The Italians, Day of the Honduran, Grandparents’ Day

 This week (again) there was a mishmash of occasions for Fiestas. The first was a visit from the Italians. As background, NPH serves children in nine different countries in central and south America and has international offices in almost a dozen countries most of which are in Europe besides the ones in the US and Canada. Although the largest number of donors for the children at NPH Honduras come from the US, the Italian office has the second largest number and has been very active in sending groups of young adults on trips here during their summer break.

Last year we got to know one of the Italian chaperones, Enrico, quite well as he stayed for three weeks while three different groups came through and then stayed another month afterwards living in the volunteer house and helping with various tasks. He is back this year with a current group of about 20 young Italians. They work on projects during the day, then spend time with the children in the afternoon and evening. Thursday night they made pizza for the whole ranch!

Outside of Special Pizza Oven House
Inside of Special Pizza Oven House

I don't know the story behind the pizza oven house but it looks like it was probably donated by NPH Italy and gets used at least once per year :-) The Italian group is great with children and the children on the ranch love them!

The second festival was the Lempira Day Cultural Festival. Lempira was chieftain of the Lenca tribe in Honduras in the early 1500s and led the resistance to the Spaniards. He is honored not only by having the Honduran money named after him (about 25 lempira = 1 US dollar), but also with a Festival Day. The NPH school celebrated Lempira Day on Friday morning with music, dances, and presentations on some aspect of Honduran culture. The children dressed in cultural costumes and there was a prize (of course!) for the best performance and the best costume. 

Honduran Dance Performance by School Group



One of the Robes in the Costume Competition
Back of Winning Costume

The third celebration was Grandparents’ Day. I did not know about this day before coming to Honduras, but I looked it up and found out that the US has had National Grandparents’ Day since 1979. Allen and I might be getting cynical, but we agree that it is likely a Hallmark Holiday (invented by Hallmark to sell cards). Not that we don’t think Grandparents are special – of course they are!!! But like Allen said, “Every day is Grandparents’ Day.” Because we are grandparents, we were invited to the party on Friday night with a special dinner, live music and karaoke. Two of the new volunteers, Mike and Kelly, are also grandparents and were also invited. The dinner was great and although we really enjoyed the music, it was too loud. I guess we really are grandparents! Despite the volume, Allen and I were the first on the dance floor and soon many others joined us. We did not stay for karaoke as this grandma likes to be in bed by nine 😊Despite the image on the invitation, we did not sit in armchairs and drink coffee/pet cats. 

Grandparents' Day Dancefloor

Normally this would be our rest weekend and we would stay in Tegucigalpa and enjoy the amenities at the Honduran Maya. However, volunteers traditionally say goodbye to the NPH community at their last mass on the ranch and Saturday is our last chance. We also need to do any last-minute planning and preparation for the dinner for our Hogars on Wednesday night, lunch with our work groups (Wednesday for me, Thursday for Allen), and evening get together with the volunteers (Thursday night). There is a lot happening next week including Allen and I packing and dispositioning all the stuff that we have acquired and will not be taking home. For me that is not much, but more involved for Allen who will be giving away his maintenance tools, yard tools, sports equipment, and other things he has acquired over the last year. He will make a lot of people very happy!

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