Freddy´s cumpleanos

We were invited today to one of our student´s birthday party. It was very exciting to be part of such a personal cultural event, and fun in general. We didn´t know where he lived, so one of the students agreed to come by and pick us up at 2pm. But, come 2pm, it was pouring rain so we figured he was waiting til the rain stopped. A bit after 3pm, with a pounding on the door, four of our craziest 4th graders storm into our house and proceed to look around everywhere. They tried on hats, found our stash of school supplies, rode the broken exercise bike, played catch, took pictures with our cameras, and asked if we would give them everything! On the way out, we literally had them empty their pockets of stickers, lighters, markers and other goodies -- it´s not that they were conniving, they were just being funny, and I haven´t laughed that hard in a while.

At Freddy´s house, there were a handful of his classmates from school and assorted family members, including an adorable baby. The first order of business was a piñata hung from the rafters of their barn-like living room, and it was silly and fun as all the kids were blindfolded and proceeded to whack the piñata. As it started to break they scrambled on the floor to get the cheap mint candies, while the other kid was still swinging wildly with the giant bat! After the piñata was killed, there was cake and soda, and along with Happy Birthday (feliz cumpleanos) the kids sang a song that seems to say something like "I want cookies. I want cake. I want Coca Cola and Pepsi too," which just cracks me up b-c it is so Honduran. Then Freddy´s mom handed out bags of candy, which contained several little plastic jugs shaped like fruit (grapes, apples, etc) and containing sugar. We think it´s a little more processed than table sugar, and maybe was supposed to taste like the fruit, but mostly it was just a huge pile of sugar. No wonder so many of our students have rotten teeth!

We stayed while Freddy opened his presents --- socks, 50 lemps, a t-shirt, and a cool Batman action figure. When we left, he and his friends were happily shooting each other with the thing that came with the Batman, and it just felt nice to have been part of such a simple, loving Honduran party.