Adios Honduras!

After spending 2 months in the orphanage, I'm surprised I haven't decided to bring home 45 kids with me.  I definitely wanted to shove them in my bags, but figured if I brought them back, they would probably miss their beans and tortillas.

I wouldn't say that my working out there was the best, but it was definitely entertaining.  I had no choice but to run on the long driveway there, so of course all the kids always wanted to join me.  There were times I would be running holding hands with two kids on each side of me, one kid in front of me, and one kid pulling on my shirt behind me.  I finally had to tell the little 4 year old with asthma he needed to take a rest before I needed to find his inhaler for him.

My running partner for the day..Kimberly :)

Little 4yr old Darwin taking his asthma meds

 Every time I walked into the dining hall for a meal, all of the kids at the little kid table would shout for me, and would want a high five, a kiss, a hug, or something.  I'll be honest, I kind of felt like a celebrity. Which was great, because for the three meals everyday, I felt like I was super famous or something.  :)

Little kid table

One of the last Saturdays I was there, 36 of the kids got baptized.  The dining hall had soon turned into the church and 2 hours later all the kids were baptized.  They were SOOOOO dressed up.  One of the girls had on such a snazzy dress I thought it was her wedding day.  Needless to say, the kids were so excited and couldn't stop smiling.  Afterwards I went to the real church with the teacher who needed to pay for the baptism.  I was a little confused about why they needed to pay to have the kids baptized...found out later they didn't NEED to pay, but were making an offering and sending money to the Pope.  I was told that since the Pope helps the poor, the poor people of Honduras are paying him back for his kindness towards them. Ironic hey?

ummmm....wedding day?

The 4yr olds during their baptism

All the kids dressed up for their big day

One of my last nights there I was invited to spend a night at one of the teacher's houses with three of the girls.  We got to her house and instantly took off to go walk somewhere.  Of course I had no clue what we were doing or where we were going.  I quickly found out once we landed on a person's front porch with about 20 other people that I was now part of a group of people singing Christmas carols.  Or so I thought...turns out we were partaking in a posada.  This was the same night I shared a bed with a 7 year old orphan...I have never been with someone so excited to have a sleepover.  Needless to say, she was up at 5am too excited to sleep. :)

A night at the teacher's house

The last week I was there, I set up a little store for all the kids to come in and do some shopping.  I'm pretty sure this was the first time a lot of them actually got to pick out their own clothes so it wuz funny to see how long it took some of them.

Jose doing some shopping :)

My favorites :)

Anywho, it feels great to be back here in the States....although I already miss the beans, tortillas, and cockroaches.  :)

Until next time Honduras...

Just Hangin Around

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes the days here at the orphanage do get a bit long.  BUT, there is NEVER a dull moment.  For the first weeks I was here, my room didn't have curtains, so every morning at 5:30 the kids were looking in my room, shouting for me to get up.  I may or may not have pretended to hear them.  :)  There are of course other great things about my room which I'm sure ur wondering about.  I  ran into a cockroach in my shower the other morning....although I guess I didn't mind considering I would choose him over a tarantula any day. He must have thought we were friends bcuz he later decided to pop out of the drain while I was brushing my teeth...which scared the shi* out of me.  And of course my favorite was when he woke me up in the middle of the night and decided he wanted to share my pillow.  We shared some words and I haven't seen him since.

Oh and itz official, I have lice.  After itching my head for who knows how long, I finally had them check me for the little bugs.  I'll just leave it at..... it wasn't good.  Hopefully I don't bring them home with me....I wonder if they allow lice through customs at the airport?  :)

My $2 lice shampoo...yep pretty sure this will NOT do the trick

My BFF wanted to paint my nails the other day and ended up getting the nail polish all over the floor.  I told her to go get some toilet paper or something to clean it up.  She came back with a leaf.  I guess that works too.  :)

Kimberly letting me know a leaf works just as well :)

At night after dinner, the kids are able to play around for an hour or so...and this is usually when they are most hyper.  A few nights ago I was wondering where all the kids were....turns out.they were playing dodgeball.... with sandals!  The oldest kid was whipping the sandals at the youngest kids...but they seemed to all like it?

