cookies. It was a random but fun class, and the kids seemed to like the fortune cookie part becuase we made them each fortunes and gave them a cookie with it:)

2010-02-27T11:49:00.002-07:00

Hermana Eliana came home last Friday night from her vacation. We had the kids paint this welcome home banner, and then put it up on one of the gates leading into the orphanage. They were really excited for her to come back, so they did a good job. You can see that Matias painted cirles as far as he could reach, and Janet did some pretty colors, so it was fun to see what each kid did. We finally met Hermana Eliana and can see why everyone loves her so much, she's very nice!
Opening Ceremonies last weekend. We had the kids spread out, and we passed this torch around. It was low-key, but the kids seemed to think it was cool.

2010-02-15T20:22:00.006-07:00

This is Geovanny putting a label on Xiomara. We did a review of body parts for class, and they had to stick on the labels. It was funny because Xiomara couldn´t see with all the papers over her eyes, and she looked so cute just standng there. Aimee did this class by herself because Lauren was feeling sick. It definitely wasn´t as smooth as usual adn it will be awesome to have Lauren back!
This is from class a couple weeks ago. We had a visitor named Flores Colores come (Aimee) and we practiced the colors and had them identify different parts of the outfit, it turned out to be pretty fun. This class was for our communication board students, and since none of them really talk it makes class a little harder to plan for. But we really enjoy this class adn try to make sure and do fun activities.
Carmencita at Cuatro Patas. I just love this picture of her because it captures her smile really well.

This is Alonso at Cuatro Patas. It is a program on Saturday mornings where some outside people bring in dogs and they just play with the kids. It was really fun and the kids love it. We are going to start helping out with planning and things so that will be really fun.

2010-02-10T19:36:00.002-07:00

We´re a little short on pictures at the moment for various reasons, but once we get things sorted out we will put more up. We are doing very well though. Lauren has had some pretty bad dizzy spells hte past couple days so she hasn´t really been able to leave the casita much, but she´s starting to feel better so hopefully that continues. We´ve adjusted pretty well to everything here although the language barrier is still a little bit of a problem sometimes.
We have had a couple mini earthquakes since we´ve been here which has been exciting. We´ve been told that they happen a lot and they don´t do any damage, but it´s always pretty nerve racking when the ground starts shaking.
We love the kids and enjoy being around them. By mondays we´re always super excited to work with them after the couple days we haven´t seen them. I think my english has gotten worse since I´ve come here, and I´ll blame that on the spanish.

2010-02-10T19:16:00.003-07:00

Every monday and wednesday nights we have something called ¨Noche Especial¨ where we have two kids come up to our casita adn we eat and play. I made pasta adn chicken adn garlic bread, adn it was super yummy. The girl on the left is CHusita and the girl on the right is Xiomara. Xiomara loves to give big hugs and not let go and hang on you, she´s a sweetheart.

Hola de nuevo

2009-09-24T23:59:00.004-06:00

Didn't think you'd be hearing back from us, huh? (After we had a mini-tribute). We still have tons of photos that we could blog about from my trip, but they are currently waiting to be read off of my hard drive since my laptop decided to stop turning on. Not sure if I'll get to that or not, but I will post a slide show I made that was meant to be shown at the HELP International reunion last Saturday. A lot of things went wrong, so it ended up I wasn't able to show the slide show (BIG bummer), but I said I'd blog it. So here it is (and sorry, it's basic because I originally made the slide show on one program and it turned out that program didn't allow me to save slide shows...just pictures. SO, I ended up having to mess around with final cut, which is the professional program that edits movies. Yeah, so it ended up being basic.)

But listen to the words of the song. I think it fits so well with the Hogar kids.

Hogar from Molly McDonald on Vimeo.

Song: "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercyme.

Thanks, Andrew and Molly!

2009-08-19T17:01:00.003-06:00

Andrew and Molly Hunter finished their service at the Hogar on August 7th. They will be greatly missed!

On their last day, the kids woke them up early with a knock on their casita door and a goodbye song. Then, they presented them with t-shirts and a photo book.

Thanks for your great work, Andrew and Molly!

Colors colors everywhere

2009-07-27T23:10:00.005-06:00

We went on vacation, but we are back! We spent a week getting to know some neighboring countries (Guatemala and Beliz). We had a LOT of fun, but we're glad to be back. I also have a few blogging things to catch up on. We got to have a few week-lived class with the kids. They were FUN. Here is our class on colors:

matching game

and playdough. Check out Alonso's bird

on to parachute ball launching

Everyone was involved. It was fun

Back from the dead...

2009-07-16T13:43:00.004-06:00

Remember our last post that said "because of the fear of H1N1..." WELL...let me say it was not just a fear. It was a reality for the poor kids here at the Hogar. A total of nearly 90 kids were quarantined (meaning locked up in their dormitories so as to not infect the other 40 kids who weren't stuck inside...which is NOT a lot when you're used to 130+ kids running around the place) and about 20 had the actual H1N1 virus. They were quarantined for 8 to 12 days, depending on the severity of their illness, and Andrew and I were bored out of our minds (at first). Many of the kids who weren't inside didn't want to do much with us, so we spent a lot of time working on things in the house, helping the Social Worker sort through THOUSANDS of pictures on her computer, and giving a hand to the HELP volunteers in San Salvador. It was in interesting week, but we ended up enjoying ourselves.

We are happy to say, though, that the majority of the kids are all better. A few are still being treated, but the 80+ quarantined kids were released Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We are glad to have them back! Unfortunately, we can't have our class with them anymore because we aren't allowed to have several kids in an enclosed/close space, so that stinks (not very long-lived either...LAME, but oh well) . We will, however, do fun things with them and update with pictures. For now, I'll show some HELP photos we took.

we went to an orphanage/young mother's home and helped paint a play room. Yes the C is missing, but it's because we had 4 colors to use and 3 painters. So, we had to finish the other letters before we started on the blue letters...make sense? Yeah:)

the HELP team minus a few, working at Habitat for Humanity in Casa de Piedra (RIGHT down the road from the Hogar. Little did we know as we were walking down our road at 5:30 am to go meet up the the HELP kids that we'd be turning right back around to come build a house at 8:00! haha:) Love it)

check out that view. Whoever gets this house is gonna get a million dollar view!

Amo La Tierra

2009-07-03T18:04:00.002-06:00

Because of fear of the Flu H1N1 school has been cancelled in all of El Salvador... A little scary, but since no teachers will be coming to the Hogar the Hermana asked us to be the subs! How exciting! (side note... today 40ish kids were sick and quarantined. Still don't know what they are sick from. They have flu like symptoms)

One of our classes this week was about keeping the earth free from trash. There is a problem with littering in most 3rd world countries. No exception here in El Salvador. Anyway, we bought all the kids in the class (19) a bag of chips and gave them a cup of water. While they were eating we taught them about keeping the earth clean and green. Once they finished we put some tape on their empty bags and cups. I had a drawing of the earth on my shirt and we told the kids that I represented Mother Earth. We asked them what the earth would look like if it was full of trash. We then told them to stick their trash on me. This is what I looked like...

We then taught them to throw away their trash and that when they saw trash on the ground that they should pick it up and throw it away. It was a really fun class and the kids enjoyed it!

