Mothers’ Day is celebrated in the month of May in many countries: in the Netherlands on the second Sunday, in Ecuador on the 10th of May, in Nicaragua on the 30th. In Nicaragua Mothers’ Day is regarded so highly that it often becomes a Public Holiday, as it did this year!
For our home care assistants it means that only one of them can take a day off to ensure that the home can continue running with some sense of normality. The others will take their ‘day off’ on another day.
All primary schools organized meetings to celebrate Mothers Day. Only a few mothers won’t have received a gift from their children. All shops big and small were advertising something special to surprise mothers. The colour red, which expresses mother’s love, was a favourite: red cushions, red mugs, red towels etc. It really seems as if Mothers’ Day is more important than the celebration of a birthday!
Of course our Foundation couldn’t escape this celebration, even if we had wanted to. And we did indeed celebrate on three different occasions. After the Ruach Board meeting we had a cosy get-together with cake and a soft drink.
On 31st of May we celebrated Mothers’ Day with all Ruach employees, all of whom are women and mothers! We had lunch together. Juana prepared a big pot of special rice and for dessert we had cake as a very rare treat. Marileth, in her capacity as Board member, presented everyone with a small gift (a big mug with content) which was much appreciated by all (see 1st picture).
On 30th May we organized a party for the mothers of the participants 
of the activities club which also included other members of the family who act as ‘mother’: Rusby is looked after by her brother, and Raymundo by his sister. Besides giving the ‘mothers’ the appreciation they deserve, we as Ruach also wanted to stress the importance of our mutual connection. At the end of the party the participants of the activities club gave a self-made drawing to their carer (see 2nd picture).
And to make use of the opportunity of it being a big gathering we drew the lots of our last rifa (see previous blog) and announced the winner. In spite of a large number of entries into this rifa, the lucky winner was a mother of one of our participants of the activities club. Her Mothers’ Day ended on a high!