The kids lined up waiting to "dodge" the sandals

Everyday after school the kids are put into a room for 3 hours to do their homework.  And by this I mean they do SOME homework, do each other's hair, fight over pencils and erasers, color, take naps, play jacks, fight, clean, and of course play soccer.

Maybe doing homework

Clearly Not doing homework....

The other night one of the lady's rented a bus for all of us to go to San Pedro Sula so all the kids could see the Xmas lights.  It was pretty cute because all of the kids were sooooooo dressed up, wearing jeans, nice shoes and even some collared shirts.  I could tell they all felt pretty cool.  Long story short, we never made it to see the Xmas lights.  There was an accident and the traffic was absolutely ridiculous. 

All lined up for the bus :)

Ericka and Pepe

  What should have been a total drive of an hour turned into 3.5 hours.  So 3.5 hours later, we saw some lights on the side of the road which the kids did love, had a ton of thirsty kids begging for water and 3.5 hours of Spanish music videos. At least we tried though right?

The last Saturday in November the older kids had an end of year ceremony at their high school.  It was really well put together and one of our girls received an award for her grades.  She was super nervous and excited... so I'm glad I could be there to give her a hard time about being a lil study bug. 

Chao!!  

Graciella, Pepe, Ericka

 

Thanksgiving!

So it looks as though I seem to have writer's block these past few days...which is probably due to the fact that I started writing this on a Friday night and I haven't had a beer in who knows how long.
Anyways!  While Tiff was here, we were also able to go to a nearby village and hand out some of the other items we were able to bring.  We were lucky enough to do some door to door deliveries on our own...which reminded me of my pizza delivery days....although I felt a lil bit safer here in the villages.  :) 

The most patient kids ever

 
Again, a huge thank you to Melody of Life for their generous donation to Copprome.  The kids were ecstatic and loved the t-shirts...even if some of them were a lil too big for their tiny little bodies :)

Harry pretending to be a ghost :)

Los ninos

Although they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, they sure did this year! Thank you to my parents who were able to give the kids an amazing Thanksgiving dinner.  We picked up some KFC for them and they went nuts when they found out what we were having for dinner.  I also made them all go around the table and say what they were grateful for....which was not only the cutest thing ever, it wuz also the slowest thing ever.  :)   I only heard one kid say they were thankful for me, not sure what's up with that but I guess I'll take it :)
 

Never thought I would be so happy to have KFC for Thanksgiving :)

 

Thanksgiving art project :)

I think they're getting hungry

These past few weeks have entailed a lot of nail painting, bingo games, and possums.  The other night, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but at one point there were two kids giving me a pedicure and one girl giving me a manicure.  I seriously felt like I was at a spa...except for the fact that there were 15 kids running around screaming my name, it was about 90 degrees, and my head wuz itching bcuz i think i might have lice ....but hey a free manicure and pedicure?  I'll take it. :)

The other free, not so hot item, was a possum that we found in the boy's bathroom!  Long story short, it wuz super creepy and that poor little thing didn't last too long.  RIP little guy. 

 I finally brought out a Halloween bingo game for the kids, and of course (since I'm so popular) they wanted me to play and call out the cards.  Which I was more than happy to do until I realized I didn't know what any of the pictures were in Spanish.  Needless to say, after 3 hours of standing up calling out bingo cards, I now know. :)                            

Longest bingo game of my life

 Not sure what this says about my relationships here, but my BFF here is a 5 year old. :)
She doesn't speak English, repaints my nails EVERYDAY, and sneaks into my room when I'm not looking, but she's my little shadow and I love it.  :)

