December 31, 2015 Caroline Roybal

A Day in the Life for our Beloved Guatemalan Babies

Hello everyone from Guatemala! Here at the Orphanage I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to develop relationships with each of the newest members of our family- the babies- by organizing activities that are geared toward their development! The babies typically range from just a few months old to a few years old and they all have qualities that make them truly unique. Here are a few pictures of the fun we’ve had down here. Hope you enjoy!!

 
The Guatemalan babies here at the Eagle’s Nest Orphanage have loved to play with just about anything. One of their favorites are blocks with various letters and shapes on them. In this picture I was attempting to have the kids sound out letters like “M” or “S,” but each letter all sounded like “Ahhh.” It was absolutely adorable!

Today the big activity we did with the kids was finger painting with food! We colored vanilla pudding and provided the babies with different foods like sugary cereals, dried fruit, and sprinkles to make faces. This is the example I made for the kids to use as a model.


Luckily we had help from some of the older kids here at the orphanage or we would have never been able to pull of this activity. In this picture, Rosita is helping baby Santiago make his painting. He enjoyed eating the cereal more than he did playing with it.

Here you can see the puddings we colored in different colors. And you can see what color the puddings become when mixed together and eaten! Garrett Fenchel is helping baby Mayah attempt the smiley face drawing. From other angles, you can see Mayah was creative with her painting canvases and decided Garrett’s beard was better than the plate!

Another angle of Mayah playing with Garrett! Mayah chose to play with the colored puddings instead of the various foods available like the dried bananas and cranberries.

 
Ingrid, one feisty yet beautiful little girl, had the most fun with all of the different foods. In this picture, she was attempting to separate the sprinkles, cranberries, and fruit loops. She dabbled the most, going back and forth between the puddings and the sprinkles. The end product of this painting looked similar to the sunsets we have here in Guatemala.

In this picture, Ingrid was decorating the smiley face example. She gave him hair, and added a few dimples on his face. In my own opinion, the smiley picture reminds me of her own smile, which is just as big as this one of the plate.

 
Playing with food is a little too much for some of the younger babies, such as our little Samuel! Samuel is one of the happiest babies here at the orphanage, and he certainly gets a lot of attention because of his sweet face and tiny little body.

In this picture, Joselyn is playing with one of the activities we had available for the kids to meander through and explore. Some of the kids have a real gift in architecture and spatial reasoning. Many made structures that were pretty complex for their age, and some made foundations to help support a high tower. It is amazing to see how intelligent they all are!

 
It would be a lot more chaotic in the babies’ home if we didn’t have help from a lot of our volunteers. It is really special when we have one person helping with and loving one to two babies/toddlers. At their young age where development comes frequently and rapidly, the more volunteers the better. We are able to show the babies a lot of individual love and attention here, and it is truly rewarding seeing them respond and connect with us.