Chusita & Xiomara

2009-07-03T17:00:00.001-06:00

This week we had Chusita and Xiomara up for the Noche Especial. They have been really excited about it for awhile now (and so have we). We found a no-bake recipe for cookies online and decided to make them for the girls. They didn't turn out like we are used to but they were still really good! They were extra gooey and we had to eat them with spoons!

One thing that Chusita always says when you ask her what she wants to do is make bracelets! She LOVES it. So that's what we did with them for our activity. Well it was just me. Andrew wasn't in the mood to make a bracelet so he just talked while us girls had fun!

Uno

2009-06-30T13:14:00.004-06:00

We had another Noche Especial with Roberto and Geovanny and we decided to have a birthday bash for them. Roberto turned 18 on June 18 and Geovanny turned 27 on June 23. We had a party for them on June 24 (which, I should mention that Geovanny has been telling us that his birthday was coming up since the first day we arrived on May 9. We knew we HAD to do something for him, since he was so excited to turn 27). We ate some cake, gave them each a small present and played uno. And yes, we did get a sweet video of Geovanny saying "uno".

I forgot to mention that we did eat some spaghetti as well (which has been Andrew and I's dinner specialty for the last 2 months....not bad). Roberto told us it was his favorite food, and I think you can definitely tell.

Geovanny with the beautiful cake. Seriously, beautiful...and tasty. From Frooty Kake down the road.

The "uno" video. We love Geovanny!

Light writing

2009-06-30T12:55:00.003-06:00

Andrew and all of the other men at the Hogar received a sweet pen with a laser and LED light on it for Father's Day. Andrew and I have been wanting to get an LED light so that we could do some "light writing" with my camera. Basically, light writing is using an LED light (or some kind of smaller light emitter) to draw a picture in the dark. It's hard for me to explain, so I'll show the pictures in just a sec. Anyway, so since we finally got one (for free!), we decided it would be fun to do with the kids, and it was. Check out their creations:

Woof Woof

2009-06-30T12:18:00.004-06:00

There is a really cool program called "4 patas" which is a dog therapy group that comes to the Hogar every Saturday morning MUY temprano (can you tell Andrew and I are not morning people?). They usually come around 8 and end at about 10:30. Anyway, so Andrew and I just started attending about 3 weeks ago and we love it. The dogs are kinda crazy (I'm not much of a dog person), but the kids LOVE it. Here are a few pictures for you check out:

the boys showing off their muscles...walking dogs takes strength

Okay, so the pictures and video don't really show what dog therapy is...but I assure you there are dogs and it is a lot of fun! And Walter is awesome on the drums and I love when he plays them:)

Benefit Concert

2009-06-25T16:35:00.004-06:00

About once a month The Foundation Hermano Pedro throws a huge concert to raise funds for the Hogar. The Foundation and the Hogar are pretty much the same organization but The Foundation just raises money for the Hogar. Anyway, these concerts are a big deal. Anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people come each month. They play great music and everyone LOVES to dance. They just get up from their seats whenever they want and just dance in the aisles. Its fun... just ask Andrew and Xiomara.

One of the kids took this picture but its of the orchestra/stage

Not all the kids can go but usually about a hand full or so of them are able to go. Whenever they go though they always have a great time. These kids love to dance and sing! (If you haven't noticed)

Juan is another kid that is always singing to the music playing. He is the one we made the spiderman t-shirt with. Great singer!

We have been working with the Foundation a lot lately with some of our ideas to help raise money and we put the slide show (the one Juan is singing to) together with them using some of the pictures we've taken. Everyone loved the slide show at the concert. It was played 3 times and people started clapping once it started playing! Really amazing feeling!

For more information about the Foundation and the Hogar check out their website. (Even if you dont know Spanish check it out. Just click on the icons below the pictures. They have links.)

Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its Supertooth!

2009-06-25T15:55:00.005-06:00

The other day we had this really fun activity/class with some of the kids (about 15). We taught them all about hygiene. We brought hand sanitizer to wash everyone's hands and taught them to wash their hands before every meal and after using the bathroom. Plus, we brought some child toothpaste (bubble gum flavored with bob esponja on the front) and taught them how to brush their teeth and how often. Then we put some toothpaste on their fingers and they brushed their teeth. We had other things there like lotion, baby wipes to wash their faces, and baby cologne. It was fun!

Some other HELP volunteers (Taylor and Alicia) were here to help so we were able to teach a lot of kids. After teaching them all about hygiene we had a little scavenger hunt. Taylor dressed up with a black bandit mask on to be "Mala Diente." She jumped out and scared the kids. Then she stole a tooth from Alicia because she did not brush her teeth. Taylor and Alicia were really good with the kids and really funny. Andrew was the superhero "Super Diente" and gave the kids clues to be able to find Alicia's tooth. We didnt get many pictures because we were too busy with the kids, but here is one of Andrew.

Andrew with the 1st clue

Dia del Papa

2009-06-18T23:38:00.009-06:00

Hey yins. It's been a week (plus some) filled with fun and laughter. I have VIDEOS! I had so much fun watching and subtitling the other video of Roberto, that I've decided that videos are definitely the way to go. These kids are really entertaining, so why not share the love?

Alright, so I'm going to post a video of Memo singing and dancing. This kid is hilarious! He is chubby, often whips his shirt off to belly dance, and goes to music school so he sings reallllly loud and plays the drums. He reminds Andrew and I of Jack Black (more when he used to have longer hair) because he's a total ham. Anyway, one night before Andrew and I went out to eat pupusas up the road, we got a little treat from Memo.

More videos (there are two more, I think...definitely worth watching though...definitely)
The first is of Roberto singing with headphones in. He's singing "te quiero" which is a popular Spanish song. It's sung by Flex so look it up if you want to get the full effect of this video of Roberto here. He is such a cute kid, we love him! I don't think he completely realizes that we can't hear any of the music while he's singing (and he sure is singing loud too!)

Okay, below are the videos and pictures of our all day festivities today. The kids had a race around the Hogar and played Handball. It was definitely a REALLY fun day! (the workers had a race in the morning as well, and we also played softball and soccer tournament style. So much fun!)
Videos and pictures of the kids and their handball game

the race before it began

Team Galactic (above) Maritza, Roberto, Carlos, and Geovanny

Team Magma...I made those shirts baby...woo!...Ivan, Antonia, Nahum and Memo

tip off!

Champions!!!

I made this shirt here...such art work!:) The others made their own (me and Memo)

Andrew and Roberto juntos:) Best buds.

Noche Especial

2009-06-11T23:01:00.006-06:00

A year ago, Laura and Sam Webb started "Noche Especial". It's one night out of the week where we take two kids up to our house for a night of fun. We can do whatever we want as long as it's fun and we're enjoying ourselves. We, of course, kept the tradition alive and started noche especial 3 weeks ago. We have already had Carlos and Ivan, Maritza and Antonia, and Roberto and Geovanny. We only took pictures with Geovanny and Roberto (we forgot to take pictures before...oops).

The noche especial that just happened was great. We ate hamburgers (YUM!!), drank Coke, ate Doritos and played UNO. What an American night, no? Roberto and Geovanny loved it, and so did we.

look good? Made it myself. Pretty proud of myself since it was my first time. Woo!