Me and Kimberly

Island Time

After 3 weeks in the orphanage, a visit from my sister could not have come at a better time.  Which means, time to check out the country and island life!  Our first destination was to the little town of Copan.  Copan is only 5 miles away from the border of Guatemala...so obviously we decided we wanted to take a nice lil jog 2 the border.  However, considering we were told that the road leading up to it was part of the drug cartel, we decided against it.  We decided to check out the Copan Ruinas instead....don't worry.  :)
Tiffany of course, being the little sweet talker that she is, somehow snagged us a tour guide for free.  Normally a guide would cost $25 per group....since there were only two of us and the other groups didn't even seem to be speaking English or Spanish....we decided to just go tour the ruins on r own.  Long story short, we kindly stole another group's guide after they had begun their tour.  It all happened so fast, it's kind of a blur now.  :)

Us at the top celebrating r climb AND free guide :)

Our friends in Copan from the States and El Salvador

It was hard to leave Copan after only a few days because we met some pretty awesome people.  But after 2 buses, a ferry, 2 taxis, and 13 hours later, we finally arrive on the island of Roatan in the Bay of Islands.  The journey was most definitely worth it though bcuz this island was freaking beautiful.

One of the first days we were there, Tiffany found a huge deck that she could dive off.   Of course she was doing crazy dives, flips, handstands and all that jazz...I on the other hand didn't look so cool with just a plain jump.  But to each their own, right? On r water taxi ride back to r beach, the guys decided to let us fish.....for free!  I think they were sick of asking us if we wanted to pay for a fishing excursion, and us always rejecting, so they decided to just let us fish anyways.  Unfortunately we didn't catch anything...we had a few bites that we may or may not have lost for the guys...but still, it wuz pretty sweet considering we were in the middle of the ocean during an awesome sunset.  Lucky us :)

Pretty sure our friend here was quite nervous

Our fishing poles that were 2 big 4 our bodies

 

The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, one of the world's largest reef systems, lies right here off the coast of Honduras.  We were able to do a ton of snorkeling and it wuz pretty darn cool. We also took out some kayaks to check out the sunset from out on the ocean.   An added bonus, the kayaks had glass bottoms....so needless to say, it wuz a pretty sweet night.

Tiffany with our friend Christian

Some more of our friends from the island

 
     Coming back 2 the orphanage felt great after being gone for awhile.  To sum up our time with the kids while Tiff was here...it was great, chaotic, hectic, and awesome to have someone else to talk English with.

We helped to make tortillas for dinner one night...not saying we were good at it, and the girls were able to do about 4 tortillas to our 1...but still, we helped.  :)

Teaching English here is a pretty much enter at ur own risk activity.  One minute the kids can be all for it and super excited...and the next minute you turn around and they're gone...along with your water bottle.  One of the first nights Tiff was here she managed to keep their attention for quite awhile.  I'm guessing it was because of the great classroom and materials she had.

Teacher Tiff

One of the last nights, Tiff brought out her materials to make friendship bracelets.  Not thinking much of it, we had NO CLUE how absolutely crazy these kids were about to get.  It was definitely an adventure to try and help 20 of them all at the same time make a bracelet.  And even harder bcuz I had never even made one myself. :)

While I'm holding 2 bracelets for the kids, please note kid in the green....Yeh we're not sure either :)

After an awesome time, Tiff gets a pretty amazing goodbye from all the kids. :)

Find Waldo....I mean Tiff

Hasta Luego!!!!

Mas Pueblos

So I have finally figured out which kids to sit by during meals....The little ones that can't eat everything on their plate and then give it to me....my new best friends. :) Luckily I love eating rice, beans, and tortillas because again, that is seriously all they eat here.  Even one of the drinks they serve is rice blended with water and sugar.  Although the other day for breakfast we did have some type of corn flakes and fruit loops in HOT milk....and if ur wondering, yes, i now know what barf tastes like.  Needless to say, my skittle that I have for dessert every night never seems to disappoint.  Thank you Sarah Mans.  :)
Anywho! Another group of women came down to help at some more of the nearby villages.  Lucky for me, they let me join.  :)  We were able to take rice, beans, salt, soap, sandals, and clothes to 30 families in the village of Mt.Olive.

