Back in Honduras

After a very fast moving 3 week trip home for Christmas, I made it back here yesterday around noon. Sr. Eva and Milton met me at the airport. Mauricio and Maynor are both visiting their respective grandmothers for the new year, Mauricio for a week and Maynor for 3 weeks. Jaime made a welcome home sign for the front door, his attempt to get back in good graces. Lets hope he is behaving better now. The little kids were all happy to have me back, especially my two favorites David and Juan-Fernando. Juan wouldn't let me out of his grasp for a couple hours and got teary-eyed when I told him I needed to go get a nap. I had to get up at 3am in VA, 2am here, to get to the airport for my before dawn flight (At least it got me here by noon) and they had a new years party planned for last night so I would be up until midnight. It was tough napping for more than an hour though because the firecrackers were going off all afternoon.
A couple of the other kids have also gone to visit family for days or weeks. Sarai, a 3 year old girl was adopted by a local family who regularly visited her so she is gone. That was close to being approved before I left so I had expected her to be gone before my return. It is very rare for a local family to adopt so it is a real blessing for her to have found a nice family.
The two youngest boys, Misael and Brian, both started walking on their own during the 3 weeks I was gone. They were both close before but needed help, so it was a big surprise to see they both easily walking around. I posted a video below of the two of them showing off their new talent.
The party last night was a lot of fun. All the kids got to stay up, even the smallest ones. The two youngest, Brian and Misael who are in the video, crashed out around 9pm. Juan hung tough until 11pm. I knew he was tired when he asked to go to bed. Usually putting him to bed is impossible for me as he always cries. The fireworks were going off all night, but at midnight they got even louder. They had a bunch of sparklers for the kids to play with and they loved that. The fun and games continued on past 12:30 when I gave up and went to bed.
I woke up to the usual sound of roosters before dawn and again later to the neighbors lighting more firecrackers at 7am. Welcome back to Honduras!
Unfortunately for the casa, Honduras passed a new minimum wage that went into effect today, substantially raising the minimum pay for all jobs. The casa decided to let 4 of the workers go because they could not afford to keep all the employees on at the new wage. I guess the intent of the new law was to help workers, but here it is helping the 10 who get to keep their jobs, but the 4 who lost their jobs can't be very happy about the new wage. It is really going to make it hard on the remaining workers so they are expecting the older kids to help out in the kitchen and with the laundry. The older girls started helping out taking care of the younger kids during the day. They are hopeful that the donations this year don't go down with the bad economy and they need to let anyone else go.

Brian is the first boy in the green shirt. Misael comes second in with the grey shirt.