They liked them too

washing his hands of Doritos cheese fuzz

Uno...we LOVE when Geovanny says this word. It's one word that he will say (another word his says is rojo), and good thing too or else he'd never win! He totally got Roberto by saying "uno" when Roberto only had one card left and forgot to say the word first, haha:)

Roberto hanging out, listening to music. He loves to sing. We'll show you...

haha!! Don't you just love it? We did! (PS- sorry for my Spanish...) And I have to mention that I didn't ask him to say any of this. I just told him that I was going to take a video so he stood up, said his name and told me his favorite bands/singers. Haha! Love this kid.

Fotohunt

2009-06-11T22:40:00.005-06:00

I might as well update on many other things. We did a photo hunt one night for fun.

RULES: 1-two teams.
2- EVERYONE has to be in the picture (minus the one taking the picture)
3-a picture must be taken of everything on the list within 30 minutes
4- whoever finishes first and obeys all of the rules, wins. OR if not finished in 30 minutes, whoever gets the most pictures within 30 minutes.

10 things we had to take photos of:

Padre Vito Guarato

camera

red flower

beans

Nike shoes (sorry this is sideways...I forgot to spin it and can't now that I've uploaded it)

a cross

a ball

a ninera (a worker who cares for the kids)

a toilet

a dog

It was girls vs. boys. We called it a tie. They took the pictures faster, but they broke the rules.

Partidos de futbol

2009-06-11T00:12:00.008-06:00

I am behind on posting. I'm going to begin by posting pictures of our most recent activity. In a few weeks (one actually) there is going to be this big, fun activity day. Everyone (and I mean everyone...kids and workers and American volunteers alike) are going to be playing futbol, softball, and running on the morning of June 18. It seems like it's going to be a big deal because it has been the talk of the Hogar for the last week or so. We have successfully been asked to play on a softball and soccer team. We can't wait!

The kids decided to make their own uniforms for their handball teams (4 players per team), so we have been spending the last couple of nights painting t-shirts.

This is Carlos and his shirt...he was very excited about making his shirt...he was definitely the mind behind this activity. I think his face is great in these next two pictures because he was cross-eyed to be funny. And it was.

Antonia made her shirt special. She loves making things look girly and wouldn't dare make her uniform JUST like everyone else on her team. Haha:) She definitely had fun making her shirt.

here are (from L to R) Geovanny, Roberto, Carlos and Maritza (TEAM GALACTIC! They got the name from a Pokemon game that Carlos plays on his sweet nintendo gameboy type thing...except it's way cooler)

Andrew helped out a few of the kids who had a harder time painting their shirts. He was VERY proud of his work, if you can't tell.

TEAM MAGMA (from L to R) Ivan, Nahum and Antonia. Memo is also on this team, but is not pictured.

Oh, and I should mention that they say "TEAM Magma" and "TEAM Galactic" in English rather than in Spanish (which would be El equipo Galactic or El equipo Magma). They love using English words.

Project Hogar del Niño

2009-06-06T21:30:00.004-06:00

Hey faithful readers out there. Wow, been a while, eh? Not five months at least! Sorry for the lull...I can´t blame it on not having time to update because...well...I have had time. I just haven´t remembered. Please forgive me.

I haven´t much to say, other than Andrew and I are working on a project here for the kids, the Nuns, and everyone else in the San Salvador area. I am a photography major at BYU and am working on a photo project for the kids. I am attempting to take a portrait of every resident at the Hogar and make a book of photos of the kids to give to the Nuns, the administration that runs all of the fundraising for the Hogar, and a few others. We are also planning on making calendars, cards, buttons, etc to provide for the administration to sell at their monthly benefit concerts to help raise money. I am VERY excited about this project. I can´t say I really planned it out...it just kind of happened and Rachel has helped me with fundraising ideas.

Anyway, so I have my own personal blog where I have already started to upload my project pictures. If you´d like to see the pictures (along with small bios that I wrote up from my experience with the kids), just click here. That should take you right to the protraits. I hope you enjoy them, and spread the word about the project. If you, the reader, are interested in seeing the final product, give a shout out. I´ll make sure to post it here for you to check out (and maybe you can buy a copy!! We´ll see...).

Who are the readers out there anyway? Comment if you are (just do it) and spread the word about the blog! Let everyone know about these kids so they can see how awesome they are and how great this program is!

Until next update!

Just a taste of the portraits. Go check out the rest and get to know the kids!

Bocce Ball

2009-05-17T22:19:00.012-06:00

Gotta love internet connections south of the boarder. Well, I wrote a substantial entry...and then everything disappeared...literally disappeared and then some note popped up saying ¨lo siento¨. Oh well, I guess.

I said something along the lines of: we played bocce ball, it was fun. We ate cake (with fingers...woo! A child´s dream, my friend. No need for forks here!) and made bracelets.

There you go. Sorry you couldn´t experience the excitement from the original entry. Just enjoy the pictures. Who really cares about the words anyway?

above is the bocce ball crowd...it was pretty popular

Edwin...he is the man. He has cerebral palsy, but is a smart guy. He is also incredibly happy ALL OF THE TIME! Both he and his brother, Geovanny, are awesome. Anyway, he liked to throw his ball like this...actually, he liked to pull his arm further back than what is shown and stay like that as a ¨joke¨. haha! Ohh Edwin.

And here is Geovanny throwing the ball. Those balls are heavy too...they are filled with water. Geovanny kicked trash at this game. You can see in the picture below that he ALWAYS seemed to get his ball really close to the white ball (okay, so in this picture his isn´t the closest, but most times it was. Efrain´s is the yellow ball. Efrian and Roberto had to the two best throws. Roberto won once with his ball touching the white ball! Roberto and Efrain are pictured above in the first picture. Roberto is in green and Efrain is in red beside Geovanny).

Here is Walther (pronounced Walter). He is funny. He was eating his cake nicely when a ninera came along and ¨helped¨ him to get the spots he missed:) Haha! Walther is funny. He talks a bunch, and pretty loudly...I rarely understand him, but he loves bubbles. I brought them down once, and since then he always asks for them.

Alright, update number one of many.

Buenas!

2009-05-13T13:00:00.002-06:00

It has been 5 months since this blog has been updated, but there is no need to wonder when it´ll have fresh pictures and videos again! Andrew and I arrived last Saturday and we´re still settling in and getting things going. I´ll have to bust out the camera soon and take some pictures to share. We are PUMPED to be here and to blog about our time at the Hogar. I already feel comfortable with a lot of them and I can´t wait to get some projects going. So...keep a look out for more posts with pictures!! Maybe even a video or two..:)

2008-12-02T09:24:00.003-07:00

The biggest project we have been working on since we have been here is taking pictures with the workers and the kids. Our intention was to give the photos to the workesr in a decorated border with the help of the kids so that they could have something to cherish at their home as a memory of all the hard work they do for their job. The kind of work that is required to keep this place running and clean (or as clean as it can get) is very demanding. We are very grateful to them and thought this project would be a good idea to show our gratitude. After lots of hard work of decorating frames and taking pictures of over 90 workers, we finally finished! This week we have been distributing the long overdue photos and the workers have been so excited about it. Throughout our time here they would ask us once in a while when the project would be finished. When we first came down with the basket load of all the photos, they all crowded us to try and find their own, it was crazy. Now they can´t stop smiling at us and thanking us for them. When you think about it, it is just a little gift, but to them it means a lot. We are so happy that this project turned out well and that they have appreciated it. We still have photos to give out and a couple more to print before we completely finish, but the majority of them already have theirs.

