Orphans are, without a doubt, the most fun kids to play with in the world. The kids at this particular orphanage, in a small city about four or five hours away in the Nicaraguan countryside, were super friendly and enthusiastic and generally happy to be alive. God I love my life.
This picture of me is absolutely horrid, but these kids are fantastic, so whatever. I think that these two were siblings (if not siblings, then really close friends... or very young significant others). They both live in the shantytown/neighborhood/garbage dump community that I work in during the week. This was a picture I took at the camp that we take our kids to, which is right on the beach. Us three were coloring.
This particular gremlin is an
INCREDIBLY ADHD child who lives in a teeny tiny farming community that I lived at every weekend for five months or so. Rainy season started a few weeks before I left for the last time (for the next few months, anyway), and this picture was taken immediately after I had covered him in my ridiculous rain poncho to run him back home through the rain. His mother (a wonderful, generous woman who was quite friendly and fed me free food once) didn't want him to get wet, so I sacrificed my own dryness. Gotta do what you gotta do.
Don't mind us, just hiking three hours up a mountain to visit some people for half an hour. Nothing to see here.
I can't remember if I've posted this yet or not, but if I have, it's going up again because I love it. Me and this lovely young lady sat and talked for a long time in her home, which was a tiny, two-room shack made from sheet metal and random bits of lumber. She lived there with her niece, who was not present. She was 93, I believe. I enjoyed hearing her various stories from the olden days, even though half the time we couldn't understand what she was saying.