Pre-Christmas time
During the pre-Christmas period many groups, schools, clubs, companies and individuals visited us in the mornings or in the afternoons. Games were played, walls got painted and clowns came along for the entertainment. Once we even received a homemade cake with the "yo quiero ser ..." logo as well as a lovely lunch which was followed by obligatory piñata “ceremony”. For our children joining last, this was the first time that they received a Christmas present. It was a very nice experience to receive presents from other children and from people which seemed at first strangers and suddenly became family friends. The situations sums up live, it is all about giving and taking. We even dare to belief, that it helps the other children, the givers, to appreciate what they have at home in their families.
The Altia business centre has a game paradise for children and invited all the inhabitants of “yo quiero ser…” for a treat. We were allowed to mingle in the "fairground" and to play with countless computer games for an hour. The joy over our children was beyond belief.
Christmas
Alike every year, we decorated the Christmas tree and set up our crib at the beginning of December. This year we received new, big nativity figures and our children as well as our visitors really enjoyed our Christmas decoration. Angela Boss, who had already visited us for the second time as a volunteer, had set up a fundraising campaign in Switzerland for new Christmas clothes. It is a custom in Honduras that you wear new clothes on Christmas. Thanks to the generosity of Angela's friends, she was able to go shopping with each of the children. All of them were allowed to buy a pair of trousers, a top and a pair of shoes. They wore their new clothes on Christmas Eve with great joy and pride.
On the 24th of December, our older girls were busy helping with the preparation of the tamales, a typical Christmas delicacy. In the evening we went all together to the church and afterwards we enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner consisting of tamales, turkey meat, rice, mashed potatoes, salad and dessert. After the meal, gifts were handed out. Each child was allowed to unwrap his own gift. Priceless face expressions and emotional explosions of joy! At the end of the celebration, we were dancing, lit a bonfire and by midnight the children and the staff enjoyed the loud and, in some cases, beautiful fireworks of the city, before they fell dead-tired asleep in their beds.
Container
The van Kesteren Foundation enabled the second container transport for this year. This time around, we received the almost new school desks from the primary school Tinizong along with the matching chairs, plenty of clothes, shoes, school supplies, school bags, kitchen utensils and a lot of commodities for the daily life. There were also many cabinets in different sizes for the new project in Santa Rosa. The children were quite overwhelmed by the generosity of the donors and unpacking over 150 boxes was a ceremony of its own. Over and over they spotted exciting new things, alike a casual pair of sunglasses, which then everybody wanted.
Thanks to the containers, filled with invaluable items, we did not have to buy clothes, shoes, furniture, bed linen, etc. during the last years. Summing it up, to us, such a container is worth gold - a very big blessing!
DINAF
The national organization DINAF (Dirección de la Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia) has invited 7 of our primary school pupils to a day of children's rights. Children from other children's homes were also present.
Through various group activities they learned more about the topic "children's rights". In the end, they had to do their own drawings on how they would represent children's rights. Afterwards they presented and explained their piece of art to all participants. For them, it was truthfully an eye-opening and enriching experience to thematise children's rights. To justify why they have chosen certain rights and whether they are respected by our society or not was a challenging exercise.
This day was very inspiring for our nurse who accompanied the children. The children have participated very well, were engaged throughout the discussion panels and involved themselves voluntarily in the group tasks which left her very proud and she never had to intervene or say anything. At the end of the day, the course leader praised our children and said that they were great role models for all the other children from children's homes.