2015 Guatemala Trip Day Five - Visiting Keisy, Edy and Katherine

The day of my final visit started off wonderfully with meeting the families at the center and passing out gifts.  My family hand-painted Christmas ornaments when we were kids and just this last year started doing it again and painting larger ceramic animals.  I decided to bring one for each of my kids this visit since they’re “family” as well.  The kids today seemed to especially find them interesting.  The families also loved the photo books I'd made for each family from the last trip.

Everyone also loved the baby clothes for Keisy’s nephew, Jenier, who is 17 months old and Katherine & Edy’s niece, Jacquelin, who is 9 months old.  Both babies are kind of special to me since Jenier was born right before my nephew, Zach, and Jacquelin was born the same month as my second nephew, Sean, and on my sister’s birthday!  Juan also shares my sister’s birthday (same sister even – the youngest), so with him graduating, Jacquelin was for sure joining my CI family in 2016 when Keisy graduates the program!

Edy had told me previously that the zoo is one of his favorite places, so I thought it was a good choice for his graduation trip.  It was actually interesting for me as well since this zoo had a lot of baby animals that were very playful and animals I’ve never seen before at the local zoo.

I'm a big fan of candid shots when the opportunity presents itself.  In the last photo, Juana's not looking so sure about those snakes!

Of course, there were some great planned photos with the families as well!  I look like a giant with Juana, Edy & Katherine (I'm 5'7" for reference!).  Keisy's almost as tall as me here though.  It was great to see Edy & Katherine wearing the jacket & sweater I bought them last time . . . although Keisy's mom was quick to tell me that Keisy grew out of hers and Sharelyn used it now!

The penguins were a big hit with everyone.  We took some photos here and the families all thought it was hilarious when I said “sonrisa” (smile) in a sing-song voice like the staff, getting me a great photo!

Even though both Katherine and Edy are pretty shy, I thought it was great this trip that Katherine sat by me every time we were in the van.  I learned from the staff that it is fairly uncommon for young people to change boyfriends or girlfriends often as they generally get to know each other well first.  Edy looked embarrassed when I asked about his girlfriend, Paola, but his mom, Juana, happily told me that she was also in school at the same school as Edy.  Keisy was also surprised that I remembered her boyfriend, Ricardo, and asked about him.  I was happy to hear Norma say that she prefers to only let Keisy see him at her house because she wants to make sure Keisy stays out of trouble because of her age!  Having learned that teen pregnancy is a big issue in Guatemala right now, that was good news to hear.  I escaped with no mosquito bites again, so that would be me=5, mosquitoes=0 for this trip.  

Before we left, we'd received two free tickets for the big slide, so all of the teens wanted to try it out for the first time.  They were scared at the top though.  The moms finally had to yell at Edy to "be a man" essentially and go first lol.

Fortunately, this trip the kids picked Pollo Campero and not McDonalds.  During lunch, I was sitting with Norma, Keisy’s mom and I learned that our families have even more in common with our moms both being teen parents.  Unlike many Guatemalan families, the oldest son does not have the highest education – Keisy does.  Norma had a tough family life after her mom passed away, so she got married and had Kevin at 15; however, this led to her life being very hard and she really doesn’t want that for her daughters.  Keisy has been attending a Catholic school with no tuition, but her mother told us she’d been worried that Keisy would have to quit school without finishing her final year because the family had no way to afford the expenses that year.  Norma said I'd been an answer to prayer, and the families, of course, thanked me for the assistance.  I made sure to thank them in turn for actually doing the real work of going to school, keeping up their grades and making the best of the opportunities they were given.  I really liked Norma’s comment afterward that it truly was a partnership between the parents and the sponsor working together that would help the kids succeed.  It truly is wonderful seeing how close the families are here.  These two are nearly inseparable!

The last thing we did before returning to the center was go shopping!  Again, each teen could pick out any four items of clothing and/or shoes they needed.  While we were shopping, I happened to glance down and notice that one of the mothers could really use new shoes as well and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me before to offer something for them!  Since both mothers work, I asked the staff to tell the mothers that I wanted to thank them for taking the day off work for the visit with a gift of their choice . . . and they both picked shoes.  All three teens made sure to pick black dress shoes that would work for school.  Even public school in Guatemala requires a uniform and proper shoes, so that was a big priority for them.