The Tía Experience

At the NPHG home, December is a little different for the volunteers. During this month, all the local Guatemalans who work as the tío and tía caregivers take vacation for a few weeks over the holidays. That means the volunteers stop their normal jobs for the whole month and step in as the tíos! I was in charge of the kids in my section like a stand-in parent that the tíos are supposed to be. You sleep with them, you wake them up, you take them to meals, you have them do chores, you play with them, and even discipline when necessary. I worked with an awesome partner in 48-hours on/48-hours off shifts, including sleeping over one night.

my second home for December

I ended up caring for a younger group of boys than my normal section of Santiago; most of the teens from my section were sent to an older group of boys for the month. I missed my boys from Santiago, but at the same time the change of pace was nice. The boys I took care of in December were truly little (and super cute). I felt like they needed a tía a lot more than some of my normal boys did. Check out some of these cute mugs :)

nomming on marshmallows at a campfire

He LOVED the cows. He watched them EVERY DAY, FOR HOURS.

my favorite small fry

such a precious child, seriously.

Mr. Smooth

I was pretty nervous leading up to December. I’d heard that being a tía was hard work, and it certainly was. The hours could drag on, the kids wouldn’t listen, etc. At the same time though, it was an experience I really enjoyed. My position as clinic assistant doesn’t provide a lot of direct contact with the kids. Thus, the intense time I spent with so many pequeños in December was great! Also, because I had a new group of boys for the most part, I got to know a lot more kids within the home.

One of my favorite parts of the tía experience was doing “vela”, or night duty. I would drag my blankets down from my house to the section, rocking sweat pants and glasses. My partner would leave and I would put on some lovely Latin bachata music until my boys fell asleep. Then, when everything was quiet, I too could snuggle up on the tía bed until the morning, when I was in charge of waking everyone up for another day. While I missed my own bed a bit on these nights, it overwhelming felt like such a position of honor to be able to have the privilege of keeping watch over the kids while they slept.

December was a tough month but I’m so glad I was able to experience working as a tía. I feel like I grew a lot personally and more than ever have a deep appreciation of what a great responsibility it is to be a parent. It’s relatively “easy” to put food on the table, but it’s really, really hard to morally educate a child to grow up to be a good, responsible, “beautiful-on-the-inside” person. For me, being a tía was a great exercise in learning to just love, love, love on the kids and others around you through the good and the bad. That’s all you can do and that’s all that matters at the end of the day!