2008-12-02T09:19:00.003-07:00

Tuesday night is usually our movie night. We have been watching the Harry Potter movies since they haven´t seen the latest ones and last Tuesday we watched the fifth and final movie that is out right now. This activity was more for the older kids, they really liked it. However, Ivan must have been too tired to stay awake since at the end of the movie he was out like a log. All the kids thought it was so funny and we all crept out of the comedor and cleaned up with him still in there sleeping. The night workers thought it was hilarious and we were all laughing. Here is one photo out of many we took of us behind him as he sleeps.

2008-12-02T09:05:00.007-07:00

Well much has happened since our last blog. We went on a ten day vacation which explains the long duration since we have last written. Our vacation was very fun. We went to Guatemala and Belize and even got scuba certified! When we returned we went straight back to work to get all of our projects finished. One of these being the teddy bears we are making with the kids. Before our trip we made over 30 teddy bears from scratch and each kid helped us fill their own with stuffing. After we closed the hole, we took the bears back down for the kids to paint, write their name, and give it to them. It was really fun to see how excited some of them became.Here is Matilla´s scribbling on his.

Carlitos Alonso did his during our noche especial on Wednesday while we watched the Disney movie Cars and drank 7up.

Geovanny was the cutest. It took him a long time to finish his bear because he kept stopping to hug it every other second. He always wears a shirt and tie so he drew a tie on his bear too and couldnt help admiring it.

2008-11-13T17:42:00.002-07:00

We have been drinking pop with the kids on movie nights to save up for a future bowling activity. We went bowling the other night with the kids and they loved it! Maria Antonia kept score and everyone got to go several times, then she announced the winners and everyones place. They would get so excited when they knocked all the pins down and we would shout out loud. We cant wait to do this activity again.

2008-11-13T17:36:00.003-07:00

The first time we did this painting activity the kids really liked it, so we figured it was time to do it again. This time we helped them sign their names by their handprint. Many kids did it over and over again because they loved participating.

2008-11-13T17:30:00.003-07:00

Last Friday was the last day of school for all of the kids here. Sounds so early I know, but everyone is already preparing for Christmas here! Lots of kids put on performances that were as cute as ever and then they all received certificates for passing on to the next grade. Geovanny and Edwin were the cutest to see them getting their certificates because they could hardly contain their excitement!

2008-11-06T13:19:00.004-07:00

Today we swam with the kids all day near our house. The workers have been setting up two big pools and smaller ones right outside our house for this big event. We have been swimming, playing with the beach balls, listening to music, and eating snacks all day. We brought out some water guns and they were a big hit as everyone has been splashing each other and get one another wet!

2008-11-06T13:14:00.003-07:00

When we first came down here we bought a little fishy who they named Nemo. The kids love it and ask about it every time we dont bring it down. We always joke and say that it is flying in the sky. Unfortunately it died last weekend so we quickly found another fish that looks alike and luckily the kids havent noticed yet! Here is Ana del Carmen talking to the fish last night while we were playing games and then Nahum who was showing us his big strong muscles.

Noche Especial

2008-11-06T13:09:00.002-07:00

Past volunteers have held noche especiales (special nights) with two kids who they bring up to the house. We have kept up that tradition but have tried to expand it to include other kids who havent done it before. One night we brought up Efrain and Carlitos Alonso. They were so excited and talked about it for more than a week before it was their turn and they are already talking about it again for the next time. We watched Toy Story and made a treat. They could barely watch the movie because they kept looking over at us every five minutes to give us high fives and show their excitement that they were there with us. It was so fun!

2008-10-23T16:11:00.003-06:00

For noche especial last night we made purses for Chusita and Xiomara. I have really enjoyed using my sewing skills and passing it along to the kids down here. I think they really enjoyed themselves too.

2008-10-23T16:05:00.004-06:00

Many people from the city came to set up a large stage with tents all around for a concert that lasted all day. New bands came and switched every hour or so. We had dancers, food, and of course, everyone was dancing! Most of the kids were dressed to match with t-shirts from the el patito event a couple of weeks back. It was so fun to dance with all of the kids and see everyone enjoying themselves.

2008-10-15T13:35:00.003-06:00

Things are going well here! Our internet was down for about a week and a half so now that it is up and running again I figured I would update the blog. The biggest thing that happened was the patito (little ducky) event on Sunday. Every year the hogar holds this event where people buy the little ducks and they put all of them in this lake and the lucky winners they choose get prizes. Its like a raffle. Before the event, the duck came to visit the hogar and we held a huge fiesta. The kids loved it. The event itself was also very fun, the hogar is so well supported by the community!! It makes me happy to see how many people are involved to serve these kids.

2008-09-30T16:17:00.002-06:00

2008-09-30T16:17:00.000-06:00

We love these guys! Edwin (to the right) and Geovanny (to the left) are brothers and they are the cutest! I posted the following pictures a couple at a time because you never know when our internet will go out. Hallelujah because I succesfully got all of them on here in the end, but a better description of them is down below.

2008-09-30T16:13:00.003-06:00

I love this picture too. On Friday they held the special olympics for the kids and they have been wearing the medals they won all this week. The kids love to show us all the medals they won. You can't see the whole thing in this picture but the blue thing around Xiomara´s neck is her medal and she loved showing it off to us.
I love this one of Xiomara, she always has a smile on her face

2008-09-30T16:09:00.001-06:00

Here is Karen putting on her handprint, and there are lots of others watching!

Efrain wanted two colors so he got red and blue to paint on the sheet.

2008-09-30T15:56:00.004-06:00

Things are going well here! First, we learned about parades one day in school and then had one of our own. Each kid got a musical instrument and we paraded all over the hogar to the macarena song. Yesterday, our school class was interrepted and we all were told to go into the cafeteria where we held a huge birthday party for the four birthdays the month of September. It was the biggest cake that I have ever seen and of course, there was lots of candy! One morning, Taylee and I set up a white sheet on the wall and everyone got their turn to put their handprint on it. The kids liked it a lot and most of them stayed after their turn just to watch the others. It was so crowded around us by the end that we could hardly move! Finally, every Wednesday we go in this building called the lactantes area where 20 or so kids are kept and we play with them, put lotion on them, or read to them. My favorite is Miguelito, he loves throwing that ball!

2008-09-24T11:21:00.002-06:00

So the internet has been down for a couple of days. Sorry for the class photo delay from my earlier post, but here it is. Things are still going well here. Every Wednesday we are going to spend the mornings in the lactantes with Marielos. The kids love to be touched and we put lotion on them. Miguel loved throwing the ball, he got a kick out of it!

2008-09-20T13:09:00.001-06:00

So we are starting to get into the hang of things here. We told the afternoon teacher, Senorita Imperatriz, that we would start teaching and helping out with the afternoon class on Friday. Who knows where she was yesterday because she didn't show up so we taught the whole class by ourselves. We had a "get to know you" theme and everyone picked their favorite colors, shapes, musical instruments, sports, etc. and then shared it with with the rest of the class so we could get to know each other a little better. Taylee and I would then tell the class what some of our favorite things were and show it to them. For music I pulled out my harmonica and played a song for them. For food we gave them some carrot sticks as our favorite vegetables. The best though was our favorite animal because we pulled out a little goldfish that we had gotten earlier that morning as a class pet for while we are down here. They named the fish Nemo like the disney character in Finding Nemo. It was a big hit already and the kids loved to feed and watch it at night. At the end we told them we really like to take pictures and we took this class photo.

