The past September 15th, Guaruma and the community of Las Mangas celebrated the 188th anniversary of the Independence of Honduras with several activities taking place for that occasion.
On September 12th, the first activity was a bag race that took place in Las Mangas’ soccer field and with 3 different categories: kids, women and men. The winners were: Julio Medina (kids), Berlin Alexander (men) and Karla Lobo (women).
On Monday September 14th, a moto and bike race took place in the community, leaving from Las Mangas bridge up to the soccer field. Later at night, the community gathered in the soccer field to watch in a giant screen a Mexican movie called “Por Mis Pistolas” from director Mario Moreno Cantinflas.
On Tuesday, the 15th of September, Independence Day started with a bike race. Out of the five contestants in the men’s category, the winner was Ever López. For the women’s category, Allison Smoak won over her sole rival Karla Lobo. Then a soccer game took place for the below 17 years old youngters from the communities of Las Mangas, El Pital and El Naranjo. The community of El Pital won the tournament, second was El Naranjo and Las Mangas was third.
The same day in the afternoon, Ulises Soriano, Ophélie Cros, María Lobo y Orlin Murillo had the duty to decorate the car that would later serve as the rig for the parade. Thank you to Lorenzo Smoak who kindly let us use his car for that event.
After so much preparation came the parade, which started with the youngsters wearing Honduras traditional clothes and with a torch parade full of different colours. In the rig were Katherine Michelle (Beauty Queen of Las Mangas), Katherine Lobo (Girl of Independence), Estefany Martinez (Girl of Independence from Kinder), and Nicole (India Bonita). The parade stopped at Guaruma’s so that people could come to the final ceremony. The ceremony started with the trophies given to the various activities contestants, then with some singing and traditional Honduran dances. For the few non-Honduran attendees, it was interesting to discover an important part of Honduras’ culture.
The ceremony turned into a party that went on until late at night with music, dancing and a very good time for everybody. We were all very happy to be part of such an event that we won’t forget anytime soon!
Thank you to everybody for their help, support and contributions to make this event such a success and we hope to do even better next year
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