A different kind of Thanksgiving

For those of you who were busy celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, I thought I would let you know that it also happened to be graduation here on Rancho Santa Fe. That probably isn't much news to you ... but no one here seemed to notice the fact that it was Thanksgiving up in the states. It felt oh-so-strange to wake up preparing for graduation while simultaneously thinking that most of my friends and family were preparing for turkey day.

But since many of the volunteers here are from the US, we decided to do our own Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night. We made turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie ... plus a number of nontraditional foods. It was fun to share the day with our European and Honduran friends. Tara, Katie and I put ourselves in charge of the mashed potatoes. We decided to cook Honduran style (outside on a fire) so we had quite the lovely time of scrubbing the dirt off the fresh-from-the-farm potatoes and then throwing them in the enormous pot on the fire. Perhaps they were more ashy than usual, but they still tasted pretty good.

Friday found us celebrating Quinceneros on the Ranch. In Latino culture Quinceneros is the celebration of turning 15 and a sort of "coming of age" fiesta. On the Ranch they celebrate it 1 time for all of the kids who turned 15 that year. Like all things here, the kids have a "godparent" who accompanies them through the activity (and gets them a present). One of the boy's godmother didn't end up showing up, so about 1 minute before the Quinceneros mass I was asked to be his emergency godmother. Ricardo was a pretty quiet kid, so unfortunately I didn't get to know him that well, but it was still quite a fun night. The evening started with Mass, then the Quiceneros and godparents ate a private dinner where we were served by the older kids, and then the real party started when all of the other kids arrived. Each of the Quiceneros were "presented" as they walked through the giant purple castle, danced a "waltz" (attempted would be more appropriate) with their godparents, and then had a huge dance party with all of the kids.

Katie and I got pretty dressed up for the big event. Though not as much as the Quiceneras who all wore matching, prom-esq dresses. I think it was a really special night for all of the kids who were Quinceneros.

After the waltzing stopped and the fun music came on, we had a great time getting our grove on. These are all of the tias in my hogar and a bunch of the kids. Especially since I've been spending the days with them now that school has been out, my relationships with them have becoming better and better. I really love this place and my life here ... and it's mostly because of these crazy/wonderful/difficult/great kids.