We're Here!

2008-09-17T15:30:00.002-06:00

Missy and I finally made it to the Hogar! We already are loving it and getting used to working with the residents here. They are so kind and patient when it comes to our spanish and I am very grateful for that. Yesterday they had a fiesta and we enjoyed watching everyone dancing and having fun. We are so happy that we have people to answer our questions also because we would be lost without the help that we have received.

So long . . . Farewell

2008-08-30T20:37:00.003-06:00

Well, sad as this is, it is time for us to turn over the blog to the next set of volunteers. I hope this blog has helped illustrate how much we love the Hogar and the kids! It is amazing how much we have missed them in the few weeks since we have been home. We are constantly commenting on things that remind us of certain kids and laughing at memories. Here are a few cute pictures of our last day that I never posted:

Sharing one last hug with Xiomara

Writing in our group gratitude journal on the last night

Goofing off with Antonia, Carlos, and Ivan. How sad is this . . . This is one of the only pictures of the whole summer we have of Sam and I together.

The girls will be taking off on September 15th for three months. We will be turning over the blog to them, so keep checking it out if you miss hearing about the kids.

Feria!

2008-08-16T17:02:00.004-06:00

Our last Friday at the Hogar, we got to go on the awesomest field trip with the kids to the fair. It is part of the big national week of holidays in El Salvador, and it was a BLAST! We got there early before it had officially open, so they let the kids ride some of the rides for free and we had the place to ourselves. Everyone is extremely accommodating when you are with a big group of disabled kids. Each person was assigned two kids to look after and Sam and I hit the jackpot. I got assigned Xiomara and Chusie, and Sam got Memo and Roberto. Funnest. Talk about a fun group to go to a carnival with! Here are a few pics of Sam with his "charges."I got to go on the bumper cars with Roberto which was a total blast. He kept pushing the reverse pedal out of nowhere and we were constantly getting stuck. We also had fun trying to chase down Memo and Sam in their car. I also got to be seat mates with little Xiomara on the mini roller coaster. She was screaming the entire time, even when it was not going fast at all. She wasn’t scared . . . she was just thoroughly enjoying herself. I made one big mistake however. I sat on the outside, so every time we went around the one fast corner, I got absolutely smashed into the side. Here is a little footage of her screaming . . .

Nothing was cuter than when we went into the Haunted House though. It was all these dark, super skinny corridors where people would sometimes reach out and grab you. Xiomara was freaked! She had her really adorable concerned face on and was clinging to me for dear life. The problem was that the skinny corridors couldn’t possibly fit both of us standing side by side and she refused to let go. Needless to say, there were a lot of traffic jams. The traffic only got worse at one part where the floor moved. Hello, most of the kids we were with can barely walk on solid, sturdy ground! It was hilarious. Memo refused to step on it for like the five whole minutes until Hermana Umbelina scolded him. (He also told everyone outside that he was never scared inside . . . ha!) Roberto kept swaying into the wall. When we finally made it out, there were some understandably aggravated people behind us who had been stuck in there the whole time with us.

One of the funniest parts of the day, though, was when Memo caught sight of the arcade and decided he wanted to play a game. He broke off and ran ahead to the man in charged who happened to be sitting on a stool. Memo put his hands on the guys knees, leaned in really close, and started “asking” how much it cost with a very angry face. It was hilarious! The guy had no idea what to make of the chubby little boy with Down Syndrome who was grunting right in his face for no apparent reason.

They also bought all of the kids this disgusting corn on the cob smothered in mayo, ketchup, mustard, barbeque sauce, and cheese that is a Salvadoran delicacy. NASTY!

Science Experiment Night

2008-08-16T14:40:00.007-06:00

During our last week, we had an evening activity that was right up my alley. We did an evening of fun science experiments with the kids and it was a blast! Carlos especially liked it because he loves science. We did this cool one where a hard boiled egg gets sucked intact into a glass bottle using rubbing alcohol and a match. We also did baking soda and vinegar rockets, dropped two objects of the same size but different weights to see that they both touched at the same time, tried to implode a can (which failed miserably), and . . . the diet coke and mentos eruption. It was awesome! Everything we could have wanted. The kids loved it. We used two different 2-liters of Diet Coke and the show was impressive. It shot probably fifteen feet in the air. I am definitely going to research the ins and outs of how that works and then teach it to my kids when I am teacher.

This move doesn't exactly show the science experiments, but I thought Martiza was adorable at the end.

Around the world week

2008-08-16T14:31:00.003-06:00

Our last week at the Hogar was an awesome week in our class because the kids that usually leave the Hogar in the afternoon to attend the community school were on vacation and got to come to our class instead. It made it so much easier to have kids there that were really interested in learning facts about the places as well as just doing fun activities. Our theme was “Around the World” and we visited a different country each day. We did similar things each day and then usually a unique activity or two at the end to wrap up. Each student had his own blank map of the world and we started each class by finding wherethe day's country was on the map and coloring it in. Then they each colored a blank flag of that country with the correct colors. We also learned how to say hello in the language they speak there, listened to ethnic music and talked about how it is different, and, the hightlight of each class, talked about the different types of food that are common or popular there and tried some.

Geovany loved coloring his map.

Visit to the USA

2008-08-16T14:19:00.005-06:00

We started off the week by visiting the United States. We obviously had the best music for that day because we had such a variety.

We also had a picnic on the floor of the classroom with hot dogs and French fries. The kids LOVED the "papitas" or French Fries.

Our American activities were to make Indian headdresses and then play baseball. Chusita never quite got the hang of batting, but Martiza was a pretty good pitcher!

Visit to France

2008-08-16T14:06:00.003-06:00

Another day during "Around the world" week, we visited France. The first thing we did was, of course, to give them all ridiculous French mustaches, including the girls.

I couldn't choose which picture was cuter, so sorry about the two photos of Sam. The first one if Roberto and the second is Ivan.

One fun part was when we showed them a clip from Spiderman 3 where a waiter speaks Spanish with a ridiculous French accent. They thought that was hilarious. Our French meal was French bread, cheese, and “wine,” aka. grape juice.

One of our culminating activities was building an Eiffel Tower out of popsicle sticks (which we ended up turning over to Sam, Carlos, and Ivan who cared the most about it).

For those kids who didn't care too much about builidng, we did watercoloring like the French Impressionists. I love Carmencita's face with her silly moustache in this picture.

Visit to China

2008-08-16T13:52:00.003-06:00

I think my favorite day of "Around the World" week was the day we visited China. Sam and I put on silly Chinese costumes and welcomed them to China. We taught them how to say hello in Chinese and it was hilarious! Xiomara sounded like a cat saying “Ni Hao” all class because it was definitely “meow.” Cutest. We also listened to a song from the Kung Fu Panda soundtrack to talk about Chinese music. The highlight of the class though was when we had a Chinese brunch. We served the kids juice in these tiny tea cups and made them try to eat rice with chopsticks.

