Our animal population has been growing  – we now have a parrot, four bunnies, several dogs, and we just got two 4 month old St. Bernard puppies, which we are planning to breed (to help pay for the copious amount of food they eat!) This breed of dog is known to be kind, loving and loyal, which we thought would make them just perfect for the children…what we didn’t count on was that the littlest children would be absolutely petrified of them (and they aren’t nearly full grown yet)! Most of the little ones will now pet the dogs hesitatingly, but are still more than terrified if one of the dogs comes eagerly running to greet them! Only baby Arian, has been pretty much fearless from the start.

This spring we have been very excited about our eco- project. Our goal is to make the ashram and orphanage self sustainable and ecological. We are currently looking into installing “earthworm composts” by the main houses. This seems to be the most effective and fastest way of composting our organic waste, but we will need a lot of worms, as it takes one kilo of earthworms to make one kilo of compost per day!  The earthworms are expensive, but an engineer friend has donated our first 10 kilos for free!

We are currently arranging an exchange program for groups of students to come and stay on the ashram, in exchange for landscaping gardens around the children’s homes, and building irrigation systems which recycle the water from the homes. This will supplement the food supply from the greenhouse, which is also being prepared to produce presently. We have a chicken coop just finished and are working on outfitting a solar room, where we can power our most important appliances. We also recently installed drain pipes to the large soccer court roof which funnels all the rain water into an enormous cistern. We can then use this water throughout the dry season. Since we only have rain during four months of the year, and no underground spring water, catchment systems are imperative.  

Meanwhile the new children have been giving us so many funny anecdotes over the past year. Here are a few we thought you would enjoy hearing:

Dovin, age 5, and third youngest in a family of five, is one of the most impish little people you will ever meet. When he is excited and happy, he’ll often break into a jerky dance while pulling the most hilarious faces. He is full of enthusiasm, but loves to say “No!” to just about everything you say. One day, two of our teenage girls, Kendra and Rubi, began complaining that something or someone was leaving rocks in their beds night after night! It remained an unsolved mystery for a few days, until Dovin was caught in the act of sneaking into one of the girls’ rooms and filling her pillow case with rocks!

Recently all of our boys, ranging age 4 to 10, have discovered the joy of fort making! They will spend the entire afternoon building forts from just about anything they can find.  Atair, age 10, and our most recent newcomer, is the master architect; he’ll spend hours making and remaking some of the most elaborate constructions on his own.  Alex and Dovin, our 3 and 4 year old brothers, work more like a pair of mini engineer twins, chattering away as to the merits of each new piece of plastic or plywood  they put into place.  

 Now Alex and Dovins’ older brother Abundio likes forts but he would much rather busy himself loading and unloading wheelbarrows of rocks, digging holes, and collecting brush. He so loves to help with “real work”,  that he actually becomes immensely upset if his help is ever not needed. 

We are very proud of our almost 4 year old boy Gaby, who suffers from Ehler Danlos syndrome (characterized by hyper elasticity of the joints) and dwarfism, as he is making the biggest effort to become mobile. He gets so excited when he sees a child running, that he shrieks, flails his arms and bounces up and down and motions them to run some more for him!  Although his legs are still weak and floppy, his arms are strong enough to support his own weight now. His favorite thing is going down the slide; he likes to hang from the rails at the top of the slide, then let himself go whizzing down as he holds his breath! Gaby really loves the thrill, and the moment he comes to a stop, he calls out “mas, mas!” for more.  One day while getting his diaper changed, Gaby came up with another new trick – he rolls over and then scoots himself backwards off the bed!  We happened to catch one of his first tricks on video; check this link to see it!

Another great kid accomplishment, which we can’t take the credit for, is Oscar’s recent reading and writing progress. Oscar is just turned 11. His family of 3 arrived in the summer of 2009. None of the children had ever properly attended school, and Oscar was extremely self conscious about his inability to read or write. But thanks to a special volunteer, Antares Hernandez, he is improving by the week! Antares has been very dedicated to her daily three hours of tutoring him; so much so that she recently decided to commit to stay here for an entire year, instead of the two months she originally had planned, so that she could continue to give Oscar all the individual attention he needs, both academically and as his special “auntie”!

