My family and I have been recovering from a virus so life is slow. We have had a couple pieces of good news. One, the pueblo of Cerro de Oro where we are located, has agreed to let us have a nice building to have our preschool in. It will enable us to take children from the community of Cerro. They have never had a chance to go to a preschool before. We also will take younger special ed kids. My two sons, Tony who is 5 and Seth is 9 and down syndrome, go to the preschool 3 mornigns a week and love it. Today we had 3 volunteers from the hospitalito in Santaigo come sing and dance with the kids. Seth showed me his dance moves when he got home.
Also we desperately need to build. We have tried to work with the owner of the property we are on to buy it so we can build, but he is stalling. Also the next door neighbor does not want an orphanage. Today we were offered 4 acres of land in Cerro for $8000.00. It does not have buildings, but we know builders who can get things up quick, plus I had one organization offer the building supplies for free if we had people to build.
Did I mention 3 of my children have had chicken pox in the last month. We had to take my 7 year old daughter to the emergency room last night as she had swlllowed a whistle. Right before that I had to hunt my 16 year old daughter as it was dark and she was not home. She has a hard time understanding safety issues were meant for her. She is a beautiful blond girl who gets way too much attention from the men. Alisa the 7 year old was able to swallow completely the whistle and out it came today. But it is a little hairy driving after dark around here.
http://www.safehomesforchildren.org

Two great things at the hogar this last week. One, one of our new employees had connections with the association that collected food for hurricane Stan victims. This man gave the hogar 1000 pounds of rice, beans and atole, a soy, corn heavy protein drink. We wanted some food storage and here it is. We bought heavy duty metal cans to store the bags in.
Next we had a Sat. noon surprise visit from the social worker from the Chimaltenago courts. She loved the hogar and wanted to know if we would take some more kids. Babies I hope.
I am interviewing all week social workers to work full time at the hogar.
Vicki
http://www.safehomesforchildren.org

We have had a national teachers strike and all the kids but the ones in private school have not had school for a month. The strike was finally over and then the week of Semana Santa started and they got another week. My kids, who also had Easter vacation, helped me all week handing out dresses, pants, shirts and shoes as well as Easter bags to all the kids. Thank you so much all of you great people who donated these items. The kids looked fabulous on Sunday with all their Easter finery. I also gave out tennis shoes and regualr clothes as well as sheets and towels to kids who did not have them. An eagle scout and his mom visited and had a treat for all the kids, plus donations that were badly needed.
I still need more shoes for older kids, but will give my staff money this week to buy them as well as socks for older kids. We gave out a donated CD and DVD player which was much appreciated.
Anyone wanting to donate can send items to my US address. Thank you to those of you who sent cash also. It will be used to buy the shoes and socks. We have people traveling to Guate all the time who can bring down donations so if you wish to send good quality items, send them to
Safe Homes For Children
3303 Pond Mountain Lane
Whitetop, VA 24292

For all who have not experienced Semana Santa or Holy Week.....This is probably the biggest vacation time of the year. It occurs during the summer and everyone takes off the week for a vacation--very much like july 4th in the states. There are religious processions all during Lent and it reaches a crescendo during Holy Week. Antigua, Guatemala is the capital of Semana Santa in the Western Hemisphere. People make carpets of colored sawdust--very elaborate carpets--and flowers that cover the streets. The carpets are 6´to 8´ wide and 50´ or more long. They are intricate and beautiful and done as a sacrifice because soon after their creation the procession will walk over them and destroy them. We don´t have anything equivalent to this in the states. People come from all over the world to see the processions and the carpets in the streets and to party.