Day 7 in Honduras

Today we had a very special treat that most groups do not have the opportunity to be a part of.  We drove the hour and a half from Nuevo Paraiso to Tegucigalpa and arrived at Sister Maria Rosa’s house where we are staying until tomorrow morning when we leave for the airport.  Sister’s house has a kind of apartment add-on that allows for her to host guests in case groups like ours need a place to stay.  Our room has air conditioning, and the food is just as great as it was at Nuevo Paraiso.  For about an hour during the morning, seven of us walked the block to the school named after Mae’s aunt Irene Reyes.  The school was started by Sister Maria Rosa and Mae’s aunt Irene, and its purpose is to give young women the opportunity to provide for themselves with trades such as cosmetology or sewing, and they can also learn how to be a secretary.  The girls work six days a week either selling tortillas or water on the road on their own and then attend school on the seventh day, which is their only free time.  The girls can start attending in the seventh grade and graduate after twelfth grade.  We met the seventh graders, and they were really shy; our tour guide told us that’s because most of them have self-confidence issues when they first come to the school.  Everything is free to them if they don’t have the money, but if they do, they pay roughly $20 to cover the costs of snacks and books for the year.  The director of the school is also aware of students’ needs because at the end of the year the students fill out a survey about what they did or did not like so that the school can improve.  The director said such a concept is not commonly used in Honduran schools or businesses.  One improvement they recently made was to not allow babies or children to come to the school with the women because the other students find it distracting.  Of course if there is an emergency, the babies are allowed to come, but on a regular basis, it is not encouraged.  They told us that there are rules, but there are always exceptions to the rules, and they work really hard to make the school accessible to everyone.  They said that if they turn someone away because they don’t have enough money or can’t find someone to watch their kids, they are turning away the girls who need the school the most.  The director said the school is very important because it gives young women who want to improve their lives the opportunity to do so.  After visiting the school, we came back to Sister’s house for lunch and then just hung out until going back to Pedro Attala at four to play with the kids.  Playing with the kids was as fun as ever, but I also knew in my mind that I would have to leave them in a few hours, so I was leery to get too attached.  I spent the first 30 minutes running around with the same little girl Sophia who I loved from our first visit there, but then I had to take a break.  I’ve had a stomach bacteria or something like it for two days, and the effects finally caught up with me.  I spent the next hour and a half relaxing and having a conversation with Laura and a girl named Yoselin.  It was fun because I spoke English to Lauren, and she translated to Yoselin, and when Yoselin spoke in Spanish, Laura translated to English for me.  I got so excited every time I could understand what was being said in Spanish.  At 6:30 the pizza arrived for dinner, and we enjoyed hanging out.  At around 7:30 we said to good bye to the kids and walked back to our living quarters at Sister’s house.  We showered one by one in a shower with cold water and a water supply so small we had to turn the water off each time we put soap on or shampoo in.  I think it made us all aware of how precious natural resources are and how necessary it is to conserve them.  After we all got clean again, we had our final reflection and prayer time.  Throughout the week, we each drew names for guardian angels to watch over and pray for during the seven days of our trip.  Allison had me, and this is the letter she wrote me:

            Katie,

I have enjoyed getting to know you this past week.  I admire how confident and driven you are.  You are great with the kids and I could tell that they loved spending time with you.  It was so cute when the kids at Hogar Paul would ask me for “EsKatie!”  I could tell that you really had an impact on them.  I liked that you spent time talking to the tias, too.  I haven’t really gotten to know any of the tias on my trip and when you told me everything they do for the kids, like spending two hours checking for lice every day, it made me realize how much they do.  It was cool to see how you not only played with the kids, but you also helped out with chores, too.  You worked really hard when we painted the building even though you got stuck with a frustrating and messy job.  I admire how you are able to give so much of your time to serving others.  Your trip to Ireland sounds like it will be a very unique experience.  I think it takes someone who is really brave and who really cares about helping others to do what you are going to do – going abroad on your own to do service.  I hope you enjoy your trip!  Good luck with your senior year, wedding planning and whatever your future brings!  I think it’s amazing you’ve found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and I hope you and Brendan have a very happy marriage. 