Anne Marie and I packing rice and beans

The families from the village of Mt.Olive were very grateful for everything.... AND they were most definitely in need of anything and everything we had for them.

I decided this girl would want another all pink outfit :)

   One of the last little kids I saw was this tiny lil naked boy.  He was probably about 3 years old and ended up fitting into clothes that were for 18 month old babies.

Little naked boy :)

When I wuz helping him get dressed, I thought I wuz dressing a toothpick he was so little!

Little naked boy with clothes on  :)

Some of the villagers and us from Mt.Olive

 The following day we took some of the kids from the orphanage up to to their home villages to see their families.  I was told it would be about 6 hour roundtrip drive.  I figured not too bad, so decided to go.  I should have realized they were telling me in Honduran time...because 11.5 hours later we finally arrived back home. I  also later found out that for one of the kids they don't even know where his real family is.  The village we went to visit was where his friends live, but he refers to them as his family.  Although spending almost 12 hours in the car was not really what I had in mind, seeing the kids with their families wuz definitely worth it.  :)

Reina hanging with her little sister she never gets to see

I also found out an organization called Soles4Souls (an organization that distributes shoes to poor countries) was actually going to be in El, Progresso while I was here.  I went to a shoe donation with them at a home for boys who are taken right from the streets.  We did a lot of shoe fittings for the guys and a lot of the shoes were actually pretty sweet. Nikes, New Balances, Toms, and Tony Hawks.  However, if the guys didn't like the style of the shoe they were trying on, they would say it didn't fit.  We didn't have enough shoes or sizes for them to picky so pretty sure I was telling this guy if he doesn't like the style and it fits, tough luck buddy.

Shoe fittings with Soles for Souls

And now......vacation time!  Time to check out this lovely lil country of Honduras...  :)

Village Time

Since I still cannot understand everything (let alone much) in Spanish, I of course had no clue where I was going when Sister Teresita and a van of 5 women picked me up for the day. Luckily for me, the 5 ladies spoke English so I could finally have a real conversation!  I soon found out we were going to a small, poor, villages to set up a free health clinics for the communities.  Over 6 days, we were able to help out 4 different villages, 505 patients, and filled 1550 prescriptions.
Below is a pic of one of the villages we went to up in the mountains...they were able to host us in their school.  Here is the "line" of people waiting to see the doctor.  :)

The people who live in these villages are amazing.  They LITERALLY waited all day for their turn to see the doctor.  The majority of them were there from before 8am until sometimes after 4:00. They never complained and were only full of smiles. Of course, all the kids tried to get all the suckers, hats, and stuffed animals out of us that they could.  And of course some people were ALL OF SUDDEN really sick....but that's to be expected right?  I guess if I had a doctor's appointment at 8am and wasn't able to be seen until 4:00, pretty sure I would say everything was wrong with me too. :)  Below is a pic of our oldest client....93 and counting!  And below...just another cute lil old man who waited around 4EVER very patiently. :)

At the first village, we were able to give out toothbrushes.  Unfortunately, we only had enough for the this village, but these kids LOVED them.  Though it looks like they may have loved the empty pill bottles that they would use as water bottles even more.

 One of my favorite lil guys....

 Some of the kids...and yes, I had to teach them the peace sign!  The kid in the front gave me the peace sign all the way to the car...hes obviously going to be a Honduran hippie when he gets older. :)

I'm extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to work with these 5 lovely ladies from Connecticut.  They brought down all of the supplies, volunteered their time and were the ones who made this all possible..... of course along with Sister Teresita...aka the Mother Teresa of Honduras :)

Until next time...chao!!