Christmas Angel Tree

I've finally gotten around to posting the Christmas Angel Tree button and the precious little button Lu made for my precious Catherine here!

In the process, I had to sift through all my other buttons and DELETE A TON OF THEM!!!! Want to know why that excited me?!?!

THOSE CHILDREN ARE HOME WITH THEIR FAMILIES.


Thank G-d :)


Anyways, I've committed to be Catherine's prayer warrior this year. I'm not what you'd call a very good pray-er (prayer? hmmmm), but I will do my best. I'm considering how I might set up a little mini fundraiser in the teacher's lounge at school. We've got another teacher who knows of and supports RR at our school - she's FAB! I got her a car magnet, so we both have them up in our classroom for all to see.

Stay tuned for a post about my yearning to go back to Guatemala...and how I plan to try and do so this summer.

Jaimie

Video clip of Paty

It's FINALLY here... 24 seconds of my beautiful, beautiful lovey. Please enjoy her sweet, infectious giggles. This was our last day there and I no longer had to tickle her to get her to laugh, but she wasn't feeling very well that day. The video is so short because we were not allowed to take pictures/video's there. We only risked it because it was the last day. This is my only video of Paty. I have a few pictures that I will post on here eventually.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I watched this part of the dvd for almost 10 minutes last night. Then I dreamt that I was back in Guatemala with her...




Jaimie

Home

The title to this post is pretty self-explanatory. I've been home since yesterday evening. Today was spent trying to get organized for my move to a new state/first apartment/first teaching job.

I don't have the time and energy to write up a long post about my experiences now, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I got home safe and sound.

On one hand it is nice to be home, where it is safe to drink water from the tap...

On the other hand?

I'm devastated to be home. I cried for about ten minutes in the car on the way home. I keep thinking of my sweet little Paty lying lonely in her cage (crib), confused about why I'm not there anymore. It makes me so very sad to know that she wasn't tucked in at 5 PM (more on that BS later) with a hug and a kiss from me last night and the night before.

I'm lucky in that I do have a few pictures of her (that I will post when I get a chance) and even her delicious giggles captured on a short video. Once I get the video from Daryl, I will also post that.

Her smiles are never far from my mind's eye and her sweet giggles ring in my ears. They remind me that I can do so much more than I have in the past. I will scour the information I have and I will do whatever I can to make her life better.

Lest you think I only care for my darling girl, the one I wish was my own...Here's a list of all the children you can be thinking and praying for:

Paty (of course)
Byron
Elmer
Ervin
Moyses
Veronika
Sonia
Alex
JoJo
Lesly
Brenda
Gloria
Perla
Ariana
Heidi
Beverli
Nelson
Big Melvin
Little Melvin
Jose
Minor
Henry
Evelyn
Daniel
Hugo
Miriam
Nora
Paulo
Saol
Cesar
Julian
Candy
Helen
Lila

There are more, but those are the one's that I can list off of the top of my head.

Good night all.

Jaimie

Guatemala - Days 2, 3, and 4

Sorry for the delay in posting, I don't have all that much down time! (not really a bad thing)

Hermano Pedro has 250 residents, both children and adults. I've spent most of my time with the children (surprise surprise!), because I've fallen in love with a beautiful four year old named Paty (only 1 T).

I can't really take pictures inside the orphanage, they have REALLY cracked down on pictures. However, when we take them out we can take pictures. Daryl said I can try and take them on the last day, so it won't matter if we get kicked out ;) However, Dick got a picture of her yesterday and Daryl snuck one or two of her today.

Things are going well here, I'm seriously in love with Paty. She's my doll baby. She's interacting so much more than she was the first time I met her. She smiles even when I'm not tickling her, giggles when I kiss her (she used to not do anything when I kissed her), today she kicked her legs up and down when I was playing with her in her crib because she was so excited, she looks for my voice when she hears it (sometimes), looks up at my face (sometimes) and makes eye contact (sometimes).

