Orphanage, Father's Day, and Mexican soccer

Nuestros Pequiños Hermanos Orphanage
http://www.nph.org/

I never got a chance to write about my visit to the largest orphanage in Latin America a few weeks ago. About an hour away from Cuernavaca, there's an orphanage named Nuestros Pequiños Hermanos. The facility was gorgeous and unlike any orphanage I've seen. The 500 orphans that live there have everything they would ever need within the walls of NPH; school, dining facility, and a doctor. Each child has their own chore around the facility depending on their age, and I was impressed when they said they have their own filtered water system- meaning their water is so clean they can drink straight from the tap. They also have hundreds of pigs on the site. They prepare 2 pigs and 5,000 tortillas and that's enough to feed all the children for one week.Our favorite little boy, Carlos, who loved to take pictures with my camera.

Dia del Padre (Father's Day)
Funny story.. I had the creative idea to make a homemade Father's day card for my Mexican father. I thought it would be a great idea to write a little note in English and translate it to Spanish. I knew it wouldn't be perfect, but I translated it as best I could...... word for word. So after a while, I finished my translation, and emailed it to my friend José Luis in NC for him to look at it before I wrote it out. I was confused when José laughed at my translation, not because it was terrible but because most of what I wanted to say didn't translate "exactly right" to Spanish.
I wanted to tell my father that "I know it's hard to have so many girls in the house"... needless to say it kind of translated to "I know its hard to hire so many girls to come into your house". Obviously a little different than what I was hoping to say. I also wanted to tell my host father how much I enjoy our quality time at breakfast and riding in the car to school every morning... and somehow the spanish words for "I cherish our quality time" translates to "touch your body". So after that, I left the rest up to José to fix my letter, figured out that things don't translate word for word exactly perfect, and decided I need to learn more Spanish. haha

The homemade Father's Day card

México fútbol playing in the World Cup
You never know the true meaning of SPIRIT until you experience Mexican fútbol (soccer) in México. Downtown is pretty wild on "game day"... It's normal for school to be canceled and businesses to close in just enough time for everybody to get to a place to watch the game.
The first game, I went to the Zocalo (downtown square). In the square, they had a gigantic projection of the game with thousands of people in Mexico jerseys standing trying to get a glimpse of the screen, even people sitting in the trees. Since I've been here, Mexico played 3 games in the World Cup! Downtown was absolutely crazy after the second win. There were groups of people running the street, rocking cars back and forth as they passed through the street, lots of yelling, and car horns playing the tune to "Vamos, vamos México!" What a cool cultural experience to see such spirit for Mexican fútbol!

Other one-time experiences...

Mexican bowling with my friends from the United States Naval Academy.

Blew about $10 USD in the casino one night it rained.

Tepoztlan- I saw these children playing on the bells of the Cathedral while the church was being cleaned.

Lunch with my Mexican family in Tepoztlan the first weekend I was in Mexico.