In honor of Thanksgiving, I hosted Morazán’s first Turkey Trot! I’ll tell you how this American tradition made its way to Honduras!

Each month I organize a fun, often holiday-themed, community event. Since I’m from Massachusetts, I thought it might be fun to do a recreation of the original Thanksgiving for my November event. But then I realized enough people are trying to cancel Morazán already.

Fortunately, there’s another fun Thanksgiving tradition, Turkey Trots!

Turkey trots are footraces, usually of the long-distance variety, held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The name is derived from the use of turkey as a common centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner.

When I was a kid, my school had a yearly Turkey Trot on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Since many work during Thanksgiving week in Morazán, I thought Sunday would be a better day for our Turkey Trot.

To assess demand, I created a new group for the race and invited people interested in the event to join. Within hours, about 10 people had joined!

Impressively, most of them showed up, despite the midday heat! One great thing about Morazan is we can celebrate Thanksgiving (and every other holiday) in shorts. Once everyone was ready, I explained the categories: man, woman, boy, girl, and pregnant.

I lined everyone up, and let the race begin!

The runners started from the southeast corner of the park facing the industrial area and ran all around Central Park and the four blocks of townhouses to end at the starting point.

I just wanted to congratulate Leila, who now holds the Morazán record for fastest lap time while pregnant! Congratulations.

Below are the winners. No participation trophies. In Morazán, only cash prizes!

Our founder, Massimo Mazzone took notice: “It is beautiful to see how the Honduran residents and foreigners of Ciudad Morazan mix harmoniously and enrich each other by sharing traditions and stories. Nobody is interested in the poisons of politics. First of all, Ciudad Morazán is a community.”