Mack & Victor's Honduras Trip Part 7

CI Day, Part 7 – Lunch at the Mall Food Court:

With all the kids and moms finally gathered, our caravan headed for the Megaplaza mall in El Progresso. As we went inside, Victor was holding the hands of his two small boys, so somebody (I think one of the CI reps) decided that I should be holding hands with my own two. I'm sure that my teenager and near-teenager felt a little silly walking like this, but they were amiable enough about the idea. Connor took a picture of us, but it came out blurry since he never holds still while he uses a camera. He learned about photography on the run from the Jim Carey movie "Yes Man".
I felt a little self-conscious myself about the hand-holding, so I was glad when we quickly arrived at the food court. It seemed the ideal place for lunch, since we had so many people who may want to eat different things. However (and with no prompting from me), the kids unanimously chose Pizza Hut - the company I work for.
Victor and I ordered "meal deals" of large pizzas + two liter bottles of pop, which were surprisingly cheap. We all sat down at a table to wait for the food to come, which gave me an opportunity to try out my Spanish skills while asking Jon and Wilson a few questions about themselves. Apparently, I suck at the language, and all I got out of them were shrugs and embarrassed smiles. I resorted to using the translator, but the boys still treated my inquiries as a potentially hostile interrogation. Victor was having a much easier time of things, and was probably thinking up better questions to ask, but I'll let him tell you more about that!
The pizzas came, and everyone dove in with enthusiasm … except me, of course, since I don't much like Pizza Hut food anymore … I was pining for those tamales that were spoiling out in the van. I don't know how often these kids had an opportunity to eat pizza, but they really seemed to love the stuff. Watching them eat reminded me of how my young friends in Pakistan always begged me to take them to Pizza Hut - which was the height of fine dining in Karachi at the time. Once we were there, my Pakistani guests were disappointed and only picked politely at their food. If your culture is not one that customarily consumes cheese, the stringy substance can be a very strange and icky thing to chew on! Apparently, Hondurans eat enough cheese so as not to find it 'weird'.
When we finished all the food, I ran back to the booth and got crazy paper hats for all the kids to put on so we could take pictures in front of the restaurant (I collect Pizza Hut photos from different countries). Looking back through our photos, I see that Carlos took his hat off right away, Axel had his off and on, but Jon and Wilson kept their silly hats on for the rest of the day. I wonder … did the boys think I wanted them to wear the hats, so were indulging me? Did they forget they even had them on? Or were the flimsy mementos of their lunch actually special to these kids who have so little of their own?
Victor's Thoughts: I had said that I wanted to take the kids shopping; I am assuming that the CI people took us to this nice mall because it's not the sort of place these kids would ordinarily get to shop in. As Mack has said, it wasn't the cheapest place in the world, but I think they just wanted the experience rather than a bunch more stuff. As the boys were walking in, Axel, in particular, was staring into the various store windows fascinated.
I was ready for the kids to eat wherever they wanted at the food court and expected to have to hop from place to place paying, but I think the CI reps and the Mums realized it would make sense to all eat at the same place and pizza was a popular choice. I had my two kids on either side of me and a translator directly opposite, so it was very easy to talk to them and they were quite comfortable. To me the key was to take it slow; rather than an endless stream of questions, just ask one every so often and talk to the translators a lot. They had lots of useful information.
After lunch, well, I'll do any number of goofy things, but putting on those Pizza Hut hats was not one of them. I would have had to have taken off my glasses and I'm as blind as a bat without them!