Cumplirse 15: To Turn 15

Here is another article I wrote for the NPH website:

The Sweet 15

The setting is a crisp November afternoon in the roaming mountains outside of Tegucigalpa, the date November 16th. As the afternoon sun filters lazily through the clusters of pine, Rancho Santa Fe is abuzz with the hum of children flitting to and fro eagerly chattering about the only thing any reasonable child around the age of 15 can think of, the magical Quinceañera. Once a year here at Rancho Sante Fe, NPH Honduras, we celebrate any and all children who have turned or will turn 15 during the year. The Quinceañera is a quintessential part of Latin American culture and the culture here on the Ranch. Once a year we pull out all the stops to celebrate the wonderful transition as our children begin to grow into their young adult hood. Once a year life comes to a halt and our worries are whisked away in a flurry of music, laughter, good food, and excellent company.

Proud padrinos and madrinas stood alongside fine dressed quinceañeros in their handmade yellow shirts, black pants and shoes, all eyes turned and eagerly awaiting the arrival of the elegent young woman who had spent all day preparing for their special night. Having taken less time to ready themselves the quinceañeros were lined up and ready to process into the Church when the young women arrived. Easily spotted in their elegant, hand made, bright green gowns, the wide smiled, carefully prepared, giddy quinceañeras finally made their appearance and lined up to go into the Church. Quinceañeros alongside padrinos and madrinas glided into the church beginning the moment they had all been waiting for.

Following a highly ceremonious mass with a special blessing for the quinceañeros, padrinos, madrinas, and cumpleañeros were loaded onto a bus to be carried down to the school where an especially elegant dinner awaited them. Feasting on salad, specially prepared rice, tortillas, and the rare delicacy of meat, saw a gaggle of finely dressed teenagers and visitors happily sharing in the joy of this special evening. As the night wore on, the special cumpleañeros were toasted, cheered, congratulated, and processed for their official pictured, all finally completed by the traditional grand waltz. Nervous quinceañeros, alongside their even more nervous madrinos and padrinos, danced their unrehearsed grand waltz to the great pleasure of the rest of the ranch family whom had arrived to watch the beginning of what would be the rest of the evening’s agenda, dancing.

Until about midnight, the order of the evening was overall revelry and unhindered frivolity. As young and old danced alike, we concluded the special celebration of our dear, cherished cumpleañeros. It was a night made magnificent by hundreds of hands, from the ones that stitched the dresses and flower embroidered gloves, to the hands that meticulously crafted the shoes, hands that set the decadent hair styles, the hands that artfully decorated the hall, cooked the food, and certainly not least, the nervous, clasped hands of our lovely quinceañeros as they danced their birthday waltz on what we can only hope was one of their most memorable, magical childhood evenings.

 

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Graduarse: To Graduate (Oneself)

These last few weekends have been filled with graduations, among other special events. I have been working the last (almost) five months in an hogar (home) for the oldest school aged boys on the ranch, roughly 15-18 year olds. These boys just finished their last year of school and graduated a short week and a half ago. After many nights of hours of algebra homework, where I retaught myself (in Spanish) how to do semi-complex alebreic equations, countless technical drawings, English study sessions, and futile reminders to do homework, my boys are finally all grown up (or so they think). In fact, just this morning we send these kids (and the female age equivalents) on to their next big step!

(Lenin, center, with family at Graduation)

 

Here is a breif run down of post-9th grade Ranch life. There are three paths that my boys are on right now, I will do my best to explain each.

Empleyo->Bachillerato

These boys took the bus into Tegucigalpa today. They will spend the next three weeks (or up to two months) with family or in our NPH home in the city. There mission, to find a job. Some may be able to work where they had their internships the previous year (should they want to and if they worked well the last year). Others will search for a job somewhere else. They get three weeks to find a job, if not they will come back to the ranch until February. Even failure to find a job can be good experience, especially for these kids, coming from NPH who have very (relatively speaking) shelered lives. If they do get a job, and many will, they will work until next February. Then they will begin their schooling at Bachillerato which is best equivelated as a more specified high-school age training. Nurses and teachers usually have Bachillerato degrees and nothing higher. (Keep in mind the national eduacation average is 6th grade). After these boys finish their 3 year Bachillerato experience they will come to the ranch to do 2 years of service to help pay for their education. Those continuing on to University will then go to their programs (these are usually just for lawyers, doctors, and engineers) and once finished will give another year of service to the ranch. Think about how dedicated you woud have to be to get all the way through university, the average ranch kid might be as old as mid to late twenties before finished with University (our college level degree) and able to start life free from school and volunteer obligations. Talk about perserverance!

 

Empleyo->Año Familiar

These boys are a little younger, 15/16, they will follow the same rough path, doing their job hunting and working till February before coming back to the ranch to donate their year of service before going to Bachillerato. This is used to be the more common practice, until the law changed making it difficult for older kids to go to school, which is way those who are 17 or 18 will straight to Bachillerato first, before later doing their service to the Ranch.

 

Empleyo->La Vida Verdadera

These boys will finish their jobs in February and then head out into the "real" Honduras. They recieve a certain ammount of aid from NPH during their fist few months, getting a housing situation settled figuring out life on their own, etc. These boys will then be a part of the Hermanos Mayores program or "Older Brothers" program. They are no longer under the legal guardianship of NPH, but we will always be there to lend a hand if they should ask.

 

Feeling strangly like a proud dad, we waved goodbye to our kids that we spend the last five months coming to love. In the end you do whatever you can, and hope that it was enough. You laugh with them, pray with them, play with them, yell at them, discipline them, help them, work with them, love with them. You fall on your knees hoping and asking God, yourself or both, "Was it enough? Will they be okay?"