When you first look at her, she doesn't look gorgeous. Her head is on the small side, I really think she has microcephaly. She's got these GORGEOUS chubby cheeks and her eyes are brown and beautiful. Her eyes also bulge out a tiny bit - also leading me to think microcephaly (thoght I don't know for sure that that is a sign of it). She's got WILD black hair. It's short but man is it thick and NUTS! It's in her eyes all the time, but I just adore it. She has a feeding tube (not a mic-key button, but a tube) on her adorably chubby tummy. She's VERY ticklish and LOVES it when I tickle her back, tummy, collarbone ETC... and say: Patsoon Patsoon Patsoon (SP?!) I *think* that means tickle. One of the nurses came over one day while I was tickling her and said it while she tickled her.

Thing is? When she smiles, her ENTIRE face lights up. When she laughs? It's the most delicious thing in the world.

I found out today from a woman named Anita (she and her two daughters decided to come live in Guatemala for all of July!) that she didn't have the feeding tube when she was there in February. Apparently Paty got very sick and was losing too much weight.

Some of the nurses are great, some not so much...but they work very hard and are just overwhelmed with all they have to do.

Yesterday we took a group of children to the park that are nearly all bottle fed a really nasty pureed version of the not so yummy stuff all the other kids eat. They loved the park and I loved their reactions to being out of the orphanage. I also really enjoyed seeing all the onlookers reactions to our wheelchair parade. I was responsible for Saol (sp?) during the outing. Saol can wheel his own chair (not always where you want him to!) loves balls (una poleta!), is a GREAT mimic and oh yeah, Autism and Cerebral Palsy.


We were also able to tour all of Hermano Pedro with a gentleman named Dick. Dick runs a program that brings wheelchairs to individuals in need here in Guatemala. He goes to very remote villages, where he is not always all that safe. He lives in Chimaltenango, where Los Gozosos is (the orphanage for kids with special needs that we are going to on Thursday and Friday). He has volunteered at Hermano Pedro for 10 years and has earned the ability to take residents out of the orphanage for small trips, as well as making suggestions as to how better care for the residents.

Today we went and toured a school in a town called Santa Maria des Jesus (or something like that), a pretty sequestered place that is still very Mayan - we went with Dick. The school is mostly a special education school...and is AMAZING. It is three stories tall, has an elevator and 50 some students. I got some great pictures INSIDE the school. We were warned by Dick NOT to take pictures in the village, that they're just not that crazy about American's.

After that we went back to Hermano Pedro and took some kids out to lunch at Pollo Compero (totally butchered the spelling), a Guatemala version of KFC. This group was more ambulatory and thoroughly enjoyed the play area. After lunch we stopped in the park and played in the fountain for a minute. We can't bring them back to wet...otherwise we'll get in trouble with the nurses!

I've uploaded a ton of pictures on facebook

Dinner time!

Talk to you later,

Jaimie

hello from Guatemala!

I'm in Guatemala, safe and sound in a VERY cute little motel/hotel. Please excuse any typo's-I'm using an extremely tiny keyboard on a netbook.

We visited the children's hospital today (Hermano Pedro) and I'm so excited to go back. I SHOULD be able to take pics of the children, so be on the lookout.

I don't have much time, as I need to give the computer back to its rightful owner...the two pics will have to suffice! Enjoy!

It's almost time!

I'm leaving for the airport in an hour and 15 minutes (ish). I didn't bother going to sleep because I'd have to get up at 3:30 at the latest! (blech)


I've heard that there is a McDonald's not far from our hotel that has computers/internet for any paying customer! I could ALWAYS use a diet pepsi, so it sounds good to me. This means I *should* be able to update while I'm there. I am really hoping I can plug my camera card reader into the computer at McD's so that I can post pictures to the blog. If not, I guess you'll have to wait the 8 days for me to get back home.

My next post will be written from Guatemala!

Jaimie