Martiza never could get the hang of it, but she thought is was a blast.

We were shocked to see that Geovany is absolutely amazing at using chopsticks. How the heck, I have no idea, since he doesn’t even hold them right. Ha! We were all super surprised. He was the best of the class. and then ate fortune cookies. The fortune cookies were hilarious because they were all in English so Emperatriz, Sam, and I just made up stupid things in Spanish. I told one of the students that she would be very successful in business. Ha! We ended up by making fans and rice picker hats.

I love how Carlos is 15 and not mentally disabled, but still gets totally into dressing up.

One last glamor shot

2008-08-16T13:49:00.002-06:00

I thought this picture was way too adorable not to put up. This is Transito and she kind of came out of the woodwork during the second half of the summer. We rarely saw her the first month or so but we spent quite a bit of time with her near the end. This photo doesn't quite do her cuteness justice because you can't tell that she is only about 4'6". Isn't she sweet?

Happy Birthday Harry!

2008-08-06T17:00:00.002-06:00

Just as any true Harry Potter fan would do, we celebrated July 31st at the Hogar by having a birthday party for Harry. We started off by sorting the kids into houses. We brought them up one at a time and another volunteer, hiding under the table of course, acted as the hat and decided where they belonged. That was the funniest part of the evening in my opinion. Here is Martiza who was lucky enough to get put in Gryffindor.

We then dressed up by making silly pipe cleaner glasses, drawing lightening scars on their foreheads, and giving them all chopsticks as wands. Carlitos Alonso was the absolute cutest one in his glasses.

But Roberto would have to be runner-up.

Our friend Marielos, who is the psycholgist at the Hogar, dressed up as Professor Trelawney and told fortunes.

We ended off by having a candy walk and then singing and eating birthday cake.

Carlitos Alonso certainly enjoyed the cake (although I am convinced that almost none made it into his mouth)!

Our quidditch game got ruined because of the dark, so Sam never got to make his appearance as the Golden Snitch. Maybe next time . . .

Sam and Antonia

2008-08-06T16:52:00.003-06:00

One thing Sam has really enjoyed doing during our stay here is helping Maria Antonia with her reading. She goes to the community school but is very behind her classmates. The adminstration asked Sam to read with her one-on-one for practice, and they have done it together almost every morning for thirty minutes during our three months. Needless to say, she has developed quite the crush on Sam.

Detective Day!

2008-08-05T16:17:00.003-06:00

Last week we continued our professions theme for class and started it off by“studying” detectives. We made magnifying glasses and cut out ridiculous paper moustaches as disguises for the kids.

Xiomara looked the funniest.

But I think little Xiomara and Roberto gave her a run for her money.

Then we looked for the puzzle pieces that Sam and I had hidden around the room and when the puzzle was put together, it turned out to be a cryptic note. It said something like, “You need to solve this crime before the class is finished or someone special is going to die.” So we played a life sized game of Clue. We made people from the class be the suspects. The named suspect would come to the front and wield the guessed weapon.

Here is Xiomara looking fierce with her water gun.

It ended up being Roberto with a water balloon.

80s Aerobics

2008-08-01T21:39:00.004-06:00

One really fun class we had with the kids was about exercising to stay healthy. Ryan and I lead an aerobics class in ridiculous 80s outfits and were shocked by how good some of them were. I think some of them must have seen old Richard Simmons videos on TV or something. Memo was especially into it. We even let him lead the class for awhile which was a riot!

Despite the fact that not one person is doing what Ryan and I are, we all look pretty good, eh?

Don´t be jealous of my awesome spandex and Ryan´s short little orange shorts.

The star guys--Ryan and Memo

Hygiene Class

2008-08-01T16:38:00.004-06:00

My brother-in-law, Ryan, is in dental school and brought lots of supplies to donate to the Hogar. To somehow work in dentists, one of our class themes while my family was here was personal hygiene. I was shocked how interactive and fun our classes were able to be with a topic that isn´t too riveting. It heped that we had some special guests . . .

Logan and I did a silly demonstration of simple things like brushing teeth, combing hair, putting on deoderant, etc. This picture doesn´t quite show it, but I am behind Logan being his arms and his arms are the little short legs. I love this picture because you can see Carlos and Mariza on the left cracking up.
We also learned about brushing teeth with some of the kids dressed up.

The highlight of the class though was when my dad made his appearance as Cavity Man. We played a game with that giant mouth where the kids had to come up one at a time and pick one of the good foods off the table to put in the mouth. Cavity Man was there tempting them to choose the soda and candy instead. My dad was a total ham!

Hogar Idol

2008-07-31T11:20:00.004-06:00

One of our favorite night activities of the summer so far was when we had an Hogar Idol contest. We were surprised by how well the kids responded. Every single kid there wanted to sing (even the kids that can´t talk). We had some guest judges who ranked the kids out of 10 and gave silly, American Idol-esque comments.

Ana del Carmen is famous around the Hogar for her singing. She is one of the only people that can instantly start a dance party, even with the staff. The only problem is that her song is constantly stuck in our heads.

Martiza is actually a really good singer. It is a little hard to tell on this video if it is her singing or the recorded song, but it really is her. She is so cute.

Roberto´s Bike

2008-07-30T23:58:00.002-06:00

The head nun here gave Roberto a bike for his birthday recently. However, Roberto doesn´t know how to ride it and just walks it around the Hogar all the time with his feet on either side of the seat. I told my family to bring some training wheels when they came so that we could surprise Roberto and put them on his bike while he was in school. He was PUMPED!!! The only downside is that, since training wheels aren´t really meant to support the weight of a 16 year old boy, we aren´t sure how long they will survive.

Trash Bag Fashion Show

2008-07-30T23:49:00.002-06:00

During my family´s visit to the Hogar, we decided to have a trash bag fashion show. Each team had to dress up two of it´s members using only trash bags, duct tape, and toilet paper. Then each model had to go down the catwalk and strut their stuff. The kids got really into it and of course my family hammed it up.

Geovany got a big kick out of dressing up my dad.

Sam´s team won points for creativity because he was the only model with pants.

All of the lovely contestants.

Mariachi Singers

2008-07-30T23:42:00.003-06:00

How cute are these two? We still have absolutely no idea why they were dressed up like mariachi singers or where on earth they got those outfits. Sam just found them wandering around the orphanage like that and insisted that they come up to our house to show me. Sam was trying to get to the bottom of it by asking if they were the only two with outfits,but Roberto cut him off mid question. The conversation went like this . . .

Sam: Roberto, are you the only two . . .
Roberto: With talent? Yes.

My favorite part about this picture is Memo´s face. Ha!

Hunting for Bigfoot

2008-07-27T23:24:00.004-06:00

One of the more ridiculous classes we have ever held was the fantasy day where we decided to talk about myths from our countries. El Salvador has a lot of national myths and legends about creatures that a lot of the population really believes exist. The only one we could think of to share was Bigfoot. The highlight of the class was when we told them that anyone who could get a picture of Bigfoot for the newspapers would be rich and famous. A few minutes later, he happened to walk into our classroom and we had to chase him down around the Hogar to get the magic photo.
Good look for Ryan, ísn´t it?

Hooray! A successful capture.

