Allen & Marcel Volunteer in Honduras

A fter leaving NPH Honduras, we took one last week of “vacation” before returning home. We went to La Ceiba which is third largest city of Honduras and is on the Caribbean coast. It is close to beautiful beaches and is a good location for day trips to Pico Bonito National Park and the islands of Cayos Cochinos and Utila. We stayed in a nice beachfront hotel with a swimming pool and air conditioning which was much needed as the heat and humidity was greater on the coast than in the mountains where the ranch is located. The first few days we “decompressed” according to Allen which means that we read by the pool, swam, and walked around La Ceiba. Allen Being Chased By a Mural Shark La Ceiba Mural Allen Scoping Out Plants at a Nursery We booked a day trip to see Cayos Cochinos, a group of small coral islands maintained as a Marine Protected Area in Honduras. The sparse inhabitants live in fishing villages and are Garifuna which are mixed African and Amerindian ancestry originating in t

  This last week was our final week at the ranch, and it was jam full of “despedidas” or farewell celebrations. We gave our goodbye speech after mass on Saturday July 27 th not knowing that there would be another mass Friday morning (Aug 2). Luckily, we were not expected to give our speech twice, which was good because we got pretty choked up the first time. We wrote the speech in English, translated it to Spanish, then practiced a few times so that we could work on the pronunciation. We tag-teamed reading a part and then handed off to each other. We did not account for applause in between readings which made the speech longer than we expected, but the applause was heart-warming. Also, we were given an NPH wooden plaque and Lucas, who works with Allen, gave us Honduran soccer shirts with our names on the back. Farewell Cake from Dixiana & Cintia After Mass Goodbye Speech On Sunday we went on a hike guided by Lucas to an old cemetery on the NPH grounds. The hike looped to the n