Mis Cumpleaños/My Birthday

I know I’ve still got a lot of catching up to do on my blogs; however, I have to interrupt the flow and share with you my 27th birthday on the ranch.

My birthday was on March 5. The day started out fine: I did sunrise yoga on the roof with Tess, Kris put balloons and a “Feliz Cumpleaños” sign on my door, I received a couple text messages from my parents, my girls came and sang “Las Mañanitas” (the Spanish equivalent to “Happy Birthday”) to me through my bedroom window at 6:30am, and then I headed to work. The plan was that I would make a cake for my girls in hogar and Kris was going to make me a Belgian chocolate cake and we’d have a little fiesta in Casa Personal that night. While I was working, however, Vanessa (who is in charge at Casa Ángeles) asked me to go into Tegucigalpa that afternoon so I could do therapy at Casa Ángeles on Tuesday. There went my birthday celebration. I tried to look at the bright side of things and decided I would treat myself to a yoga class, dinner, ice cream, and a movie while I was in the city – the rest of the plan would just have to wait until the day after my birthday. Everything was going great, until I arrived at Casa Alistar at 10:15pm to go to bed. Casa Alistar is a ranch home where boys in high school and the university live. It’s also next door to Casa Ángeles and they have a room for the therapists to sleep in when we come to the city. Well, it’s been over a month since I’ve gone to Tegucigalpa to do therapy. Since then they have switched it to a girls’ home, and also have switched the locks. Basically, it was dark, raining, and I was locked out. I climbed the portón/front gate to get in, but then found myself locked out of the house. I started banging on the door and yelling for the girls to wake up. Finally one of the girls came and let me in. As I was heading to my room, she also went. No one informed me that these girls were now living in the used to be volunteer room. So now I had no room to myself, no sheets, no pillow, and they were already sleeping. Great. Luckily there was an extra bed – a top bunk that seemed like it was about to fall apart at any minute. The girls lent me a sheet and a blanket and then it was lights out. I felt like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future II when he climbs in his bedroom door to find someone else sleeping in his bed. It sucked. Anyways, the next day I did therapy in Casa Ángeles as usual and headed back to the ranch in the afternoon.

When I got back to the ranch I made cakes to bring to hogar that night. I put on crappy clothes because Honduran (or ranch) tradition is that on your birthday they throw eggs and water at you. I had a feeling my girls might be doing this to me when I got to hogar. Plus, I had heard that the volunteer before me had not only eggs and water thrown at her, but also the girls pee and cow poop. I was a little nervous to go to hogar that night. When I got to hogar, the girls wouldn’t let me go inside. After dinner they led me into the sala/living room with my eyes closed. When we entered and I opened my eyes I found the hogar all decorated with balloons and there was a big heart-shaped poster signed by all the girls. They sang “Las Mañanitas” again. In the middle of the room was a mound covered by a blanket. When they finished singing they took off the blanket. Underneath was a mountain of presents. I was awestruck. Each one of the girls in my hogar had gotten me a present and wrapped it very nicely. It was like Christmas. All of the gifts were something of the girls that they gave to me. I sat down on the floor and they began handing me gifts. Let’s just say my room is covered in gifts right now. Stuffed animals, bracelets, nail polish, stickers, t-shirt, skirt, charms, toys – my girls went through their own things and picked out something special for me. It was unbelievable. They had to help me bring back all the gifts to my room there were so many. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these stuffed animals!! The girls told me to give them to my kids (or to my sister’s kids) when I have them…haha. Knowing how little these girls have (all of their belongings, clothes, keepsakes, etc. fit in one locker), it really meant a lot to me, as well as it probably did to them. It was a really special and unforgettable night. After hogar I showed off all my goodies to the other volunteers and Markus made a delicious, wonderful cinnamon cake. It was soooo good. Just as Christmas was different for me this year spent on the ranch, so was my birthday, but it is definitely one I will never forget.