Allen & Marcel Volunteer in Honduras

My last blog was on the activities leading up to Christmas Eve. This blog is dedicated to the activities on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at NPH Honduras.   Christmas Eve : The first ranch-wide activity on Christmas Eve was the “Posada” or re-enactment of Mary and Joseph looking for lodging on Christmas Eve. Allen and I were asked well ahead of time to be Mary and Joseph (Maria and Jose in Spanish). When we accepted, we were under the guidance that we would be given costumes to wear. However, when we hadn’t heard anything from the organizer and it was only a few hours until the event, we found his contact information and messaged him to find out when we were expected to be at the start location and whether we needed to bring anything. I don’t know why we were surprised, but there was no pre-planning for our costumes. He responded with the request for us to find something at the volunteer house or to go to the Annex (where the Religion Department works) and ask for help there. W...

  There are several “opportunities” for performances on the ranch and our Volunteer Coordinator let us know that the volunteers are expected to take part in the performances. I am open to singing and dancing with a group, but pretty insecure if it means a solo performance. I think Allen feels the same way. Luckily, we are part of a very talented group of volunteers who can sing, dance, and come up with a lot of fun and creative ideas. Last night the ranch held a Festival de Cantos Navideños (Christmas Song Festival). We knew about this a few weeks ahead and I had suggested singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in Spanish ( Santa Claus Llego’ a la Ciudad ) with Allen wearing the Santa Suit that he brought back from our trip home. I also thought that we could probably easily learn the 12 Days of Christmas in Spanish since it has so many repeat phrases and I really like the Spanish version of Mary Did You Know? ( Maria Sabes Que ) and thought we might have time to learn the words in...

  Christmas in Honduras seems very similar to Christmas anywhere with Christmas trees, lots of lights, and nativity scenes. The big difference to me is the weather which is much warmer than what I am used to in December. The annual Christmas party for the Ranch employees was held yesterday afternoon with music (including karaoke), a nice dinner, and lots of raffle gifts. The volunteers got more than their fare share of raffle winnings with a TV, crock pot, blender, and food processer. The volunteer house will be in great shape for movie nights and other fiestas. The only thing missing from the festivities was any type of alcohol 😊   Christmas Tree in Allen's Hogar We found out last week that our home (San Vicente) is scheduled for fumigation this morning. Apparently fumigation is done a couple of times a year to keep the mosquitos and other annoying insects at bay. This means that we have to put away or cover anything in the common spaces that we don’t want to have to cle...

  We took a week of our precious vacation to travel home and touch base with our families and friends. As volunteers, we get 22 days over the 13 months that we volunteer and are discouraged from using them in the first 4 months. We chose the first week of December for this trip because it is a relatively slack time on the ranch between the end of the school year celebrations and Christmas events. We had a bit of a rough start leaving Honduras because my Honduran passport stamp had expired. NPH had been having our passports restamped when necessary while applying for our year-long immigration status. We had both just completed the process and Allen even had his immigration card, but I had not received mine yet.             Therefore, when we went through the Honduras customs center at the airport (yes, they have a customs exit center at the airport), Allen’s credentials passed, but Honduras customs could not verify my status i...

  We met a Honduran at Lake Yojoa that spoke English well and said that he learned it by listening to the American Top 40 by Casey Kasem. For those readers that are much younger than me, Casey Kasem was a disc jockey with a countdown of the top 40 songs in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. He had spin-offs of this program up until almost 2000. I am guessing that the Honduran was our age (in his 60s) although it was hard to tell. He could have been anywhere from his 50s to his 70s. When I heard his method of learning English, I thought maybe I should try it for learning Spanish. I am certainly exposed to a lot of music in Spanish as my office workers like to listen to music of all types and most of the gatherings we attend have music as well. Sometimes they also involve dancing and even karaoke. We have had two occasions where after dinner karaoke was the main event. To coax us to sing, the party hosts let us choose songs in English. At these events we sang Carly Simon’s Close to You...