What a phenomenally great day today!!
We went to take some food and a few other things to some families in Ojojona. This is an out of the way place . . . very small, and by far the poorest place I have ever seen. Houses made of adobe bricks (mud and straw) covered in cement on the outside, dirt floors, two chairs, one bench, one bed, no electricity, bathrooms are outhouses, cooking is on brick ovens over a fire.
We took of lot of basic food (rice, beans, etc) along with a few more fun things. I was in for some surprises. We took a piñata filled with candy. Ironically, it was a snowman piñata but it was probably 75 degrees outside. Beautiful, up on the mountain about 1500 meters up.
I learned that most of these kids had probably never tasted American candy (like Snickers, Twix, etc). There is some cheaper Honduran candy that these people probably get about once a year here. They had to explain to some of these kids what a piñata even was and how it worked. They had never seen one before. And this is a country that is full of piñatas . . . you see them at almost every party. True poverty. After it was all over, the pastor here of the central church told us a little about his upbringing. He was from one of these out of the way backwoods places too. His hometown just got electricity about 5 years ago. He was 13 or 14 when he saw he saw his first piñata and 15 when he saw his first cake. The whole neighborhood came out to look at and taste the cake. Believe me, the poorest people in the US live better than most of the people here.
I learned one of the ways to tell if a family has enough to eat. Look at the dogs. If the dogs look OK, the family has enough. If the dogs are skinny, they don’t. I saw some ribs on the dogs today. I also saw a few kids with swollen bellies. All the men and women are of short stature. I’m some of this is genetic/cultural, but some of it is because of malnutrition as well.
When the piñata was finally broken, it was quite a sight. The kids went for the candy with a vengeance. It was really a gratifying sight. I had told Ashlyn and Brayden before we arrived to not participate. That these people only get candy once a year and you can take a pass for one day. Until you’ve seen a small Honduran girl take from her small bag of candy that she gets maybe once a year and hold out her hand to give your kids a piece, you’ve never lived. This girl really had a spirit of giving. She tried to give to everyone. Me, Joy, the Schrecks, everyone. I’m telling you in all of these kids there was nothing like greed. Lucas was running around in the dirt and dust, petting the dogs and just playing with the kids in general. Every time I would see him he would have a new piece of candy in his mouth that those kids there kept giving him.
After the piñata, we handed out apples. We had bought 88 apples for these folks. My kids got to pass them out. All those Honduran kids got into a line to get their apples. One of my hopes in coming here was that my kids would develop a new perspective and in particular become more grateful. Today I think we took a huge step toward that. Watching your kids hand out apples to poor kids is a great experience. Especially when you realize that they realize that these kids getting an apple for Christmas is a big deal to them. They were really moved. After seeing how those kids lived, I don’t think I’ll ever hear another gripe about Christmas presents or their room at home.
We didn’t stay for the meal since it takes quite a while to cook over the fire.
Still it was a great day. The best $200 I’ve ever spent.
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| The girl who kept trying to give away her candy. |
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| This type of mismatched clothing (left) is typical of kids. They wear what they have. It's often too big. |
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