January Happenings

Time is passing by so quickly here! I can't believe it is already the end of January. The volunteers who arrived here last January have now left, and new ones have arrived to fill their positions for a year. It was sad to say goodbye to people with whom I had grown accustomed to seeing everyday and sharing so much with in our lives here for the past 6 months. But such is the life of an NPH volunteer. This month also saw the arrival/welcoming of three new families at the orphanage, the beginning of a new school year for all of the children, and a new speech therapy schedule for me. Here are pictures of some of the happenings of the past month!

Baptism for some of the pequeños!

First Communion Mass :)

Some of the girls with their Godmother, Tia Silvia

My newest nephew! Peter "Rocky" Fisher Blackwell :)

She is now attending Montessori with her friends!

After verifying swallowing difficulties in a barium swallow study last month, we decided to go ahead with a G-tube placement so that she can gain weight and give her lungs a break from the constant aspiration. She was such a champ in the hospital for the surgery and recovery...

We had fun hanging out in the hospital room being silly :)

And SHE got to sleep that night....me? Not so much. But totally worth it to be able to be with her that day ;)

After the g-tube placement, I got to give a presentation to the staff about why we decided to take this step, and how we are going to take care of her with these new changes. Above and below are a few examples of slides from the presentation. I think the animations and information helped to calm some people's nerves here about the whole ordeal. Everyone loves her so much and just wants her to be healthy and strong :) Though feeding/swallowing was not my clinical specialty before coming here, I have done a lot studying and revisiting my notes from grad school recently to prepare for this. I am so grateful to have had wonderful professors at Callier that have enabled me to help the children here!

Beginning of a New School Year!

Friday marks the first day of a new school year here at NPH. I have spent much of this week making new materials for some of our little ones to help set them up for success in the classroom. Here is a social story that I made for one little guy. A visitor to NPH last year gave us therapists access to her SymbolStix library, which are the symbols used in the Proloquo2go app on the iPad, and which I use in virtually all of my visual materials in therapy. We will start reading this book in therapy tomorrow and then this child's tias will continue to read it with him in his home to help remind him of what his new daily routine will be!

One month in pictures

So as you may recall, the other volunteers and I spent the month of December acting as the primary caregivers of the children while the regular tios were on vacation. Working with the children with special needs was an extremely humbling experience. Bathing, grooming, and changing the diapers of teenagers and young adults was definitely a new experience for me. Throughout my time with them, I found myself reflecting on the lives of each of the pequeños and noticing little reasons why God created them. Their smiles, their joy in simple things, their calmness... I was reminded of the amazing amount of dignity that they each possess, and spent a lot of time thinking about how much God loves them---so much they he brought them into being! I leave the month of December with an immense amount of respect and appreciation for the full-time caregivers of these children, and a renewed personal passion for working with individuals with special needs. A few pictures below are from our regular outings to Parramos.

Enjoying the sun :) 

A rare trip to Pollo Campero :)

His favorite thing to do...he laughs and smiles the entire time :)

The volunteer coordinator hosted all of us at her house in Parramos for a Christmas dinner. We did a secret-santa gift exchange in which we had to package the gifts in such a way that the recipient would be able to guess which one belonged to them. My gift was very appropriately packaged 1) in the shape of a grape (I love all things grape-flavored) 2) with a mouth painted on it, because I'm a speech pathologist and 3) with the word "vos" because this is an informal form of addressing close friends/family here. I am realllly trying to be super cool here of course, so I use "vos" with everyone, all the time. ;) When the gift was held up for people to guess who it belonged to, everyone said my name in unison. The volunteer nurse, Kyra, did an awesome job of designing the package for me! 

Courtney (from Boston) and Jessica (from California)

Pamela (our former dentist, from Guate) and me

Caitlin, Dana, and Jessica

Courtney and me

At the bonfire on Christmas Eve. Some people stayed out until past midnight to watch the fireworks. 

We had lots of fun hanging out those three days!

Always smiling :) 

Sparklers and a bonfire on Christmas Eve

Jessica, the other volunteer in my section of girls, was so kind as to buy gifts for all of the girls to open on Christmas morning.

We had a slumber party on Christmas Eve (I slept on the mattress on the floor here)

So happy to open her gifts from Jessica :)

More smiles.

So even though there is a Guatemalan sign language that I am really trying to learn (I promise!) I've still been using some American Sign Language with my kiddos here. I love that this little girl understands everything, and on this day (Christmas Eve) she began communicating to me when she wanted "mas!" Check out this video snippet below for proof!

Pretty sure she is an angel.

On December 27th, I headed to Dallas to be present at the baptism of my newest little Godson, Thomas Joseph and to catch up with some of my family and friends.

 It was so great to see how big Joey B is getting!!

Some special Guatemalan gifts for my first Godson and oldest nephew :) 

The Dallas bunch of sobrinos :) 

Two of the three Lawler sobrinos!

I needed a translator to communicate with this Dallas family before I left, and was so happy to be able to communicate directly with the mom on this visit :) 

Upon my return to Guatemala, my friend's mom made "panza de res" which is pretty much the intestines of a cow? I promised her that I would try it, and although the taste wasn't all that bad, I couldn't get over the texture...

And so for the next meal, she made filet mignon. Definitely couldn't complain about that!! :)

Today we had the baptism of three pequeños which I was fortunate enough to attend. It's quite possible that these kids have already been baptized, but because they did come to NPH with their baptismal paperwork, Padre went ahead and re-baptized them so we can be absolutely sure that they have received this wonderful sacrament before they receive their First Communions next weekend!

They are holding celebratory granizadas (snow cones) that we purchased on the walk home :)

The volunteers who have been here for a year are preparing to leave us at the end of next week. 7 new volunteers from various countries arrived last weekend to fill some of the soon-to-be vacant positions. Will be posting pictures from the going away festivities and such in the coming weeks.