The dry season brings frequent fires, which on the Ranch’s largely undeveloped 2000 acres can quickly become unruly. Mostly the older boys track down and put out blazes, some with a crazed, fanatical exuberance, but depending on the severity everyone can be involved, including soldiers from the nearby military base in La Venta. My first encounter with fires was of special personal significance as my house almost burned down. When the flames jumped over the dirt road and onto the grass not 50 yards from where I live, I renewed my efforts to keep back the burning onslaught with green branches, some water, whatever my roommate and I could find. With extra help we eventually won the battle, and our house in the Hortaliza survived. In other forest fire news, an unrelated blaze later in the week came within about 10 feet of the surgery center, almost destroying my entire year’s worth of work. We’ll see what May brings.
The ranch celebrated Holy Week with much fanfare, highlighted by separate camping trips for the boys and girls. Along with other Buen Pastor volunteers I accompanied the boys over Palm Sunday weekend to Rio Grande, where we spent two days camped in tents outside an old school building without running water. We went swimming in the nearby river, made campfires, and the kids took a break from their strictly regimented schedule. Some made their own little tents with sticks, trees, and blankets and slept under the stars. In the afternoon on Saturday, the volunteers and Tio’s took on a group of townsfolk in a pickup soccer game, noteworthy because nobody died from heat exhaustion as we ran around in million degree weather, while smoke from nearby uncontrolled blazes burned our lungs. But overall camping was one of the best times I’ve had with the kids.
The rest of the week revolved around masses and religious celebrations of increasing duration and complexity. This culminated in a midday Saturday Stations of the Cross Bataan Death March, after which the shirtless Pequeño fixed to a cross and acting as Jesus really did look like he was dying. But the kicker was a 4am “Sunrise Mass” on Easter Sunday, where we assembled for a candlelight procession into the church and lengthy celebration during which it gradually became morning and various children gradually dosed back off to sleep. The church actually looked pretty cool, but whether it was worth a 330AM wakeup call could be debated. All in all, the planning and choreography of all the week’s events was rather spectacular. The ministry team, headed by three energetic, Honduran laymen, each of whom enthusiastically strums a poorly tuned guitar while singing with varying ability during the mass, was in top form. I don’t think they slept the whole week.
In any case, the Ranch has now returned to some degree of normalcy, weather aside, and its back to business as usual. This past weekend was the semi-annual volunteer retreat, a very relaxing time at Lago de Yajoa. My work is progressing unremarkably, as we look to a May visit by Dr. Daly, and I’ve began thinking a bit about my fast approaching August departure. Until next time…
The kids were all pretty exhausted on the bus ride back from camping. Also a view of the river where we swam.
