Il giovanissimo gruppo di 18 partecipanti provenienti da tutta Italia, accompagnati da Rachele, Laura e Riccardo è al Rancho Santa Fe, la Casa NPH in Honduras!

 

28 Giugno, visita a Valle De Angeles

Oggi giornata di scoperta dell’Honduras!! Il gruppo è andato a Valle De Angeles, paesino a un paio d’ore dal Rancho Santa Fe e che ha dato i natali a uno dei padri fondatori del paese.

Immerso nel verde, consiste di qualche via, con casette colorate su entrambi i lati dove si alternano negozi di artigianato e ristoranti.

Dopo qualche ora passata a girare liberamente per il paesino, molto sicuro, il gruppo ha pranzato insieme, sperimentando alcuni dei piatti tipici.

Ripartiti e arrivati nella Casa NPH giusto per la cena alle 18.00 e per passare un po’ di tempo con i bambini, sfruttando al massimo gli ultimi giorni!

27 Giugno, pizza per tutto il Rancho, oltre 500 persone!

I ragazzi la mattina sono andati in cucina e mentre alcuni preparavano la massa con l’impastatrice, altri oliavano le teglie e preparavano le pagnotte da lasciare a riposare, un lavoro che ha occupato tutta la mattina.

Il pomeriggio, subito dopo pranzo, il lavoro è ripreso: steso le pagnotte nelle teglie, tagliato il formaggio, il prosciutto e il salame piccante per condire tutte le pizze.

Dopo le infornate tutti nella Cancha (il campo da basket della Casa) per mangiare insieme: pequeños, partecipanti campus, personale NPH.

Poi giochi, chiacchiere, balli. La pizza è sempre un’ottima occasione per fare festa!!

        

 

25th June, los Angeles House and Rancho activities

Today, as last Friday, the group of kids was split in two: who had gone to visit the special needs children of the los Angeles House stayed in the Rancho and vice versa.

The group left for Tegucigalpa first thing in the morning and went to buy groceries, changed dollars and other little necessary mansions. Every time that they do go to the grocery store, they buy something to give a little help in the house: in this case they bought fruit and vegetables for the special needed kids in los Angeles House. The kids then visited the Pasos Pequeños structure, a nursery founded 12 years ago with the purpose of helping single mothers.

This help arrives in different ways: first of all the nursery is open 12 hours per day, this doesn’t happen in other nursery school, neither private or state-owned. Other important helps are meals, in fact breakfast, lunch and a little snack are given to the kids.

This enables mothers to save some money.  

Since the were little, kids are used to well-behave, not to use a bad language, to do homework with our help, to learn to understand that growing up they become an example for the little ones and so they become responsible. The result of these efforts is that mothers have more free time, less costs and worries, mostly they are free from the fear that their kids could start hang out with bad companies. This space is managed by women who have not attended univeristy, but as the tias are model figures who are examples and of guidance for the kids.

And NPH specialists who supervise some phases also manage it. All of this has the purpose of encouraging these mothers to empower themselves. There are a lot of them who graduated or started university while their kids were in kindergarten, becoming great examples for their own children.

After a brief visit to the Suyapa (Matron of Honduras) Church and a quick lunch, the group visited the Casa De Los Angeles where they spent a little time with the kids, hugging them, pushing them on the swing and taking walks with them.

At the end, we had pizza with the girls from the bachillerato, played cards with them and watched some TV!

In the Rancho, instead, the first to wake up were Margherita and Bianca, who, still sleepy, went to the farm in order to milk the cows with the precious help of who’s working here. A fun and new experience!

Eugenia and Maria cooked, instead, under the control of Dona Gloria who has been in charge of the kitchen for over 30 years.

In the kitchen Giacinta, Vittoria and Lorenzo cleaned and cut lots of carrots and broke hundreds (even though seemed like thousands) of eggs for breakfast.

In the afternoon we played games with the kids and after a dinner, based on chocolate pudding and bread an jam, we dedicated on the sweetest activity of “duermame”, it consisted on making the little kids sleep with some caress, hug, and nursery rhymes.

23rd June, first Saturday at Rancho Santa Fe

This morning there were two options for the volunteers: watching the World Cup with the pequeños or taking a walk in the mountains of the Rancho to the cemetery where people who died for diseases or natural causes are buried. In fact, Rancho Santa Fe has a big particularity: House Eva, a house dedicated to people who have physical difficulties or mental diseases, so not really independent. They are the grandparents of the Rancho and it’s normal to have kids around saying hi to them, watching some television with them or just being there with them.

