Showing Love with Food

In Honduras, “everyone knows how to make nacatamales,” says Ronia Romero, our program director in Tegucigalpa. And the cooking typically starts at four in the morning on Christmas Day!

With an early start, the nacatamales (a mixture of meat, rice, vegetables, and spices, wrapped in corn tortilla dough) will be ready for lunch and for visits with family and friends. 

“It’s our tradition to share the nacatamales,” Ronia explained. “We go to five or six other homes, and we love to try the nacatamales of each home.”

While nacatamales are a well-known recipe in Honduras, every family gives them their own special touch. “When I eat one of my mom’s it always brings back memories of my childhood!” Ronia said.

For her, those memories include going to church, gathering with extended family, and eating. “We’d share our love and eat a lot,” she said. 

Ronia recently shared her recipe with Samaritan Scholars and members of the Buen Samaritano community. She taught them to make nacatamales her way in the new family life center.

“It was heartwarming to see everyone enjoying these delicious nacatamales together, like one big family,” Ronia said. 

That’s what our Samaritan community has become—a big family supporting each other in the journey to rise out of poverty. The families in Buen Samaritano live right next to the city garbage dump. Picking through trash for recyclables at the garbage dump does earn money, but it’s dangerous work in toxic conditions.

“More people than usual are working at the dumpsite right now,” said Ronia, explaining that the parents want money for a special Christmas meal, and to buy clothes for their children. Having new clothes after Christmas is common and something kids in their area look forward to. The parents have also been looking for Christmas ornaments and decorations they find discarded in the dump.

“On Christmas Day it’s a chance to forget about the garbage dump,” said Ronia. Her scholars and their families, “will have an amazing dinner, new clothes, and time together. They love it.”

This is truly a special time of year, Ronia explained, “as they don’t have the opportunity to eat this type of food every day. I love seeing their smiles and their happiness.” 

International Samaritan is a Christ-centered organization built on Catholic Social Teaching. Our mission is to walk hand-in-hand with people who live and work in the garbage dumps of developing nations to help them break out of poverty.

We provide holistic scholarships for students from kindergarten through college, and we’re currently supporting nearly 1,000 scholars in Central America, the Caribbean, and East Africa.

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Ronia Romero, Honduras Program Director

Ronia serves as International Samaritan’s Program Director in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She has a degree in Foreign Languages from the Universidad Autonoma of Honduras. For many years, she has dedicated herself to expanding opportunities for children, adolescents, and adults who work in the Tegucigalpa municipal dump.