"Love My Children"

My favorite part of time in the Villa is playing with the children. It's amazing how universal the language of play is. All I have to do is look at a kid a certain way to communicate, "I'm gonna get you!" Then they shake their head to say, "Oh no you won't!" And we're off playing chase around the schoolyard.

The kids really love it when we come and play with them. I don't think there's much of a culture of parents playing with their kids. At least I haven't seen any of them doing it yet. They play together a lot, but the parents have to spend most of their time providing for them by working or cooking and cleaning, etc.  So they love having us there to talk to them a little and play with them a lot. It's really neat how the kids just light up when we pay attention to them.

Most the ways we figured out to play with them didn't involve much verbal communication. I played with a five year old boy named Junior for hours. He reminded me a lot of some of the boys I babysit back in the States. It was so weird how he loved the same things they do even though they live worlds apart. He especially enjoyed playing chase and what we named "caballo," Spanish for horse, which was a piggy back or shoulder ride. Here his is to the right...

The little girls especially also enjoyed just being hugged, held, or walking around holding our hands. They're super cute. They also really liked swinging, except they always wanted to swing on our laps. I was a little worried the swing sets would break with us on them, but they never did :) The high school guys also taught the boys to play American football, which was pretty funny.




Below are some videos I took of the high schoolers playing with the kids. Most are only a few seconds. The last one of the dance off is a bit long (like 3 min) but it's really hilarious, so if you have the time...

Nicaraguans learn to "Jump On It"


The Jump-Off-The-Back-Of-The-Bus Game


The hand slap game


The beginnings of football


And the dance off