 

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Pasar (tiempo): To Pass (time)

After our trip to D&D brewery, I had a chance to spend the next weekend in the pueblo (general word for a rural village). There life and time pass a little differently. I am working on a short essay about the weekend, so to tide over the blog until that is finished, here is a photo tour.

(Getting Settled):

 

(Flowers, Plants, Views)

 

(Children)

 

(Leaving)

I was stunned after this weekend, in real, true Honduras. The generosity, the love, the simple unhurried way of being. Life doesn't have to be a race. The world doesn't have to be complicated. We just make it that way. This weekend made me want to learn how to really live.

 

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Reflejar: To Reflect

Intentionality. About a month ago the volunteers left for a staff retreat. We sequestered ourself near Honduras largest lake and began to reflect, ponder, wonder, whisper, and drink. It's not often you get to enjoy one of the only places in Honduras which brews its own beer. (Side note if there are only two I have been to both). This weekend was about thinking, what can I do better, what have I accomplished so far, where do I want to go with my relationship to the kids... and questions as such. Here are some collected thoughts and photos from our weekend retreat.

-All service stems from love we can't really help someone if we don't first love them. (Mother Teresa)

-Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you, pray that I may have the grace, to let you be my servant too. (Catholic hymn, Servant Song)

-Remember that the most important thing at the end of the day, is for your kids to you know that they are loved, not in general, but individually, sincerely loved. (Caroline, veteran volunteer)

 

There may have also been some swimming and a this-would-never-be-legal-in-the-USA hiking underneath a waterfall tour....

(Yes we hiked under/beind that giant bottom of what waterfall, and jumped in that pool toward the bottom left corner...)

 

Who knows how, but somehow we managed to enjoy our weekend off. And, considering I co-arranged it all with two other volunteers, I'm more than happy it turned out so well. It was a little heavy on the debit card when I closed my weekend food/drink tab, but what can you expect from a guy that eats rice and beans all week :)

 

 

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Escribir: To Write

Here is a short volunteer testimonial that I wrote for the NPH Honduras website. It talks about volunteerism and little about the struggles of working in a developing country.

Lo que es mi Camino, Lo que Llevo Yo

The Path I Walk:

Each morning I set myself upon the path which winds me down to the sun-bathed Escuela Primaria. Glancing across the deep green rows of the Ranch's Hortaliza (garden) I can smell the pine trees which so laboriously clothe the mountains. Sometimes when the world is the perfect blend of silk white cloud, azure blue sky, and sleepy morning sun, I find myself stumbling for thought, wondering, what in the world led me here? There is no easy answer as to what kind of person finds themselves here at NPH Honduras, breathing, and living, and loving is this unique home. And although we all come from different backgrounds, Honduras won't let you stay the same. We all find ourselves being opened up, shifted around, and put back together. I'd like to think its for the better.

 

I think the biggest thing that has changed for me since Rancho Santa Fe, is my perspective on what it is to have, "a real life." I once would have told you that people who are living 'real lives' have steady jobs, apartments or homes, heath insurance, are no longer claimed as dependents by their parents during tax season, and enjoy three things they would have hated as kids, i.e. wine tasting, antiquing, hiking for no reason but to walk, etc. Now however, I am much less certain. Honduras presents a glimpse of an alternative lifestyle. A life where swimming in drinkable water is an unspeakable sign of wealth. Where making $2.50 a day is not uncommon. This life is perhaps more "real" than a life of new cars every 6 or 7 years, steady jobs, masters degrees, and student debts. More people live a life akin to what I have seen here, than what I know in my personal experience.

 

 

The Things I Carry:

So what implications do these thoughts bring into my day to day life? The kids I work with will eventually graduate, hopefully study in the city for a secondary school experience, and move on to the real Honduras. It is so important to equip these children with something to help them succeed when the stakes are so high. How else can we even hope to attempt to break through the oppressive cycle of poverty that has threaded itself into the very nervous system of this glorious, humid country? It is hard to see the long term affects of our work, but we must have faith that we are helping these children create the necessary opportunity for an empowering, dignified future.

 

It is an easy thing to get stuck in the mud of, "let's learn our tablas (times tables)" or "why can't they just understand?!" The more demanding expectation is to walk through these struggles, delivering, day by day, the instruction these beautiful, young people so desperately need to create their own futures, where the consequences of lacking basic education are imbued with danger. So we press onward, and when the sun has set, in the darkness lightning dancing through the broken, clouded sky, I think I might just love Honduras enough to do it all again tomorrow.

 

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Relajarse: To Relax (oneself)

What do we international volunteers do when we have an extra day off. Beach/island trip to the south of Honduras! Here is a photo tour of our weekend:

Crossing the Bay-

 

Dinner and Sunset Beach Awesomeness

 

More of the Same, Day of No Worries

 

Sometimes you need to get away, and that's what we did. A few days of cards, food with meat, and beach sunsets. Sometimes that's all it takes!

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Desfilar: To March

I can't much remember if I have ever been in a Fourth of July parade. Perhaps once or twice as a young child, but my largest involvment was sauntering alongside fellow youngersters. That is not how the children here march in a parade, perhaps the little 3, 4, and 5 year olds, but for the rest, something a lot more complex was the order for the day...

To the sound of a surprisingly well organized group of marching musicians we had dancing girls in costumes, marching boys with fancy stick things, and a whole lot of walking. I think the parade lasted abut 4 hours and I walked in admiration and amazement at the constant energy the kids displayed while executing their walking/pom poming/marching/playing etc.

All this took place to celebrate Día de Independencia the Honduran independence day. Hopefully these photos will give you an idea of what the day was like.

 

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