Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos

This weekend served as a bit of a reality check in my la de dah playing in Mexico semester. Five of us spent the weekend at an orphanage near Cuernavaca called Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (Our Little Siblings, NPH). NPH is home to about 600 orphaned, abandoned, neglected or abused children ages 3 yrs. to about 20 yrs. The goal of the orphanage is to provide food, housing, education and a stable family structure for the kids until they are old enough to take care of themselves. Every Pequeño is required to do 2 years of service for NPH after finishing high school. After their 2 years, Pequeños can choose to go on to university on a full-ride scholarship through NPH. The kids are grouped based on age and gender and each group has a cargador, or caretaker, who is often a former Pequeño. There are also NPH orphanages in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, but the organization was originally started by a priest working in Cuernavaca. The Mexico NPH is located on an old sugarcane plantation, with all the old stone buildings, cobblestone paths and open fields.
In addition to its 600 residents, NPH has an on-site farm that provides the basics for the cafeteria. They have a large corn field, tomato greenhouses, a fish farm, at least 350 pigs, a sheep herd and a goat herd. They employ a few people to maintain the farm but most of the labor comes from the 2 yr. service kids. Each child is personally sponsored by a family or individual, many of them international, who provide them with basic clothing, shoes and necessities. The orphanage has an on-site dental and medical clinic and the NPH school is considered the best in the area. The thing that struck me the most about this organization was just that: the organization. All the kids seemed to know their group's schedule and the rolling plantation style dispersed the 600 kids so it didn't seem crowded. Chores such as sweeping and kitchen duty rotate through the groups to serve 2 purposes: to prevent paying many employees and to introduce a sense of ownership/responsibility/work ethic. NPH seems to do a lot with their limited resources and the kids seemed overall healthy and happy. The younger kids were less than shy in asking for hugs, piggyback rides and candy and the older kids were also very talkative (at least within the confines of our conversational Spanish).
We were asked to bring an activity for 25 kindergarten-aged kids, preferably with an American culture theme. Obviously, fingerpainting mini pumpkins was the most logical solution. We hauled a bagful of mini pumpkins all over the Mexican bus system and scrambled to translate Halloween-related words into Spanish. While half the group painted pumpkins, we attempted to wrangle the other half into playing games. We should have expected that it would be a significant challenge to occupy 16 six-year-old boys for half an hour. The circle for Duck Duck Goose ended when everyone wanted to sit in the middle. Simon Says was cancelled when one niño strategically directed his saliva onto Mitch, our token ND boy, while he was stuck under the ¨Simon Says Hug Mitch¨ pile. Simon did not in fact say ¨Spit in Someone´s Hair¨. Pirate Ship ended in a scraped knee and a few tears. Erica´s valiant attempt to teach a funny camp song was foiled by the significant language barrier. Overall, I´d say it was a success.

After getting up for a 7AM bus and spending all day in the hot, hot sun with the niños, we were exhausted by about 8PM and all slept nearly 10 hours. Our bus ride back to Puebla was not as smooth as it could have been. Apparently a car accident had closed the main highway between Cuernavaca and Puebla so we had to take an alternative route featuring every pothole and speedbump that Mexico had to offer, a lovely bus tour of several cornfields and a cheesy Nicholas Cage movie. We eventually made it back, a little bruised and nauseous, but full of a week´s worth of hugs.

I spent a lot of time this weekend considering how different my life would have been without my parents, siblings, and extended family. Not to mention a stable home environment and education. So this is a ShoutOut to the Redline Fam: Thank you. I miss you and I love you more than bees love honey!