            Love, Allison

It made me feel really special to know I had the opportunity to impact Allison the way I did.  Sharing things we’ve noticed throughout the week made everyone in the group feel more apart of things, and afterwards, we each said what we hope to bring back to our lives in the United States.  I hope I bring home a deeper appreciation for the people around me.  I really appreciate people meeting when where I am and letting me be me.  I am looking forward to being home for a little while, but I’m sad to leave my new family here in Honduras.  

Day 6 in Honduras

There have been few things in my life I have found as fulfilling as the educational brigade we had the opportunity to partake in this morning.  After breakfast, we divided the school supplies donated by Plymouth High School and St. Michael’s into 33 different bags, 15 for the girls, 15 for the boys, and three for the teacher.  We loaded everything on to the bus and drove the 20 minutes to Escuela Rural Mixta Amigos por Siempre, which is a school that receives very little to no outside funding or attention.  The kids were busy cleaning up for us when we arrived, so it took them about 15 minutes to run home and change back into their uniforms, but once they were all back, they were excited to perform a few songs for us.  We heard two common Honduran children’s songs and part of the Honduran national anthem.  In turn, we sang (more than slightly off key) our national anthem.  After the singing, we played outside games with them for a couple hours.  We played a game where you have to run from “house” to “house,” and each “house” is two people holding hands.  We also played tag, duck, duck, goose, futbol and jump rope.  Duck, duck, goose was completely new to them, and it was absolutely adorable to watch them try to figure it out.  Throughout most of the game playing, I let a little girl use my camera to take pictures.  Cameras are so foreign to the kids that none of them thought to ask us to see what the picture looked like until we taught them about the playback option on digital cameras.  The most rewarding and special part of the excursion was when we gave the kids the bags full of school supplies.  It is impossible to describe the pure joy that filled me as they opened the bags and realized everything inside was for them.  Most of the kids had never seen a folder and didn’t know what it was for.  The books were by far the biggest hit, and it did not seem to faze any of the kids that the words were all in English.  They instantly started to show one another the pictures in the books and tried to read them aloud.  Both of the teachers spoke English and taught the kids how to tell us thank you in English.  Then, each of the teachers vocalized their appreciation for our gifts.  The older teacher told us that no one ever comes to see them, and it means so much to him that we took the time to visit.  He also added that he looks forward to seeing us again.  The younger teacher, who is only 19, also took us how thankful he is for us and said they will never forget what we did for them. We responded by telling them that they will forever be in our hearts.  I do not think I will ever forget the overwhelming feeling of happiness I felt during that brigade.  After our excursion, we came back to our home base to eat lunch.  The cooks fixed us triple layer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with Oreos and wafer cookies.  Mae added to the craziness by buying us a bag of munchies.  After lunch the majority of the group went to Flor Azul to see the cross the group I came with the first time built and to play futbol with the kids.  I stayed at La Sociedad to squeeze every last minute out of my time with the kids here.  Walking up to the house where Sandra, Samantha and Brandon live, I thought to myself that this will be the last time in quite awhile that I will be able to greet the kids and hug them hello.  I spent the first hour sitting with the tias and watching them pick the lice out of Samantha and Lupe’s hair.  Tia Candy told me it takes them two hours every single day to get the lice out of the kids’ hair because the school has a problem with it.  I don’t think that’s too uncommon in elementary schools; I remember that being a difficultly in sharing coat closes at my elementary school, too.  As the tias combed through the girls’ hair, I talked with Candy about life in the United States versus Honduras and what I’m interested in, she’s interested in, etc.  I felt really proud to be able to speak to her in Spanish.  After awhile, I started to wander around the house.  I stood in the doorway of Samantha’s room and surveyed the place she calls home.  There are four kids to a room, and the place where all the kids keep their stuff is roughly the same size as the drawers one American child uses.  The clothes, like in any room of a six-year-old, are haphazardly on the shelves, and tattered shoes line the floor.  The room, which is only about three fourths of the size of mine at home, has two sets of bunk beds and a few pictures without frames here and there.  Stuffed animals sit on the beds and a few toys are strewn throughout on the floor.  Two other rooms make up the bulk of the house, and there is one bathroom with two toilets and two showers for the 13 children to share.  The living area has two tattered couches and an arm chair that are covered with bed sheets and a TV with a DVD player for the kids to watch the eight DVDS that have been donated.  The kitchen has a rectangular wooden table for the kids to gather around for dinner, and the refrigerator, sink and water basin fill the rest of the room.  Their lives are simple, much simpler than those of most children in the United States.  In my mind I know people will comment on the fact that the children have a TV and a DVD player or a place to call home, but I do not have one friend who shared a room with three other kids growing up, kids that were not even their siblings.  I do not know one family who has only one TV in their house with 13 people watching it.  I do not know any person who only wears donated clothes and shoes with words in another language that mean nothing to them.  Sure, a TV and a DVD are a luxury, but after having been at the house during quiet time when all the kids are winding down for the night, I cannot imagine how the tia would quiet 13 five and six year olds night after night without some sort of common relaxer.  To give Candy a little break and because I was interested in learning, I offered to help her make dinner.  I saw how she makes the tortillas that I love so much.  She poured a bag full of floor into the bowl and added water as she saw necessary.  Since the electricity was out due to last night’s storm, she had to cook outdoors over an open flame.  She tried three make-shift “stoves” before finding one that worked.  She and a tia from another house helped one another to make enough tortillas for the kids.  Sandra and I worked together to hand Candy the doughy tortillas for her to put on the stove.  It took us about 45 minutes, and from there, Candy had to make the bulk of the dinner.  While she cooked, I went with the kids to the fiesta for our last night.  The fiesta had to be earlier than planned because the ice-cream we bought them would have melted without electricity, and the DJ could not come since there was no way for him to work.  I played with the kids for a little while longer and took Samantha with me when Mae went to pass out birthday gifts to the kids who had birthdays during the month of May.  One little girl got a Barbie; another got two shirts and a skirt.  A little boy got a soccer ball; and another got a few clothing items, including underwear and a toy car.  Mae gives them what they need along with a little something special.  One girl, Fanny, was celebrating her quinceañero, or 15th birthday; so she got an extra special gift.  I always love to be a part of birthday celebrations, especially because I absolutely adore birthdays.  I try to make mine last no shorter than a week.  After celebrating, it was time for me to say good bye to the kids.  Hugging Samantha and Sandra for the last time in I don’t know how long, gave me an overwhelming feeling of sadness.  Sandra asked me if I’ll be back to Honduras, and I told her that I hope so.  She whispered that she loved me and started to cry as I walked away.  I turned away from her because tears were streaming down my face.  The relationships I formed during this trip feel much deeper than those of my first one.  The children touched a place in my heart I think only they could reach.  I feel confident that I will return and reunite with them sometime in the future, and when I do, they will be more beautiful and intelligent than I can imagine.  

