Our Thanksgiving was triply blessed as we had a triple celebration. First was the school celebration. Our school has the tradition of inviting the children who attend a public day care center for children of poor single mothers (where they go to give their moms the opportunity to work). The students of our school (a private multilingual school) are the upper-crust of the town, and it's important for them to learn to reach out. Our students bring donations of good quality hand-me-downs, plus they donate some money to buy the kids a new toy each. Also, we do a fund-raiser to treat the kids to a hearty snack. Then we invite them for a half-day (our students also only come for half a day) wherein we have a program with dances, puppet show, songs, skits, etc., both by our students and by the visiting children who also prepare an act or two. After the program all the children have snack together, then play games organized and run by the secondary students for all the children. This has been our pattern for the past nine years and the teachers at the child care center tell us that the kids are so excited the day before coming to the Thanksgiving celebration that they can hardly sleep. When they leave, their trucks are loaded down with bags of donations that they will distribute among themselves later according to which family could use each item. I imagine that it is more exciting for them than Christmas, since they get more goodies. Sometimes in the past we have treated them to a snack and a full lunch (Thanksgiving style but with roasted chicken instead of turkey). A few years back, however, we went to a half-day celebration for several reasons and had to cut out the lunch. At first, we just gave them stuff and did stuff for them, but little by little we started to include them more in the activities and now we try to do everything together. My ninth graders were in charge of a game and brought along face paints just for fun. Well, the face paints were such a hit that we never got around to doing our game. As usual, I made pumpkin pie for my homeroom grade, and with only nine students (one absent), we each got a nice big slice.
Our second Thanksgiving was with the school staff. We had a three-turkey dinner with 50 people, with all the extras being pot-luck style. It's another of our traditions here. This was in the evening of Thanksgiving day. We all met at the Principal's house and had games for the children of the staff, plus tons of fabulous food. We foreign staff are in charge of the pies since those are not known in Honduras. That lasted well into the evening; I believe we got home around 10 p.m.
Our second Thanksgiving was with the school staff. We had a three-turkey dinner with 50 people, with all the extras being pot-luck style. It's another of our traditions here. This was in the evening of Thanksgiving day. We all met at the Principal's house and had games for the children of the staff, plus tons of fabulous food. We foreign staff are in charge of the pies since those are not known in Honduras. That lasted well into the evening; I believe we got home around 10 p.m.
On Saturday morning we had our second annual Thanksgiving family medical check-up and we all got a clean bill of general health (a few details with colds and intestinal parasites to clean up but nothing major). (Who wudda thought intestinal amoebas could be normal, eh?) We continue to be thankful for our health.
Finally, on Saturday (a day's respite between turkeys), we had our family turkey dinner. It has become our custom to make our full Thanksgiving dinner and invite over either someone from David's family or, when they can't make it (they all live at least four hours away), we invite some local friends. This year we enjoyed the evening with some new friends whose children we have known for a while but not the parents very well. It was a lovely evening, plus it gives us the opportunity to have turkey dinner left-overs...a very important part of the dinner!
Oh! And no shopping for Christmas presents and no "Black Friday", so I guess we were really quintupply blessed!!
We hope your Thanksgiving was equally blessed.
In other news, Joel and Raquel have enjoyed their first month in karate class. Raquel often misses for other responsibilities with school, especially now that the Christmas program rehearsals have started, but Joel is very faithful. Both enjoy practicing their techniques on each other around the house, requiring a few new family rules about high kicks and such.
Also, Joel has gotten a dental trainer, a plastic dealie he is supposed to wear in the evening and during the night. We always remember at night, but remembering during the day has been tricky. It's supposed to help his teeth get aligned, thus avoiding extensive braces use. Raquel might be getting one soon.
Our annual Halloween party was a blast, as usual, with our traditional guava bobbing contest. This year we had the addition of a homegrown REAL pumpkin since we bought seeds while in the States. No one here has seen pumpkins (only hard-skinned squashes) so they are fascinated by the ease with which a pumpkin cuts. We enjoyed our pumpkin as part of the party instead of decoration. We had everyone guess the weight, circumference, and number of seeds, with the winners getting prizes. A few kids who stayed a little later got to try their hand at pumpkin carving, with the result of six faces on one big pumpkin. I'd be surprised if that's not some sort of record in itself.
This year Nancy went in Chinese attire, David was Abraham Lincoln, Corita went as a bunch of grapes, Raquel and her bf Vicky made their own costumes as the twins on Alice and Wonderland, and Joel went as a samurai.
The last week of October, Southwest School celebrates United Nations Day. This year we focused on Oceania and Southeast Asia. Joel's fourth grade class studied about New Zealand, Raquel's eighth grade class studied about Vietnam, and Corita's ninth graders studied about Indonesia.
We have a family Bible study/prayer time most Sundays and in early November we were studying saints (in the wake of All Saints Day)... how the Catholic church determines who was a saint, how the Protestants differ in their beliefs, etc. During that time, we dramatized Juan Diego (indigenous Mexican) meeting the Virgen of Guadalupe. Nancy dressed as Hernán Cortez, David played the role of the bishop, Joel was Juan Diego, and Raquel was the Virgen de Guadalupe. Corita narrated.
Hope you all are well. Drop us a line!
