“Rosado!” one little boy said in an exasperated tone when I handed him a pink balloon to blow up.

Silly me. No 10-year-old boy, not even a Honduran boy, likes girly colors. I gave him a green one instead.

The wind began to snatch away our freshly blow balloons, so the teacher showed us into an empty schoolroom. The ruckus grew louder as more children joined in our balloon game. In a mess of jumping bodies, we batted four balloons in the air.

The boys were playing too roughly for the girls, so I joined them on the side, and we daintily passed our own balloon back and forth.

The biggest laughs came when balloons were swept into the barred window and loudly popped on a sharp edge. We didn’t mind when a balloon had popped. There were more to play with, and the surprise of each “Pop!” gave us all giggling fits.

A balloon is handy when playing Hot Potato. The other thing we had, a large empty room, was useful for playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” ... or “Pato, Pato, Ganzo.”

The 25 children listened carefully as I, through my interpreter, explained the rules for each game. They were smart kids. Helpful, too. If one of them was confused, another child helped me explain how to play.

They didn’t cheat. When one of the boys accidentally ran through the circle instead of around the circle to chase his opponent in Duck, Duck, Goose, the Honduran children all laughed and sent him back to his place.

I didn’t think we would ever tire of laughing at whoever was stuck with the balloon at the end of each Hot Potato round. As the children were eliminated from the game one-by-one, the little girl or boy stuck with the balloon laughed, too, and sat in the middle of the circle with no complaints.

For a while we sat and discussed our favorite colors. One of the boys proudly knew the names of the colors in English. They also told me which of them went to school in that current building and which went to the private school.

As I began to run out of ideas for games and sentences I knew in Spanish, we were called into another room to begin learning about cameras for Jenny’s project. Photography skills weren’t the only thing we learned about, though.

We found out we had more in common than what it first appeared. We all know how to smile, play games and enjoy each other’s company. And we know what is required for a good time: balloons!