How Hondurans Celebrate Birthdays

This morning I was the only one who went to breakfast.  Bob was too tired from his travels yesterday, Noah's least favorite meal of the day is breakfast, and Alina decided she wanted to sleep in.  This meant that I was the only one who got to see Luis David all covered in eggs and moon pies!  Today is Luis David's birthday.  Here at Emmanuel, the tradition is that you "egg" the person who's having a birthday.  Luis David told me that his roommates woke him up at 3am by dumping hot water on him.  That was the first step to celebrating his birthday.  Then, when they got to the Comedor, a friend smashed 3 eggs on his head (this is VERY common down here for birthdays) while another friend grabbed some of the raw egg and smeared it on his face and then finished off by smearing a large moon pie on his face.  I didn't see all of this happen, but I did see Luis David run out of the comedor and he was ALL messy!!!  When he came back, he chose to sit next to me, and I had to warn him about not touching me!  (haha)

We asked permission to allow Luis David, Michell, Nikoll, Alejandra, Cristofer, Brayan, William, Salomon and Maycol to sit by us in church this morning.  We took up an entire row in church...but it was nice to sit by these kids.  Noah's complaint is that he had to sit behind a pillar so unfortunately he couldn't see the words to the songs on the projection screen at the front of the church.

After church we took some of these kids to the tienda for chips, sodas and ice cream.  While we were there, Alejandra's mom came for a visit, so she had to leave early.  The parents are allowed to come and visit the children at the front of the orphanage once a month, and usually it's towards the beginning of the month.  I sent a paleta (lollipop) with Alejandra for her mom.

Clockwise from left:  Bob, Noah, Brayan, Cristofer, Alina, Nikoll, and Alejandra

When we saw the kids heading to lunch, we grabbed those we still had and headed into the Comedor to eat.  I'm not sure how much they ate since they had been snacking all morning, but after lunch we needed to grab Michell and Luis David...two who are very close to my heart...so that we could give them their gifts.  We had purchased quite a few clothes for each of them and also needed to give Luis David his birthday cake.  So we spent the afternoon with the birthday boy and Michell and had quite a few good conversations about school and Luis David's upcoming graduation in December.

Luis David, LoriAnn, Bob and Michell

We had to bring Michell back to the Comedor at 2pm because her work assignment at Emmanuel is to be in the kitchen for all meals, so she needed to get there early to prepare supper.  When it was time for supper, we headed to the Comedor to eat and then decided to retire to our room for the evening.