11-7-2010

A Sunday´s Peruvian dog experience

The kids gathered around our tv and watched the World Cup final.

Jhon Carlos helped combing the kids hair before we headed to church.

Jhonatan finished his candy after a traumatic cry.

Poor baby, he looked so worried before heading to the clinic and get that shot.

If it wasn´t for the NPH website, I wouldn´t take this horrid photo! My heart went way down when I saw him like this.

It has been a crazy week! The Rustic Pathway group came again on Thursday, and they played with the small kids. But these teenagers didn´t really know what they were doing and how to deal with the kids. The worst was that they let the kids destroy some of the materials we have in the therapy room! As my friends know, I got really freaked out when people messed up my stuff. What´s worse was that it took a lot of effort in fundraising to have these materials, and it wasn´t easy. I burst out in tears just to see all the mess and I had to leave the house to chill myself out. After dinner, John suggested that we went out together for a little break and so we did. Funny there was a dog kept following us. I got to say as a dog lover, I hate Peruvian dogs! Basically they aren´t well domesticated like those at home, and they tend to bite and bark. But this one was just following us, as if he wanted to protect us on the way. She even followed us back to the house! The next day we had a meeting with Tía Catalina about this, as it was getting out of hand. She was very supportive, and she later in the day talked to the organizer about it and asked them to replace those materials that were ruined.

Friday the kids and some of the tíos had the H1N1 vaccination in our clinic. Most kids cried and got freaked out naturally, but they all got through it. I carried some candies with me to cheer them up, as some of my babies like Alonso, Jhonatan and José Luis cried so hard. They were so traumatized after the shots that they even couldn´t hold the candy in their mouth! While I agreed to help Tío John take some photos for the NPH website, I spent a lot of time comforting them. Lemar´t was really funny as it was only for 4 years and up. But he thought he needed one, so he kept saying no to me. Plus, he dragged me everywhere far from the clinic! I asked him if he was trying to escape, and he said with a smirk, "¡Sí!" There was a change in duties this week after 6 months, and the teenage kids shift their responsibilities around. The greatest switch was two boys taken over kinder and two others over the babies. The babysitting posts used to be an all-girl team, but now it´s all-boy! It´s funny to see them work with the younger kids, and I think it's a brilliant idea because the younger ones should be exposed to female as well as male siblings and it shouldn´t be just a girl´s job.

After lunch today, we watched the World Cup final together. All the kids and tíos were together in the dining room watching the game. I was rooting for the Netherlands, as it has always been one of my favorite national teams, and I happened to have brought a Netherlands orange tee with me. The favoritism in the house varied, some supported the Netherlands while others supported España. But the real fun was really getting to do this with all the kids. At the end a lot of us were a little disappointed as the Netherlands lost, but Tía Noelia, who is in Lima this weekend watching the game in the Plaza de Armas, must have been ecstatic! By the way, the dog that followed us on Friday keep hanging out in the home these few days, and she seems to like us. I am still a bit cagy about her as I was once attacked by a dog here, but she seems quite docile and the kids have been playing with her a bit and it went fine. The kinder kids though were a bit wary and scared, but Franklin and Joanca kept teasing her. Anyhow, I was glad to meet a Peruvian dog who is actually nice!