All Saints Day

Yesterday, we had a special religious service for all saints day, a memorial service for all of the children who died while living here at the casa. There are 17 or 19 kids who died over the years, mostly in the first five years the casa was here. Originally the casa was somewhat of a hospice where families sent their kids with HIV/AIDS knowing they were probably going to die. With the improvement in the medications over the years and the availability to all of the kids at low cost from the government, only 3 of those 17 or 19 have died since 2000.

The older kids, 8 years and up, all went to the casa of the alolescent girls and we read prayers and the names of all the little saints who died here. It was a nice memorial service.

The rains have continued to fall here. The month of October was very wet and probably rained 25 days of the month. Mostly the rain comes every night, but we have had a couple of weeks of rain all day. It has made the weather quite chilly without the sun. The temps have dipped to the upper 60's which for this tropical area of Honduras is quite cold. The kids had to break out their long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts for the first time in a long time.

Also, yesterday the 1st of Nov., the girls started practicing singing their Christmas songs for the Christmas show they have every year. So I will be hearing them singing the Christmas songs every day for the next month and a half. Juan-Fernando got into the Christmas spirit also as you can see in his photo.

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School ends Monday for the private school so most of the kids will now be home every day for their "summer break" until February when the new school year starts. The public school kids have exams this week and the teachers say school will end this week also. The government is wanting them to extend the school year until Dec. 10 to make up for all the many missed days this year from the various strikes the teachers had, probably 6 weeks or more missed. The teachers say it was the government's fault they went on strike so they don't want to extend the year. That only affects 9 of the kids so maybe those 9 will be in school a little while longer than this week, but most likely not. Regardless, summer vacation has started for most of the kids in the casa so we won't have much down time for the next 3 months.