Día de Lempira

By Katie

July 20 of every year is Día de Lempira in Honduras. We celebrated this special day on Friday at school. Lempira was a leader of the Lenca people who in 1537 united over 200 villages of different tribes to fight against the Spanish conquistadors. The Honduran money is named after him and he is certainly a national hero.

The day started out with a little program that included a beauty pagent to vote for the India Bonita (the Pretty Indian). All the Indias Bonitas here collected money from their friends and family and the person with the most money will wear her costume in the Independence Day parade in September. Alejandra, the girl with the coconuts, won.
Many of the kids dressed up in costumes for the occasion. They either dressed like ¨indians,¨cowboys, or a Spanish-influenced costume. Here´s the kindergarten class looking cute.

After the program, we all went to buy traditional food in the chumpas, the huts made of tree branches and palm leaves. Every school in Honduras makes these chumpas to celebrate Día de Lempira every year. A few teachers and students spent two days making them to get ready for the event.

There was a wide variety of food for purchase made by the parents of the students. Here´s Kelly with arroz con leche (rice, milk, sugar and cinnamon) and a tamale (a piece of chicken with other pot-pie stuffings encased in mashed corn).
Dayana and Victoria are eating baleadas, my favorite Honduran food. It's a flour tortilla with blended beans with a cheese and a sour cream-like dairy product.

Juliana (orange shirt) and Cheily (red hair tie) are eating Catrachos, which is also slang for Honduran (like gringo is to North American). Catrachos the food are corn tortillas fried crispy with blended beans and the sour cream on top. Lissy (the shortest girl) is drinking natural juice from a plastic bag and Edwin is eating fried corn dough.

A mom and Teacher Wendy are selling taquitos, or little tacos of chicken paste rolled up and fried crispy in a corn tortilla. They'll put a red sauce and some white cheese on top to serve them.


All in all, it was a pretty fun day celebrating Lempira and his efforts for the native people of Honduras.

Glow-in-the-dark Fun

By Katie

The front porch gang has been really excited to be back. There had not been school for three weeks because the teachers were striking again, so they were looking forward to some learning. To kick off the classes, I invited everyone to our porch at 7pm and gave out glow-in-the-dark bracelets. It was a smash hit and full of laughter. It was a rare move for me to give out something without making kids earn it, but was really a great thing to get a chance to see everyone again. Thanks to our friends at Calvary in Minneapolis who donated the bracelets!

A Great Welcome Home

By Katie

Here we are, back in Catacamas, Olancho, Honduras, safe and sound. We arrived to the airport in Tegucigalpa yesterday and met our director there. She took us back to the office where we ate lunch and then headed to the bus station. Four hours later we came home. It was safe the entire way and we had no problems whatsoever. Certainly everyone is talking about the political events and the possible implications, but most people go about their lives as normal, although a little more carefully.

When we got back to the house we were greeted by our neighbors Doris and Noé. A bunch of members of the Front Porch Gang also showed up not two minutes after we got home. It was great to see everyone again!

Our biggest surprise was that Doris and Noé (who are the caretakers of the house) had played Extreme Home Makeover while we were gone. They tiled our shower, fixed up the sink so that it works now, and painted two rooms. We were super surprised and very excited to come home to such great improvements! Life will be a little less like camping now :)

There´s a new volunteer here now who lives with Doris and Noé named Jordan. He, Matt and David are reviewing last year and making their next plans now. The kids are ready to have classes, so I´ll start those this afternoon already. We´re picking up right where we left off. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our safe travel!