After lunch, all the kids went back to their houses because the hours before the mass are always dedicated to prepare themselves, showering and putting perfume on, styling the hair in wonderful braids or ponytails, choosing and preparing their clothes with care.

Also the Italian guys cleaned themselves, but before the mass we celebrated Jorge’s 15 birthday, a participant to the Campus, with an enormous and beautiful chocolate cake that was quickly devoured.

The service was, as always, touching and moving. The songs are rhythmic, happy and cheering, sung by everyone. These masses are particular also because during communion, the queue is formed also by little kids , who the priest blesses by putting a hand on their heads. A very touching and beautiful moment.

22nd June, visit to the Los Angeles House.

The work at the Rancho continues.

Today we divided in two groups: one went to Tegucigalpa with Laura and Riccardo, to meet the kids with disabilities who live in Angeles House, the other one remained in Rancho with Rachele.

In the los Angeles House Costanza, Eugenia, Margherita, Giacinta, Maria, Vittoria e Licia have been welcomed by Mateo, French volunteer, that after making them sit on the grass, explained how this happy oasis welcomes kids and children serious handicaps, often both physics and mental… the eldest ones are 31 years old and the youngest 13, all helped with love by tias, volunteers, cooks and the marvelous Kenia, House director.

After playing soccer with the kids, our volunteers helped them to eat with much care and love.

After lunch the group moved in the little houses near the bachillerato, where the oldest girls stay, the ones who decided to continue the studies after getting out the Rancho and before university. The guys participated in math lessons and in the hangman game, which was very tough since it was in Spanish.

In the evening they organized lots of different activities, divided kids in groups mixed by genres and age. All accompanied by loud music… it’s always Saturday night!!

Here’s the statement of Giacinta, 14 years old, the youngest participant of the Campus:

“I chose to participate to this campus with Francesca Rava Foundation because I wanted to do something different, I was tired doing the same sport campus or language courses over and over. I got the opportunity to know this Foundation from a friend of mine and I talked to my parents. At first they were sceptics, mostly my father because he sustained I was too little (that is true, because I’m the youngest one) and I wasn’t ready, but in the end my mum succeed in convincing him.

During the journey from the airport to Rancho Santa Fe,  I was looking around and I’ve noticed that I was in a totally different place than I had expected.

During playing moments with the kids here in the Rancho I’ve understood that they are happy with just a simple balloon.

Today we’ve been at the los Angeles House, where little kids and teenagers welcomed here have heavy handicaps. I expected just kids in wheelchairs, it wasn’t like that instead; at first I was a little bit by myself because I was a new entry and I wasn’t really prepared but then I opened myself to others and I started playing with them.

In conclusion, I love the reality which I’m living in and it is also a way to detach yourself from your routine.”

Instead at the Rancho the first waking up are Sonja, Giulia (Manzoni) and Lavinia. They went to the farm for the milking and later that day they came back to help in other works in the farm.

Valeria and Giulia (Maggi) went to make cheese; they had such a good time! In the kitchen instead there were Jorge, Beatrice, Francesco and Diletta. They cleaned, cut the plane trees, peeled onions and then rushed back to help in the room where the cheese is produced. It was very funny and educational for everybody!

In the afternoon we played with the kids, both in the house and outside, hit by a downpour.

During the evening we all reunited in the kitchen and shared impressions, thoughts and emotions. It is a very important part of the day, it enriched us and left new things to think about.

21ST JUNE- VISIT TO THE COMEDOR INFANTIL IN TALANGA

Today the kids went to their first programmed excursion: a visit to the Comedor Intantil of Talanga, a really poor community that is located 30 minutes away from the Rancho Santa Fè by car. Lots of its inhabitants aren’t educated, and there’s a high level of school abandoning.

Here, parents don’t understand the utility purpose of education because they didn’t study. And so their kids think that too. In Honduras there is a law establishing mandatory education until the last year of high school. Unfortunately, there’s no control and nothing is ever done if a kid stops attending school.

So, a local association decided to open this space for children and teenagers, where they can do homework and activities. While they are there, they receive lunch and a snack, so that families have a good reason to send them to school. In order to stay in the association, kids must be promoted each year. This assures the maximum effort in studies by students. After 8 years from the opening, we start seeing the first diplomas, which encouraged the women working on the program.

NPH sustains them with the purpose of helping the surrounding communities to improve and develop themselves to obtain better possibilities. With the same spirit they welcome the communities to the clinic for free. For this reason, the group has gone to the supermarket to do some grocery for them. Then we went to the Comedor, they played and had lunch with the kids, looked up their workbook trying to motivate them and talked with these incredible women.

