The Fifth Annual Thanksgiving Day was celebrated Saturday 30 November at the Hogar San José and the turkey didn’t know the difference. We’re almost certain next year’s annual celebration will take place at the new building. It appears the holiday season is upon us with 2014 right around the corner.
Yup, that is what Thanksgiving Day is called in Spanish: our annual year number 5 since I have been living in Honduras. I’m still here; battered and bruised, but here. The inauguration of our new building for the Fundación Señor San José has been postponed until early next year due to construction delays and fine tuning. Saturday the Hogar will hold its annual T-day celebration at the old place like always, much more comfortable these days BTW. My friend and former Peace Corps Volunteer like me, John Jordan, now employed by USAID in Tegucigalpa will be here with friends. And there will be Turkey with all the trimmings, as my late mother used to say at our family gatherings. May Gaea and the higher power each of you believe in open your heart to those more unfortunate than yourselves; to bless our military folk far from home; and to especially think of and help those needlessly suffering through no fault of their own. Life is short, appreciate it and treasure it while you’re here. You have but one chance to make it right.
As previously noted a volunteer group of norteamericanos helped prepare the soil and plant lawn grass at the new building site, however, the obdurate Honduran soil produced a 50/50 mixture of weeds and lawn. The children are consequently hard at work every day pulling weeds so that the lawn will be ready for the inauguration of the new building 12 December. The Hogar has also received three new young girls abandoned by their father bringing our number of residents to 18. The children will be provided a clean, modern, hygienic home, adequate food, and a proper education.
I have bowed to nature’s whim and decided to return home to La Paz. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I return my rental car. My foot remains swollen and it is difficult for me to walk. It’s not really walking but more like hobbling along, much like a doddering old man. Which, come to think of it, is what most passersby would probably consider me to be. The horror: reason enough to leave. I did get to visit with a couple of my good friends in La Masica though, on that first day right after the accident. The rest of my time here in La Ceiba I have parked myself in various seaside restaurant/bars killing the pain with beer, elevating my leg, and eating excellent seafood. What a way to go, eh? But after five days, go I must. Home to recuperate. Best news is that there is no bone fracture; I can bear weight, a little more each day.
Today, November 1st, I drove to La Masica to visit with my former contraparte, my counterpart from my posting there in 2009, the directora of the Ramon Rosa Elementary School. As we moved to leave for lunch I walked over to open the 300 kilo metal gate for her; after she drove through and I tried to close the gate the whole thing collapsed off its rollers onto my left ankle and foot. Pinned underneath, I yelled for help, the campus empty because all the school-kids had gone to a science fair. Oblivious to my peril, my friend had driven her car down the block to her mother’s house. A BIG ouch! Two young guys ran to me from across the street and lifted the heavy porton off my leg. Tonight I sit in my hotel room with an ace wrap on my swelling ankle and elevated on a pillow barely able to walk. There’s no ice here and I can’t go get any. More later….