Baby Blanket Project

2008-07-27T23:19:00.002-06:00

One service project that we wanted to do with the kids this summer was making baby blankets for some of the lactantes or babies that live in the clinic at the Hogar. There is a set of twins that are only a year old that live in the clinic that everyone at the Hogar adores, especially Maria Antonia. We helped her make two really cute little quilts for them, a pink polka dot one for Sonia and a blue dinosaur one for her brother, Daniel. She was really excited to go deliver them the next day.

Superhero Day!

2008-07-27T22:59:00.003-06:00

The next day we learned about Superheroes for class and it was a big hit. I made a guest appearance as Super Laura wearing all black spandex, a blue cape, a batman mask, and . . . a pair of bright blue striped underwear over my pants. Emperatriz was busting! We were a little afraid that it might be socially inappropriate here but when I asked our friend Marielos she cracked up and said, “No way. It’s funny!” I don’t even think the kids really caught it anyway. We made and painted capes and masks and then did a big obstacle course to prove their superhero abilities. Xiomara got especially into the test of her upper body strength. Check out this face!It was fun to see the kids all dressed up and running through the course. Chusie was especially hilarious because she ran through with her arms outstretched like she was flying. Here she is hugging Carmencita Flores after her victory. So cute.

The next day we presented their dried caps today in a special presentation. We made each of the kids come up to the front of the class and put their capes on them and gave them a superpower. For example, Roberto was Super Friend, Aida was Super Smile, and Flores was Super Dancer. They wore those ridiculous capes around the orphanage all week!

Pirate Day!

2008-07-27T22:43:00.004-06:00

Our theme for the week Rachel and Ryan were here was 100% not educational, but it sure was fun. It was a fantasy extravaganza! We started off the week with Pirate day. We transformed the kids into pirates complete with eye patches, moustaches, bandanas, and hilarious tattoos. Then Sam came as a special visitor and he was a riot! We found him the most amazing costume ever and he totally hammed it up. He even tucked one of his legs up into his pants so that it looked like he had a stump leg. I have never seen Sam so into a character—I found it very endearing. We went on a scavenger hunt all around the orphanage to find pieces of his treasure map that led to a real buried treasure (aka. a empty box of Frosted Flakes covered in yellow paper and filled with tin foil covered cardboard coins). It was hilarious to see Roberto and Xiomara using a shovel to dig up the treasure.

Memo getting his ¨MOM¨tattoo

The Dread Pirate Roberto

The first and probably only time Yanet will ever use a shovel

Xiomara wasn´t too scared of the scary pirate, as you can tell

Catching Up

2008-07-27T22:36:00.002-06:00

Okay, it has been AGES since we posted anything on here and I am feeling very guilty. Rachel and Ryan came for a week and distracted me from my usual posting, and then my entire family came to meet the kids and take us on a trip to Guatemala. But, we are home now and my excuses are over. I am hopefully going to be putting up a lot of posts this week, as long as the internet keeps working (which is always questionable). They may not be in order, but I will try to hit all the highlights.

The egg drop

2008-07-08T22:08:00.002-06:00

One fun activity we did with the kids last week was an egg drop. We all had to made a creation to keep an egg from breaking when Sam threw it off the roof. However, the kids liked throwing them as much as making them, so none of them survived.

Carlos with his broken egg at the end. He loved it!

Lactantes

2008-07-07T23:27:00.003-06:00

There is a big group of kids here that live in a separate area called the lactantes because they are on an all liquid diet. It is a group of ADORABLE little kids with Cerebral Palsy who love to be held and cuddled. Here are two of our favorites: Ivis and Marcos.

Ana Maria

2008-07-07T23:24:00.002-06:00

How cute is she? This is Maria all decked out in her birthday outfit. Her birthday is the same day as the founder of the Hogar, so they always have a big bash that she thinks is all for her. The cutest part is that she turned 48 this year but she thinks she is 15. Everyone plays along with it and all day people were saying, ¨We thank God for giving Maria fifteen years of life.¨ She loves to help out in the laundry room at the Hogar and she loves to scold people if you step one toe out of line. The workers lovingly tease her by calling her the scolding old lady.

Solar System

2008-07-07T23:15:00.004-06:00

We taught our class about the solar system last week (obviously extemely simplified). We learned about how the earth moves around the sun, what we can see at night, and what the sun is like.
We made star masks and learned the song, Ï am like a star.¨ It is Aida´s favorite.

We also made a very rudimentary mobile of the solar system for the classroom.

More glamor shots

2008-07-07T22:51:00.004-06:00

We decided that the glamor shots were such a hit with the morning kids that we needed to make a night activity out of it. It was hilarious! We brought down all sorts of accessories, including a fan. Rather ¨Glamor Shots by Deb¨from Napoleon Dynamite if you ask me.

Don´t think that we left the boys out of it. We made them look macho with . . . what else?!? Eyeliner facial hair!
I know there are a million pictures of Xiomarita on the blog but this picture was just too classic.

When Maria Antonia heard what we were doing, she ran back to her dorm and came out in her jelly high heels and this ridiculous cheerleading skirt. She is a little sass!

Then the girls got to do my makeup. Don´t I look fabulous?!?

Chef Day

2008-07-07T22:41:00.003-06:00

The other highlight of our professions week was the day we ¨studied¨chefs. All of the kids that normally go to the community school were in class that day so it was incredibly rowdy and crowded, but man was it fun. First we made ridiculously giant chef hats and then had a gingerbread house making contest. Needless to say, they all won. Then they went around and presented their houses as gifts to people around the Hogar (despite the fact that some didn´t quite withstand the transit).

Roberto and Chusie in their cute hats.

Geovany and Maritza were partners and every time I looked over, I would see Martiza hard at work and Geovany chowing down on all the supplies! Ha. Then I finally teased him about it so he tried to start helping. He picked up a jellybean and tried to press it into the frosting but . . . their whole house fell down! Martiza was so mad at him. So he went back to eating and she went back to her business. To tell you the truth, I think he did it on purpose so he could just eat in peace.

Carlos got into the construction part. His was by far the most sturdy, and he was certainly proud of it!

Doctor Day!

2008-07-01T13:41:00.003-06:00

For our occupations week, we devoted each day to a different profession. One of our favorite days was doctor day! Here are some highlight activities:

We had a mock operation with the kids. We used a scalpel to inspect the brain, heart, stomach, bones, and eyeballs of our deathly ill patient.

I accidentally tripped and "broke my wrist" walking to the board. Luckily for me, we had a whole classroom full of newly trained doctors to put a cast on it for me.

Xiomara was very concerned at first because she thought I had really hurt myself. I had to show her that my wrist was fine before she would join in the activity. Cutest.

We love Harry!

2008-07-01T12:20:00.003-06:00

One fun thing we implemented last week was reading night with the older kids. We built a big fort out of sheets in the Administration building and Sam started reading Harry Potter 2 aloud with all the voices. The kids really liked it and are excited to start doing it one night a week. It is nice that they are using a book I am so familiar with because I can understand a lot of the Spanish and it makes me excited.

Spin Art

2008-07-01T12:10:00.002-06:00

One activity we have had a lot of fun doing with the kids recently is Spin Art. It is nice because even the kids who can't really hold a paintbrush can squeeze paint out of a bottle with a little help. One girl loved it so much that she wanted her square pinned on her shirt with a safety pin to parade around all day. Cutest.

