Talita Cumi Celebrates Santa Cruz

As I mentioned last week, yesterday was Santa Cruz's 200th birthday. To celebrate, Talita Cumi Children's Home threw a great party. For festivity's sake, the kids decked out in Santa Cruz green and white, and the adults dressed as traditionally as we knew how, or could find clothes for in our closets. Once all the guests had arrived, the games began. I've never seen such exuberance to bob for apples, race in potato sacks, compete to eat the most fruit, carry eggs via spoons in their mouths, or slide down a slippery pole in futile attempts to reach the prizes at the top. Boy do they make me feel old, and make me feel love.

One of my friends pointed out a fairly hilarious cultural difference in this pole climbing game. If we were to grease a tall pole and tell small children to scale it in the US, the women would anxiously shout "Be careful, be careful!" However, the tias (or caregivers at the home) here had a different mantra of support, "Sin miedo!" (Without fear! Without Fear!) As summitting the pole proved to be completely impossible alone, the kids finally resorted to a fairly beautiful demonstration of teamwork, and retrieved all of the tightly bound goodies at the top.

Since my Mosaic visitor left a month ago, I've been having fun keeping them in touch with these little huggable munchkins. In early September the boys and I recorded a video birthday greeting for one of the team members. Then a week later, we surprise-Skyped with the whole team at their debrief meeting. And yesterday, for one of the boy's birthday Lindsay sent a video message. With these three video experiences making up nearly his entire history with computers, it was really very understandable, but nonetheless adorable, that he kept trying to talk back to the video, unaware that there was no one there to answer.

The lovely staff at the home is so good to me, letting me hack into their computer systems at random, bring my wild and crazy puppy -- who one day hopes to eat one or both of their parrots, and humoring us with a traditional dance in these sweet costumes. But more than anything, I respect and admire them for their work with these kids day in and day out, as a big warm family to nearly 30 little love-sponges.