NPH helps them also in other ways. For example, today came the one-year volunteer for the project “chicas poderosas” (a project based on female empowerment present in all the NPH Houses that has the purpose of helping girls to love themselves and to choose themselves early maternity). A couple of days each month, this volunteer talks to the young ladies of the community to help them, as she does with the ones in the Rancho. The example given by the campus women to the girls of the community is fundamental: piers who want to become doctors, teachers, lawyers, psychologists and much more.

Then we headed back to the Rancho for more fun, this time with the children welcomed here.

20TH JUNE- WORKS START

Today the group started working in the workstation side by side with the employees.

They were divided in smaller groups, at 6 a.m. the first group left in order to help milking the cows, which produce the milk consumed in the house as well as different types of cheese, always consumed in the Rancho.

Others cleaned the animal’s cages, laid fresh sawdust, emptied wheelbarrows of manure used as a fertilizer, washed piglets and fed the cows. Others helped in the kitchen.

   

There are more than a hundred cows, bulls and calves, which require the hard work of may people.

Giulia and Lorenzo together with Doña Gloria have learned how to prepare a tortilla cooked on a hot cooking plate. The only suggestion Gloria gave was: “hacerlo con amore”, meaning “do it with love”.

To conclude, there were other kids working in the greenhouse, they teared down with attention the structure sustaining the tomatoes plants just raised, preparing a new sowing.

After a well-deserved lunch the group received a visit from Reinhart, who, more than 30 years ago, co-founded NPH Honduras together with Father Wasson. Today he is the International Director of N.P.H. He answered questions and curiosities, shared the story of why he decided to open this house: the Rancho was born from the desire of Father Wasson to welcome refugees, orphan kids from the civil war which took place in more than a country in Central America (he then opened the NPH houses there).

…and finally in the afternoon we played and ran with the pequeños!

HONDURAS: RANCHO SANTA FE

The group of 18 young volunteers coming from all over Italy, accompanied by Rachele, Laura and Riccardo, arrived in the Rancho Santa Fe, the NPH House in Honduras!

The first day is dedicated to get to know the Rancho, with more than 500 pequeños are welcomed, it is one of the biggest NPH structure in vastness of the surface, including a wide forest which stretches between two mountains. Robert, the visitor coordinator of the House, was the chaperone of the group.

The visit started from Suyapa House and Mother Teresa House, where little kids between ages 0-8/9 are welcomed. To follow, the group visited the tortilleria, where they were welcomed by  Doña Gloria, a really nice and kind lady who cooked more than 8 million tortillas in the last 30 years. There is a plaque in the kitchen nearby to honor her work throughout the years.

Robert explained to the group that workers in the kitchen have a job of full dedication, they work from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m., cooking three meals per day for about 600 persons during the week, and 400 during the weekend.

The tour continued to the Talita Kumi House, where the girls live, from last year divided by different age groups. Today the houses have been restyled from the inside: every house has different rooms, where the girls of different ages sleep as it happens normally with siblings in families. They have a living room and a dining room, each one has a refrigerator and a television, in order to make them as similar as possible to our houses. It’s a big privilege that NPH offers to the kids, considering the reality that lots of families are living in this country.

The group then visited the new clinic opened to cure kids of the house, while the existing one will be soon dedicated to the inhabitants of surrounding villages, in order to give sanitary assistance to people who can’t afford it. Only last year more than 1000 surgeries took place in this structure.

In the same area where the clinic is built there is also a pharmacy and other operating offices.

The participants of the Campus then went to the cultivated camps, greenhouses and to the church. They then went on to visit Buen Pastor, the area where the boys live, divided in the same way as the girls.

Next, they visited the volunteer’s house and the residences of some of the people who work in the Rancho, the new center for medical congress, where surgeons who present lectures in order to form new doctors as well as lending their skills in surgery are welcomed. They then moved on to the professional laboratories where the kids can learn carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking and electrician trademark. They also visited a beauty salon for future hairdressers and beauticians.

At the end they went to the farm and the sickbay, where the new arrivals in the NPH family are welcomed, as a first step a complete check-up is done in order to know possible diseases, they verify the physical state and in general try to know the medical history of the kids, there is also a fun water hole in which the children often play during hot days.

Tired but with clear ideas, the group had lunch with the students of the labs and it was an occasion to start to get to know the older boys and girls… and immediately there were kids who started to make ponytails to each other or manicure in the beauty salon, some were playing soccer and others started playing with little kids, who in the meantime came back from school!

To conclude the day the kids had dinner with the little children of the Suyapa House (the older ones were busy having exams) and then they shared some thoughts about the Campus.