 |
| Decorations... in progress |
Sunday was the Kermesse, which is basically the equivalent
of a one-day parish festival. There were
games, bands, food, ect. All of the
girls spent the previous week preparing for the festivities, working out steps
for their class’s dance for the Festival or practicing modeling for the model
showcase (which Thalia took part in. I
really wanted to see her strut her stuff, but unfortunately I was selling
tickets at the time of the show so I missed it). All day Saturday was spent decorating the
school for the big party. One of the
interna’s families brought in a bun of bamboo and we made little houses out of
it from which food was sold. The girls
made a bunch of signs and banners to decorate the school. It all turned out really well and looked
absolutely awesome!
 |
| A bamboo food-stand |
The festivities started at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning. I was put to work practically right away
selling tickets in one of the banks because the teacher who was supposed to be
selling there hadn’t shown up yet – and he didn’t show up until 10:00 for his
8-11:00 shift… only in Honduras would one get away with that. Anyways, I spent a majority of my day selling
tickets as after working from 8-11 in one bank, I moved to another bank to sell
tickets from 11-2. I then was able to
walk around and hang out until about 2:45 when I noticed that one of the banks
was short a person and went back to selling tickets until around 6:00. However, I was able to talk to some of the
different teachers at the school which was really cool because we don’t have a
lot of time during the school day to get to know each other.
 |
| My marriage certificate and ring |
In the banks, we sold tickets that the patrons used to play
the various games and buy food. The games
were: roulettes, a raffle-like thing,
throwing a ball through a hole that was supposed to be a clown’s nose, you
could send people to jail and they had to pay to get out, and you could make
people “get married” and then have to pay to get divorced. Hence, the name of this post. During my first shift in the bank, a guy came
up and wanted to buy a ticket to make someone get married. After buying the ticket, he turns to me and
goes “I want to marry you.” I was like:
Say what? But he insisted so we went
over to the little “marriage” room that the girls had set up. They put a veil on my head, had us sign a
piece of paper, two witnesses signed it, we exchanged 75 cent rings, and the
facilitator goes “okay, kiss” and I’m
like: Say what? Yet again. (I was so not prepped for what was involved
in this process!) So I go in for the
kiss on the cheek, you know the I’ll kiss your cheek, you kiss mine that is
normal with Latin American population.
However, he had a different idea and completely planted a wet sloppy one
on my mouth (that took off all of the chapstick I had on. It was GROSS!
Anyway, so now I’m married – at least according to the Intsituto María
Auxiliadora. Sorry Mom!
 |
| My Primer Bacchi girls doing their dance |
The other cool thing that they did at the Kermesse was: each
of the classes choreographed their own dance number to a mash-up that they had
composed themselves. All of the groups
then got up and performed during the Festival in the afternoon. Because I was selling tickets, I was not able
to see all of the groups, but the ones I did see were all really good. It is actually really impressive how well
some of the girls can dance!
For those of you who don’t know, yesterday was by birthday
(I turned 22 – man I’m getting old!) and I was able to celebrate it here. Some of the girls woke me up in the morning
by popping a bunch of balloons right outside our door and blasting the
mananitas song (a Spanish Happy Birthday song) literally all morning. They have a CD of a bunch of different
renditions, so as Thalia and I were getting ready we heard the same song, like,
15 times. At breakfast, the internas
sang me the mananitas song and then I was sung to again by the sisters (in
Spanish and again in English – which was really quite comical). My English class also sang me Happy Birthday
in English. Throughout the day I
received an obscene number of hugs from all of the girls here – even when I was
walking out around the town with the internas yesterday afternoon to take them
shopping, a couple of the girls from school stopped me to wish me happy
birthday and give me a hug and then made their two friends who don’t go to
school at María Auxiliadora wish me happy birthday and give me a hug too. Thalia and I baked a jello poke cake and it
turned out really well (but the cake is really simple, which is why we chose
it!) and all of the sisters loved it!
There is very little left, I’m not sure if it will live through lunch
today! A bunch of the girls also made me
birthday cards and a couple of them even got me presents, which was super sweet
and totally unexpected!
It is truly amazing how much love these girls have to share…
they don’t have a lot of the material possessions that we have in the US but
what they do have they share with others or straight up give away. And when they don’t have anything to give,
they shower you with so much love that it is truly astounding. I feel incredibly blessed to have been give
this time to spend with all of the amazing people that are here! It truly was a blessed birthday.
Additionally, I want to thank all of you who sent me
birthday cards here. The sisters
mentioned that the volunteers usually don’t get as many cards as I have… You
guys all mean so much to me, and I really appreciate all of the thoughts and
prayers. Know that my thoughts are
prayers are with you as well.
I guess that’s all for now.
Loves to everyone at home!
No comments:
Post a Comment