Birthdays

Over the past week we’ve had 3 birthdays with our closest neighbors.  Pastor Erick turned 27 on April 21^st.  Stacey made him a cake and we celebrated with the family that lives cati-corner to us.  He is dating their daughter Karen (long distance – she’s working in San Pedro Sula) so they are the only “family” he has here since he’s from a city about 2 hrs. away.

Left to right: Marina, Suyapa, Llovani (in the back), Lidia (purple shirt), Marleni, Antonio, Erick, and in the front are Jose and Lencho.

Writing in cursive was a little bit of a mistake culturally, not many understood.

The twins next door and a few other kids enjoyed playing with the left over icing.

The next day the smallest boy in that family, Dani, (he’s not in the picture above because he had already fallen asleep for the night) turned 3.  His celebration included a piñata that all the neighborhood kids joined in on, balloons, and eating tamales.  He is the smaller one in this picture, he is standing with his brother Jose. 

Jose and Dani

Then on April 30^th our next door neighbor, Nauh, turned 15.  He is the one who has been by our side volunteering work since the first ditch we dug for our house, so we made him a cake as well.  We can’t make cakes for everyone in the community but we thought it appropriate as a thank- you to the 2 people who have helped us every day – Erick and Nauh.  Cakes are not very common in Las Lomitas, so it was quite an event and many came to watch Stacey create.  There are a handful of girls who are interested in learning with the idea of a future business!  This is why we're here - how exciting to teach a skill to provide a living for a few people!  What skill can you bring to Las Lomitas to last a life time?  We'd love for you to come and share it!

Our biggest helper, Nauh.

Instead of writing in cursive like I usually do, I wrote in manuscript because many people could not read the cursive on Erick's cake the week before.  Cursive is not something taught in the rural schools.

We also went fishing for Nauh’s birthday, it was only his second time to go fishing in his whole life so he was very excited all day building up to the moment we left. We left around 4pm and got back around 9pm to take advantage of fishing at dusk.  We used fishing line with hooks on the end, fishing rods are not very common down here.  We only came home with 6 fish, but it was an exciting outing for all.

Headed down the path to the lake carrying plantains as a gift to the man who let us fish there, coke for a drink, line, hooks, and pails full of worms.

The fish we left with.