Children's day!

Dia Del Nino: (Children's Day)

September 10th is the national Honduran holiday for Children. At first I didn't understand the extremeness of this day - each school having a pinata for each GRADE, pounds and pounds of candy and sweets and everyone coming around giving more and more candy to children. From my cultural view, it seemed like too much. That is until someone explained to me the history behind this day - that because so many Honduran children didn't get to celebrate their birthday - don't have parties, cakes, presents, etc, that one holiday covers it all at once and it's a community effort. ((Now days Honduras is changing and middle & upper class do have incredible birthday parties for their kids, but the kids in our region, this is still true for them)). 

Maddy, Ali, Corey Ann, and I went to the local school to participate in the big day and it was fun! It's a blessing for me to watch my kids jump into the action and be included - Maddy participated in 2 of the games and both Maddy and Ali swung at the pinata. 

I also love it because it's a great way for us to connect with the community and for me to get to connect and hang out with other moms. God placed me right beside a mom (Lili, 16yrs old) who's infant (Carol) had a seizure last year, we supported her through brain trauma and a very long hospital stay and she now has an extremely delayed 2 year old... after going through all that with it, it was a blessing to get to sit and laugh together watching the kids hit the swinging pinata and see how she loves Carol and interacted with her so well. 

Maddy's friends Sofia and Anita had a blast trying on the pinata
pieces and making clothes out of them. :)

Ali is more shy in crowds and stuck close to me

Meet Milady: one of our neighbors

Meet Anita: another cute neighbor
who wanted to try on my glasses

Another fun part of Dia Del Nino is that we get to give away treats to the schools in our area - sports equip, cookies, and candy.