The other Xiomara

2008-06-26T22:21:00.003-06:00

By some odd coincidence, two of our very favorite kids here are both named Xiomara. This Xiomara loves to have fun! She is very girly and often has ridiculous blue eyeshadow smeared all the way up to her eyebrows. She also loves to dance and will bust out the moves even without music sometimes. The other day she had to leave in the middle of class and didn't walk out until she had stood in front of the class and shook her booty for a few minutes. One of our favorite things is when she grabs your arm and gives you kisses from your hand to your elbow.

Human Body Week

2008-06-26T22:13:00.003-06:00

Our theme for class last week was the human body. One highlight was tracing all of our bodies onto big sheets of butcher paper and adding body parts to "ourselves" all week. We learned outer and inner body parts but really only focused on the big stuff. Here are some hilarious pictures from "Muscle day."

We took pictures as real "muscle men."
Geovany schooled me at arm wrestling. But hey, what do you expect?!? He wheels himself around all day and has huge arms as a result.

Barrettes

2008-06-26T22:02:00.003-06:00

One fun thing that we have been doing specifically with the girls lately is making barrettes. Some girls opt for the totally ridiculous and gaudy look with huge feathers and pipe cleaners, but others opt for just a simple line of beads or pom-poms. It has been really fun to see them wearing the barrettes around the orphanage.
Aida always has her hair right on the top of her head, so the feathers really added to the drama.

Xiomara went for just a line of simple beads

But Maria Antonia went the most outrageous of all! She wanted a big crown she could clip on the top of her head. Cutest.

Napoleon Dynamite

2008-06-19T17:04:00.002-06:00

How Napoleon Dynamite is this? It is a belt with a rubber ball attached to it. We strapped it on Vladimir and he LOVED it! He would sometimes kick it so hard that it would whack him in the face. It kept him entertained for hours.

Xiomarita

2008-06-19T16:43:00.002-06:00

There is no word to describe Xiomara other than sweet. She is one of the most affectionate people we have ever met, and we just adore her. We can both be totally grumpy and down but if Xiomara comes prancing over to us, we both can't help but laugh. She is the cutest!

Side note: Please excuse the fact that her shirt is see-through . . . they put the kids in some RANDOM clothing! I though the picture was adorable anyway.

Holidays Week!

2008-06-16T22:45:00.007-06:00

The theme in our class last week was holidays and we celebrated a different holiday every day. I didn't take as many pictures as usual (and the awesome one from Halloween were on Courtney's camera), but there are still a few cute ones to put up here. Monday was Easter and we decorated eggs, went on a candy hunt and then found the Easter bunny, and talked about Señor Jesús.
Here is Emelia showing off her really classy Easter basket.

I must say that the best part of Easter was decorating eggs was watching Carmencita demolish hers with her paintbrush. She certainly made the most of it. Who says you can only paint the shell? She painted every bit of that egg!

The next day was Christmas and it was even better.
We acted out the Nativity which was hilarious because we made Xiomara be Mary and Geovany be Joseph. Will you please notice that the baby itself is a ball of yarn?

We also got Carmencita to dress up as a shepherd which was one of the cutest things ever!

I think the highlight though was when we made Christmas ornaments, popcorn garlands, and paper chains to decorate our Christmas tree (which turned out to be Sam draped in a green sheet because it was raining outside). Also ghetto. We finished by decorating Christmas cookies and having a dance party to Feliz Navidad. Walther put about three inches of frosting on his cookie before popping the entire thing in his mouth without chewing. Man after my own heart.

Wednesday we celebrated New Year’s by doing a countdown and having our own giant ball drop, and then Thursday was my absolute favorite . We celebrated Halloween! We dressed up and went trick-or-treating to different places at the Hogar where we had planted candy. The workers made the kids do something like sing or count to ten in order to get it. It was really fun to see some of the staff get into it. My favorite part though was when we made a “Casa de Miedo (House of Fear)” in our classroom by covering all the windows and told scary, interactive stories with a flashlight under our faces. We wanted to bob for apples but the water in the Hogar was out that day. We will have to do it another time just for fun, even if it doesn’t fit the theme because that would be classic!

We LOVE working with our class in the afternoons. It has definitely been a highlight of our work here.

Another "Noche Especial"

2008-06-16T22:37:00.003-06:00

For our "Special Night" last week, we invited up two of our favorite boys, Carlos and Ivan. We wanted to make something cool to put in their room since they don't get to have their own. We painted pillowcases and it was really fun!

Glamour Shots!

2008-06-16T16:38:00.005-06:00

One of the highlights of last week was taking some of the girls out of the pavillion in the mornings to do Glamour Shots! We painted their nails, put ridiculous makeup on them, and then went on a hunt to find a picturesque backdrop. It was a riot! These girls loved it the more than anyone else.

Daysi made us take her all around the orphanage to show off her "new look." She especially wanted to show the nuns.

Inecita LOVED the makeup. She wanted to do her own lipstick . . . she almost made her mouth.

Time Travelers

2008-06-06T00:27:00.009-06:00

The theme for our afternoon class this week is "Traveling through Time." It has been a blast! We visit a different era every day and meet famous people that make us do ridiculous tasks. Here are some highlights:

MEDIEVAL DAY: We taught the kids how to joust and they competed for a kiss from the princess (me)

Our brave knights had a slay a ferocious dragon to prove their knighthood.

ANCIENT EGYPT DAY:
Ivan loved dressing up but wasn't quite willing to put on the red lipstick of a pharoah.

Reyna, however, had no qualms whatsoever. I have never seen her so excited for an activity. She was the first one to demand a beard.

ANCIENT GREEK DAY:

Since the Greeks invented the Olympics, we had a class Olympics to celebrate. Here are two of our lucky winners . . . Roberto Xiomarita

Our view

2008-06-05T23:54:00.002-06:00

Quite a few people have been asking me what El Salvador looks like and I wanted to give you just a taste. It is gorgeous! As we were walking down this evening to play with the kids, this was the view from our front door. I am definitely doing to miss palm trees when I go home in August.

Music and Dance Class

2008-06-02T12:18:00.008-06:00

If there is one thing these kids love to do, it is dance! Our theme for class this past week was "The Arts" and we did a different discipline of art each day. Our favorite day was music/dance. We made instruments, went on a parade around the orphanage, banged out rhythms on pots and pans, listened to different types of music and drew faces to show how it made us feel, and then learned different famous types of dances. None of us were quite prepared for how some of these kids can shake it. We put on a reggaetone song and they all leapt out of their seats. This video is from a different day but shows the same type of enthusiasm. The only thing this video is missing is Memo. He is a really chubby kid with Down syndrome who isn't normally in our class and came bursting in out of nowhere when he heard the song. He ripped off his shirt, whirled it around his head, and started body rolling his big gut. I was trying to stifle my laughter at first because I didn’t know if I should encourage him, but then I looked over and the Salvadoran teacher, Emperatriz, was absolutely rolling with laughter. By the end there were tears streaming down all our faces. What makes it so funny is that he has no shame. We saw him later with Hermana Umbelina and he was telling her that he had fun at our class and talking about dancing. He started rollin' it in front of the head nun!!! She laughed, pretended to swat his butt, and then just winked at us. She is spunky.

Me and Edwin workin' it

Check out our little thug, Roberto