La Ultima Semana (The Last Week)
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 27th 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.
On Sunday we went on a hike guided by Lucas to an old cemetery
on the NPH grounds. The hike looped to the nearby pueblo of Tamale Queso where
Tino, another coworker of Allen´s, lives. Tino sheltered us from a downpour at
his house before we returned to the ranch. He also showed us how to throw a top
to get it to spin correctly. This is a skill that Allen wants to develop so he
bought his own top and plans to practice at home 😊
On Wednesday my work group went out for lunch at D’Anas which
is the closest restaurant off the ranch. Dixiana and Cintia topped off lunch
with a cake – as they say in Honduras “muy rico!” Wednesday evening Allen and I
made dinner for our kids. I made breakfast casseroles and banana chocolate chip
muffins which we served with ham and a fruit salad that Allen prepared. We used
the palapa which is a large gazebo just outside of my hogar and plugged in the
Alexa to provide music for dancing. The Tias made us a sign in English, and everyone
got a chance to give us a goodbye message along with a hug. We handed out gift
bags to the kids and the Tias.
On Thursday I went on birthday celebration to a swimming pool
with a group of men with disabilities. It was wonderful to have this padrinos
birthday outing in my final week. Allen went out to lunch with his group, and it
was an all-day affair as they took him to a town outside of Tegucigalpa with a nice
restaurant known for its meat dishes. In the evening, we went to our regular
hogars where Allen helped one of the young girls in his hogar celebrate her 8th
birthday with cupcakes and coke. After
hogar we both returned to San Vicente where the other volunteers had made a
lovely dinner which we ate on the palazza of San Vicente.
This was our opportunity to add our handprints to those of other volunteers on the wall of San Vicente. Afterwards the volunteers told us they would miss us and gave us a hug. There were a few tears as well.
After mass on Friday, Allen and I were taken to The Creperia
in Tegucigalpa for a breakfast outing with Cintia and Dixiana (the ladies that
I work for). I think it was the best breakfast that I have ever had in
Honduras! We got back in time to finish our packing and clean our room to
prepare it for other volunteers. We had our last evening at our hogars and said
our final goodbyes with the consolation that we already have our plane tickets
to come back in November.
We left Saturday morning and got a ride into the Cristina Bus Station in Tegucigalpa from Tio Richard who just retired as National Director of NPH. The ride gave us a chance to talk about our wonderful experiences at NPH this past year. We took the bus to La Ceiba where we will spend the week before flying home from Roatan.
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