"Summer" break

The school year here starts in February and ends in November, so the kids are all on their summer break right now. Thus, it is busy during the days. The oldest girls, Sindy, Alba, Claudia and Fannie are helping out in the main house with the kids during the day. Today was play time in the park so I took a few photos.

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Kenia and Denia . . . . . . . . . . . . Gustavo, Dariani, Rebeca, Yohana . . Yohana, Jhony, Carlos, Escarlet

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Ester and Norma . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dariani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Erick, Ater, Jhony, Ester, David

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Jhony, Juan, Ater, Norma . . . . . . . Ater, Jhony, Misiel, Estela

Just before I left in Dec., we received a new little girl, Maria Nicole. She is 5 years old and has polio, cannot walk nor talk. She came here because they thought she had HIV but she tested negative so she probably will not stay here long and will go to another casa that can care for her special needs.

She is in the photo with Roberto Josué who turns 3 years old today, Jan 6th. Yesterday was Mauricio's 15th birthday, but he is still at his grandmother's home staying with his family for 2 weeks. I took a birthday cake to their house, but he was off fishing with his grandfather and brother Isaac. He reminded me frequently last year that no one gave him a cake for his birthday last year (oversight because he had been here only 2 months and the birthday list was not updated) so I wanted to make sure he got one this year. I was sorry that I did not get to see him, but I am sure he was happy when he got home to find I had made the trip to see him anyway.

Antigua Guatemala

Here are the much anticipated photos from my extended 3 day vacation in Antigua, Guatemala the beginning of Dec. on my way back to the U.S. It is a very beautiful old colonial village, full of tourist from Europe and the U.S. It was noticably cleaner than Honduras and much cooler since it is in the mountains. The town is surrounded by 3 volcanos. The trade of choice in the town is shoe shinning. There are literally hundreds of boys and men carrying boxes of shoe shine equipment to shine shoes for Q5, less than a dollar.

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Volcano from the roof of my hotel . . . . . . Roof of Sky Café . . . . . . . Volcano from roof of Sky Café

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Cathederal in the central park . . . . . Volcano view from my room . . . Other volcanos from the hotel roof

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Central square/park . . . . . . . . . . . . Calle del Arco

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.

Merry Christmas

I take off tomorrow on my trip home. I am going to Guatemala for 3 days in Antigua before flying back to VA on Tuesday. Antigua is high in the mountains and will be much colder than here. I stopped at the airport there in July on my way down here and it was much cooler in July than it was in VA. Not a tropical climate at all.
This is a photo of our Christmas tree with Miriam who works in our house.
The boys have one week of supervision when Tulisia comes to visit starting today and will stay with them. Thereafter, they will be alone in the house at night for two weeks. I am going to be returning here on New Years Eve and hopefully things will still be in order. There are always people around during the day so it is only the few hours at night before bedtime that they have to wreck havoc.
I look forward to seeing people at home, church, work and Mo's and plan on relaxing without worrying about things here. If I have a computer in Guatemala maybe I will post an update, but if not this may be it for the year.

Visit with Maynor

I made a quick trip to NPH to visit Maynor before Christmas. I took David with me this time to visit his former roommate at Casa Corazón. Maynor left here four years ago when both were 5. Now both are 9 and still the same size. They had a great time playing together again. It was quite chilly there this time, probably upper 50's, since they are in the mountains. It helped to get me ready for the chill when I get back to VA next week.

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David and Maynor

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The twins Tomas y José

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David with his new friend Varela

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Milton's Graduation

Milton graduated from 6th grade on Friday. 6th grade is a big deal here as many people do not continue in school beyond that. Thus they have a graduation ceremony with diplomas and all. Here are some of the photos. At 16 he was one of the oldest, but not the oldest kid in his class. There were two boys older than him in Mauricio's 5th grade class.

Christmas Dancing Practice

This is my first attempt to post a video clip so I don't know what the quality will be like. It was taken from my still photo camera in video mode so it is not as good as a regular video camera but you can see almost all of the younger kids in this video.

Getting Ready for Christmas

It's that time of year again. The kids are all getting ready for Christmas and their annual Christmas Eve party. Christmas Eve here is much bigger than Christmas day. They have a big dinner feast and singing and skits. All the kids from the littlest to the oldest participate. So for the next month, we get to here them sing the same songs multiple times every day practicing. These are some of the photos from the rehersals.

Honduras Advances

It is a national day of celebration here after Honduras beat Mexico last night here in San Pedro Sula to advance to the next round in the World Cup soccer qualifications. Soccer is the national obsession here. The weather has been terrible all week, rainy and cold, but thousands of people were in the stadium all day. It is general admision so the earlier they get there the better seats they get. The traffic was a nightmare all day also. In the end, Honduras beat Mexico 1-0 to finish in first place in their group of four and advance to the next round of 6 teams, which includes the U.S. Now I am the enemy for the kids when it comes to football.

Graduation Night

Last night I had one of the most meaningful nights since I have been here. My very good friend from Amor y Vida, Darwin, graduated from nursing school along with Nolvia, also from Amor y Vida. Both Darwin (19) and Nolvia (17) were in the group of older kids who were forced to leave Amor y Vida in June when the administration decided to change to be a center for younger kids only. Both of them were in the middle of their 2nd year of nursing school on weekends while also going to high school during the week. They both moved to poor locations not very close to their schools and were not able to continue in high school so they will have to start the year over again in February in new schools close to home. However, both continued to travel every weekend to their nursing school and they finished the year and got their deplomas.
Last night was their graduation ceremony and banquet. Each of them got to invite only two people, their parents or spouse, who went up with them to received their deplomas. Since his parents are deceased, Darwin asked me to be his padrino (Godfather) and accompany him along with his Aunt. I was very honored to go with him as stand in for his parents. It means a lot to me to see him successfully complete this school after all the time and hard work I saw him put into it, giving up every weekend for two years, and especially that he thought of me to be there with him and sign the papers as his family member. Tito, who formerly worked at Amor y Vida, went as the padrino for Nolvia.
This was a very big and important night for each of them as they now have a degree that will help them to find a better job then just the normal schooling that most people have. It was also a sad occasion as now Darwin will be moving to Seguatepeque, about 2 hours away, to live with some Cousins he has there. I probably will not see much of him anymore, but he will still have to come back to San Pedro Sula once a month for his doctor's appointment and get his HIV meds. so I hope to visit with him on occasion during those appointments.









Darwin, Tito and Nolvia. . . . . . . . . Singing their national anthem . . . . Candle lighting ceremony










Me with Darwin and his Aunt . . . . . . . . . . Nolvia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Darwin

Nolvia with Tito and her Aunt

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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.