Saturday, July 19, 2008 — Comayaguela
Tonight was San Max's Annual Parish Social — Noche Cultura at Escuela Los Americas. There were several hundred people in the audience at the outdoor auditorium. We were the honored guests and they made us part of the show. They greeted the Minnesota Gringos and jokingly tried to impress us with their English. They also made note of the "guapo" men in our group. Later in the show they acknowledged the work were doing at Colonia Duarte and someone thanked us in English for helping the people in Colonia Duarte and for coming to Honduras.
The show became really exciting when the dance troupe began to perform. There was a traditional Aztec fire dance, a devil dance, a grasshopper dance, folk dancing, flame throwers and belly dancers. But the best part was when one of the belly dancers picked Chandler to dance with her. He couldn't get his camera off fast enough. He spun her around about as fast as he spun the merry-go-round at El Rancho. Her bangles were bangling and the audience went wild, especially us Minnesota Gringos. A second dancer pulled him out of the audience later for another dance and the crowd went wild. We also had a good laugh when a man dressed as a voluptuous hag jumped on Chandler's lap and put his arms around him. Friar Ramiro is also quite the dancer. It was a fun evening that followed a day of hard labor at Colonia Duarte. We excavated around the existing building, cleared rocks and garbage and dug and hauled dirt. The guys carried 100-lb bags of cement mix down the steep muddy revene. Diane Bell, our kindergarten teacher, kept the kids busy with crafts, songs and entertainment which was a tremendous help. When she'd take a break, all of the kids would be getting in the way in the work area.
Many of us took photos. It started to look like the JC Penny photo studio with families coming for their portraits. Many of these people had never had a photo taken before. We printed the pictures at night at San Max and they would make popsicle stick frames for them. It was indeed a big hit.
It was impressive to see how these young 10-11 year old boys knew how to mix cement and that was there job. Concrete bricks were laid along the perimeter of the building. We Minnesota gringos were covered in mud and dirt. The ladies of Colonia Duarte were digging and using pick axes right along side us but they didn't sweat and there wasn't a speck of dirt on their skirts. We made a lot of progress on our first day. Many new friendships were made and we had a lot of fun getting to know these people.
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