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Greetings!
The October Newsletter is here and we have a lot of great news to share with you!
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Our Newest Arrivals
Our newest arrivals Blanca, Joey and Oscar, have now been with us for almost 2 months. It's been beautiful to see how our other children have been so warm and loving with all of the five new children we took in over the course of the summer. This particular family has a very typical history - completely neglected by their mother, and beaten by their stepfather until they were turned in to the child welfare services.
 Of the three, Joey was the brunt of the most severe physical and emotional abuse. He was a very angry little boy, who threw temper tantrums and ran away from his helpers almost daily. But since then, his changes have been dramatic. He's become a bubbly, eager to help little 8 year old full of wonder and excitement for life. These dramatic transformations keep on motivating us to give more, to more children, every day. Joey is just one of the hard cases we've received over the last 6 years, but every time a child is brought from such inner destruction to life again, it's like a little miracle. It's exciting because you never know what beauty lives within in a so called problem child until you bring it out.
 Blanca, the baby of the family, is an extremely confident just turned 4 year old girl who surprises us every day with her sage mannerisms and self-reliance. Blanca luckily was not physically abused as far as we know because she was the stepfathers own child.
Oscar, their ten year old brother is a capable, independent boy who is still hardened beyond his years, but also evidently just a little boy inside. He is now attending our Ixaya School, where he is in the 4th grade.
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Next New Arrivals...
Our next new arrivals will be coming any day now! They are a family of 5, 4 boys and 1 girl, who have just recently been taken out of an extremely abusive home. The youngest of the five is a little boy somewhere between three and six months old (we cannot be sure because he was never registered after birth). His brothers are ages 2, 4, and 8 years old. Their sister is 6 years old. We are currently busy trying to prepare for their arrival. If anyone has donations of clothes, shoes, toys, etc. for these new children, we could really use them!
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Gabriel
 Gabriel, our youngest Tashirat child, has grown to have one of the largest fan clubs ever seen around here in the few months since he's come. But his fans do not only include Tashirat staff, volunteers and children. Gaby has loved the builders so enthusiastically from day one that he shrieks insistently and waves to them whenever he sees them, even 50 meters away.
It didn't take long before we noticed that all of them really cared for Gaby. Its not been an uncommon sight since to see a few grown men crowded around his highchair playing with him, or a group of workers stop as Gaby passes by to wave and rumble out 'Gabriel' in low base tones. For those of you who haven't heard about Gaby, he is a three year old with dwarfism. He wears Kaisha's 5 month old baby's hand-me-downs because he is the size of a 3 month old. He also has a serious syndrome that has prevented him from walking or talking still, but he has created a language all his own, with gestures for 'i want to see you run' to 'i want to brush my teeth'. He is trying hard to talk now too, but it's apparent it will be a slow process. He says a few distinct words like 'mama' and 'agua', and the beginnings of words like 'gra' for 'gracias', and 'hm' with a head nod for 'yes'. Making Gabriel smile is a favorite Tashirat pastime for staff and children alike.The other day when everyone at the table was applauding him for drinking his green juice, kept lowering his big eyes bashfully, then flashing a self contented grin and making a funny gesture as if to say 'Aww, you guys are too much, quit it already'.
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Stephany
 Six year old Stephany, who arrived with Gaby, has her own quirky personality as well. She is a little broken record, so you had better be careful what you say to her, because she just might repeat it for months on end. We've tried to replace some of the not so nice phrases she learned in the DIF with a few new and nicer ones, but inevitably one of our children will say some phrase she finds particular appealing and then she will be saying it ad infinitum for the next six weeks.
Her most recent favorite is to say everything in the voice of a market person hawking his wares. If you have ever visited a large Mexican outdoor market, you might remember that incredibly loud, distinctive sing song call of the venders. She thinks her imitation is hysterical but the really funny part is that most of the time she is the quietest, calmest little one we have, who'll only suddenly surprise us with her flamboyant fish mongers call and a great big grin.
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Our Volunteers
We've had some great volunteers with us over this past summer. Two college students and talented artists from Amherst, Massachusetts, Jacoba and Allison, came for a month to do singing and art classes with the younger ones, and create a mural in the soccer court with the teenagers. The mural is a project that will be continued with the school kids throughout the year.
 Another two young women, 15 year old Katherine and Carrie from Malibu, California came with family for three weeks this summer to volunteer with the younger children. They ended up making great friendships with our teenagers as well, and our eagerly looking forward to coming back for another visit over Christmas as well as for longer stays over the summer.
We also have two long term volunteers with us now; Izzy, a close friend of one of our Tashirat staff members, plans to stay for a full year, and our favorite Scottish soccer coach, Craig, is back to stay for six months!
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Our Kidīs Fundraiser
Our teenagers organized another fundraising street performance to build even more dry toilets throughout the past month. Besides the fact that it's beautiful to see them so motivated to help others, it's especially inspiring to see how many of our kids push themselves to overcome their personal limitations.
Just one example is David, 15 years old, who broke his arm when he was 4 years old but because it was never tended to, his arm healed permanently bent and immobile, and eventually atrophied.
He lost most of the feeling and strength in his hand and arm, leaving it practically useless and a source of embarrassment and anger for him. Since he came to live with us 4 years ago, we took him to all the specialists we could, and spent hours doing exercises to strengthen his arm, but it's become evident there is no hope of a total recovery. Nonetheless, David wanted to breakdance, and so he does... regardless of the fact that it is a very gymnastic activity that requires great arm strength. He practices everyday, finding the way to perform around his bad arm, just like he did when he took up the violin last year and had trouble pressing down the strings, and now he even performs in front of hundreds of people. He's an inspiration to others as well, because every time he dances, he makes people think 'if he can learn to break dance with one arm, what can I do that i seems impossible to me'
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Thank you all so very much for your commitment to the Tashirat orphanage and our 26 beautiful children, we are so grateful to each one of you for your friendship and ongoing support.
With lots of love,
Tashirat kids and staff
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