El Aniversario

Part of the many traditions NPHG has at the end of the year is a celebration of el aniversario, or the anniversary, of the house. NPHG opened in 1996, so this year we were celebrating its seventeenth anniversary. It’s a big ordeal- everybody, and I mean everybody including the littlest babies to our boss man national director, gets involved. The first step is to get assigned to a team. This year the theme was professions, and I ended up on the Zapateros (Shoemakers) team. Pretty exciting, I know. Quite intimidating.

fellow Zapateros

one of my favorite little Zapateros!

There were a lot of things each team was responsible for. You had to paint flags, design costumes, create clever chants, make giant papier-mâché mascots, write a skit, and choreograph a dance. It was kind of intense… Despite my enthusiasm, I ended taking a backseat in a lot of the planning because I was never quite sure what was going on or what we were supposed to be doing. It was only my first anniversary, you know!

For two hours three days a week for three weeks, the teams would get together and write/rehearse/craft. At least in theory, that is. Often times it was a lot of waiting around and doing nothing buuuuttt that’s okay. It was tiring, but by the time the actual weekend of the anniversary came around, the Zapateros were ready!

The anniversary weekend was a two-day shindig. On Friday, we basically took the day off from our normal jobs and did last minute preparations with our teams in the morning. In the afternoon, every team showed off their hard work in the comedor for several hours. It felt like a pep rally. Everyone was jumping up and down in their costumes screaming their chants and waving their flags. I think perhaps the thing I liked most about the anniversary was that truly every child was involved. For example, it was a pretty cool sight to see the babies or special needs kids being pushed around in toy cars so they could participate in the dances.

pep rallyyYYYyy

There was even a live goat at one point, oooo. So NPH.

yay babies!

The next day on Saturday, we continued the anniversary celebrations with what was basically a field day competition amongst the teams. Starting bright and early at 8 AM, for about 7 hours we crawled through mud, passed soapy sponges over our heads, tossed rings, and did a variety of other goofy things. It was another great day for all!

Although the anniversary was a very tiring thing to prepare for, overall it was quite a fun event. As I said, everyone gets involved and there are lots of opportunities to showcase the different talents of the kids. So, 17 great years of helping kids down, many more to go. Sigue adelante, NPHG!

¡Feliz Aniversario!