We have also had Betina Mansbach, a veteran elementary school teacher here for the past month as another great help  tutoring the children in our special learning classrooms. With her passion for teaching she brought an enthusiasm and excitement to the classroom that kids and staff really enjoyed.

Our first and second graders had a blast in Betina's inspired classes!

As for our other volunteers, we’ve just had an acrobat from Germany, Kristin VeiB, who gave a 3 week beginning acrobatics course to the children, which culminated in an informal performance for all the families! 

Melody White, another one of our artistic volunteers, created a puppet theatre with our 11 and 12 year old girls Misha and Danya, which they performed for the other kids! Alex and Dovin must have never seen a puppet show before, because they kept jumping up to scrutinize the puppets and then very gingerly try to touch them, to see if they were real!

Artistic opportunities for the children seem to just keep on coming, too; this summer we have both a professional pianist and modern dancer coming to do artistic programs with the children!

Thank you all so much for your care and support; we are deeply grateful for the kindness that you continue to share with us!

Wishing you all a wonderful summer!

With lots of love,

Tashirat kids and staff

This past month we had to say goodbye to Coach Craig, as he headed back to Scotland. Over the course of the past 15 months, Craig Smith brightened the lives of our kids in the orphanage and our students of the Ixaya School, for almost a full year – 3 months last school year and then another 6 months this year. All the kids wanted to send him home with a thank you card, many of which were penned in the children's own English. Luckily one of our staff caught this one before it got to Craig!

It read as follows:

Dear Craig,
Thank you for being our couch. I am sorry that you are living…

It is true that our little Ale was always looking to cuddle on Craigs comfy lap-couch
but the card was supposed to say “ coach” and “living” is just a good phonetic spelling for leaving if you have a strong Mexican accent!

Ever since the kids have started writing us cards in English, these funny spelling mishaps have been some of our day to day highlights. They are so special because, with phonetically accented spelling and all, it sounds just as if our little ones were reading their messages in their own voice. Another cute one we have come to recognize at first glance is “Ai lauf yu so mach!” (I love you so much).

This is our children’s heartfelt farewell message to Craig, in their own words, with so much appreciation for all that he has given our children over the past year of their lives.

Helping hands
We’ve had a large and enthusiastic group of volunteers here for the past several months. Genevieve Lucas, who has been with us for nearly 4 months, threw a family music festival as a fundraiser for the Ixaya school and community. She rallied our great group of volunteers and organized a beautiful event, which included all sorts of good entertainment, including both dance and musical performances by local Tepoztlan artists, games for the kiddies, and swimming for everybody! It was such a beautiful gesture and we will never forget it. The kids threw the volunteers an appreciation party the next day in gratitude for all their work.

Who’s growing up?
Our three babies are really getting big these days…here are a few pictures of them doing their morning “yoga” routine:

Yogi Gaby demonstrating a luxurious leg stretch, which he is particularly famous for…
Jordi enjoying getting caught by the camera while in the cobra…
Gaby knocking knuckles, in one of his good ole boy greetings…

Hanging around with Arain after some good rolls around the mat…

Jordi, our youngest arrival, just had his first birthday a few weeks ago, and is really coming alive. When he arrived, he was almost motionless, and strangely zoned out, due to severe lack of stimulation since birth. Up until the past couple months, he was still very limp and extremely passive. He showed almost no emotion except for crying. He hardly ever responded to people, rarely cracking a smile no matter how many circus antics we did for him. Today he’s become a smiley little bundle of joy who laughs when tickled and flashes as gleeful smile when he first wakes up and sees someone there beside him. Here are some recent snapshots of the new Jordi, being cute for the camera. After so many months of his serious faces, you can imagine how precious this smile is…

Who’s New?
Our newest just arrived a few days ago. He name is Edwar, and he is a beautifully boisterous 10 year old boy, just bursting with fun and enthusiasm for life. We thought he was a real soft spoken shy little guy when he first came to visit, as he maybe said all of five words during his entire few hours here. He is amazingly full of live and emotionally switched on. Our other little boys, Julito and Josh are so excited to have a new friend to play with and call their brother. They made him so beautiful cards with pictures of all the things they love, like hearts with wings and motorcycles, and a big house that said “tu casa” – your (new) home.

Thank you for all your love and support!

With lots of love,
Tashirat kids and staff