Last night in my living room

We had guests last night. Russell's girlfriend, Iris, and her family came over for a visit, to bring us a gift of homemade tamales. I am guessing that tamales are a traditional Mother's Day meal, although I happen to know they are a lot of work to make, and the men are NOT making them for the women. Seems to go against the North American idea of how to celebrate Mother's Day.

I had a fun discussion with Iris' mother, about how we celebrate this holiday - how the mother is not supposed to do any work that day, how she can sleep in later than usual, and be served breakfast in bed. We don't necessarily do all of these things (this year, I did sleep in very late, though), but the main idea seems to be that the mother's contribution is appreciated, and , if she is lucky, the mother gets a day off. In Honduras, the celebration involves a serenade of the mothers at daybreak. This is often done by stationing cars with huge speakers at intervals throughout the city, and then blaring the music from the radio. Hmmm, not my idea of the start to an ideal day.

Iris' family are all musicians. The father is the worship pastor at their church, and all of the family are involved in this. They also play music for other occasions, including having been hired by a number of families to serenade their mothers on Sunday morning. Russell told me, that as my Mother's Day present from him this year, he decided NOT to have me serenaded at dawn. I really liked that present.

So, as I mentioned earlier, last night Iris and her family (that's her father and three brothers in the photo, the camera-shy girl peaking out behind them is Iris, and the seated girl is the girlfriend of one of the brothers) came by bringing a gift of tamales. They also, at my request, played and sang for us. All of the men in the family play several instruments and sing. The two sisters and the mother play no instruments, but all sing. It was the first time I've heard Iris sing alone - she has a very lovely voice.

Oh, do you want to see a better picture of Russell's girlfriend? Well, as I mentioned, she is quite camera shy, but we managed, over the course of the evening to sneak a couple of shots. Here you go:

Oops, no good - she managed to hide her face in that shot. You can see, though what beautiful hair she has!

Okay, here she is, still not looking especially happy about the picture taking, though:



We're having great fun getting to know this family . . . and who knows what the future may hold - someday they may be relatives!