special days in Honduras

Holidays and special days have a different slant in this country, or perhaps these islands.  I have never been overly zealous for Earth Day, but I encourage environmental awareness.  We found this was totally out of place in Helene, along with endangered animals (this would be a story for another day).  Some folks are very conscious about litter/trash disposal and their yards are swept (raked) on a regular basis.  But we do not have a sanitation dept. here, no regular weekly pickups and garbage is burned to get rid of it.  We have talked about Earth Day in school, but it is not a celebrated event.                    May 1st is Honduran Labor Day.  All businesses close for this day, more so than the American Labor Day in the U.S.  This year it falls on a Saturday which would not affect the school schedule, but nevertheless, some students tried to convince us that all schools were to cancel classes on April 26 for Labor Day.                   Cinco de Mayo or the Fifth of May is recognized here, but not necessarily celebrated.  Someone has told us that the U.S. celebrates this day more than even the country of its origin, Mexico.  So far these three days have not taken away a day of class in school.                  But now we come to Mother's Day.  This is by far one of the most important days celebrated in Helene.  Every school has its own festivity around this event.  English school did not do a party because there are so many other ones planned.  But organizing the Mother's Day gift was planned in advance and pre-empted any lessons for an afternoon.  The Spanish school in Bently Bay had their ceremony on Friday morning, the Spanish school Southside planned their party for Friday night.  On Saturday the Church of God Pentecost acknowledged mothers with a special evening service.  And on Sunday afternoon the Methodist Church had "recitations."  The Northside church decided to postpone their celebration for a couple of weeks.  They came to the other events and a good time was had by all.