Day 5 in Honduras

I am sitting in the middle of a tropical storm – OK that might be a tad bit dramatic, but it is definitely a storm, and it is flooding our entire living quarters.  We have turned everything into a water catcher, and everyone is just waiting for the rain and lightning and thunder to die down.  It is so much fun.  Adam, John and Lizzy even decided to play in the downpour.  It was a nice break from the hard work we did today.  After breakfast, our group either laid bricks or sanded and painted a building.  I was in the paint group, and it definitely gave me a new appreciation for painters.  The sanding alone took us nearly an hour, and the next two were spent painting the wall a Grand Canal color.  After lunch we returned to painting, but the task was much more difficult – painting the ceiling.  I was the only main roller because our other rollers had been used painting the wall, and we couldn’t get all the dark blue color out of the rollers.  We painted the ceiling and trim lime green, and my role required me to crane my neck backwards to get all the areas.  By the time I was done two hours later, I was covered in paint.  Despite having a hat on, my face had speckles all over, including the inside of my ears.  I used a towel with paint thinner to get all the paint off, and I took a shower afterwards to get rid of the smell.  My hands still reek of turpentine.  Once the painting portion of my job was done, I worked with another group to sort all the donations we brought along with us.  I loved sorting the books and looking at all the baby clothes.  Clothes are instantly cuter if they’re smaller.  After an hour, we were done, and I went to the Internet café to print off my night activity.  Once that task was complete, I went to play with the kids.  I went to Sandra, Samantha and Brandon’s house and stayed with them until I had to leave for dinner.  We made friendship bracelets, did puzzles and watched Stuart Little.  After dinner, and our discussion about man purses, our group came back to the housing unit to hang out.  We played bananagrams and a few card games before the start of my night reflection, which was interrupted by the tropical storm.  And now we’re all sitting in the dark because the electricity is off, and our whole housing area is flooding.  Everyone is keeping the attitude “there’s nothing we can do about it,” and just enjoying being in Honduras.