De Luto/In Mourning

Backing up to Sunday, May 27 was the ranch’s Día de Visita/Visitor’s Day. It happens three times a year and is a very emotional day for the kids on the ranch. Some kids get really excited and spend a great day with extended family. Others get their hopes up only to be let down by family members not showing up. It brings back many memories for others. It’s the job of the volunteers to take care of the kids who do not have visitors. We plan games, have lots of food and snacks, watch movies, and really try to keep the kids’ spirits up.

Seeing as how it was my last día de visita on the ranch, I went down to the school to hang out with the kids who had visitors and meet family members. My ahijado/godson Julian, who is now an ex-pequeño, came to visit his mother and sisters, along with his cousins, tías/aunts, and abuela/grandmother (he's wearing the blue shirt). I hung out with them for a while. It’s fun to see the similarities and nuances that the family shares. Julian left the ranch in December and is now living in Tegucigalpa working in an electricity taller/workshop.

There is a new family on the ranch, a family of five. One of the girls is in my hogar. I had learned that they arrived to the ranch due to a history of gang involvement and having a family vengeance out on them. For ranch safety reasons I can’t go into detail about the history and such. It was nice to see the family all together for the first time since they arrived on the ranch. Their older siblings, nieces and nephews came to visit. As I approached them to take a family photo, all of them immediately burst into tears. I learned soon after that the oldest son (who was now considered a pequeño) had been shot and killed on a public bus in Tegucigalpa. It seemed that the ranch could not protect this family from the vengeance that was put out against this family. It was a horrible and sad scene to watch.

I was unable to attend the funeral because I headed out to Miami the next day. Soon after I returned from Miami the family was removed and relocated outside of the ranch, for their safety and the ranch’s. As sad as it was, we were all a little relieved when they left because armed men had been attempting to enter (and were successful) the ranch looking for the other family members.

Things like this make me wonder... How much research does the ranch actually do before accepting a family? Are they out to save the world? Are they interested in raising their numbers to receive more governmental aid? What about ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’?