Dia de los Santos (11/1)

Dia de los Santos or All Saints Day is an important day in the Mexican calendar.  To fully explain why, I have to give you a little more general Catholic info.  For many Catholic families around the world, children are named for particular saints.  Each recognized saint in the Catholic Church has their own day in the Catholic calendar.  This day is called a "Name Day" for the saint's namesake and in some families is considered even more important than the namesake's actual birthday.  In Moni's family, for example, the name day is the real day for celebrating that family member and it is more important to be present for the name day than the birthday.  All Saints Day is the one day in the Catholic calendar to celebrate all the saints and is therefore a huge celebration in many homes.  For the house here, All Saints Day is very important as a way to celebrate all the children and the house has its own very specific traditions in order to do so.  As it is impossible to celebrate each child's birthday or name day in the house as usual Mexican tradition dictates, All Saints Day is the substitute where many traditions converge NPH style.

Our day, therefore, started off very early.  At five in the morning the volunteers met with the Year of Service, employees of the house, and the house's musical ensemble before heading to the kinder section.  On the count of three, the lights were turned on, the band started up, and the group started singing "Las Mananitas," the traditional Mexican birthday song to wake the kids up.  The little ones were bundled into shoes and sweaters, taken by the hand, and led with us to our next victims, chicos, where they joined their voices with ours to help wake up the new group. 

We proceeded this way through the entire house, singing and laughing and pulling kids out of bed.  It was so cute watching brothers and sisters and friends attacking each other in the beds to wake them up and join the festivities.  This is only one of two days when kids of both genders are allowed in all dorms.





Once all sections were up and semi-awake we all met in the patio of the secundaria boys sections to have some cake and hot chocolate.  The cakes were massive and pretty soon the semi-awake kids were rushing around buzzed on so much sugar!

There was plenty for everyone and the cake plates were scrapped clean.  The rest of the day was the kids' own: no chores, no activities, no mandated anything.  They could choose to show up for meals if they wished, could bathe or not, could nap or run, and short of causing injury to themselves or others could do what they wanted.  For us "adults," we had to work half the day, either the first or second, and then had the rest of the day to ourselves as well. 

As it was still just me and Luz in the section, I talked her into taking her half of the day off and leaving me in charge.  This didn't mean too much; our girls still had their comedor chore which I had to supervise, but other than that there wasn't too much actual supervising to do.  For me, it was a still a big deal as it was the first time I had ever truly been left in charge of the section by myself.  We all survived thankfully!

One of my girls with the Day of the Dead decorations.  Groups were decorating the chapel to get it ready for the next day.

Distributing some extra snacks in section.

With such an early start, the rest of the day was pretty lazy and I was grateful to see my bed that night as well as excited for the next day's celebration!