It’s been a while guys. A little over a month since my last post. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Keeping a blog is a pain in the butt sometimes, mostly because I have never been able to keep a journal and though this is obviously less tedious, sometimes I simply just don’t want to do it. So what have I been up to in the last month some of you wonder. Well I’ve been on two vacations. We’ve gotten 3 new kids. We celebrated Semana Santa (or Holy Week) here at the Hogar, we’ve hosted guests from the US generally have had a blast.p>
So first thing is first. Two of my best friends came to visit me in the second week of March. Janine and Caryn arrived on a beautiful sunny Monday (a very hot day, I might add.) They are the first of my friends and family to come and see the Hogar. I was pretty nervous. I know the Hogar is a magical place, but sometimes I can forget just how great it is, or how it appears to visitors. I wasn’t sure if it would be their cup of tea so to say.
Their flight arrived at noon and much like the day we (the volunteers) arrived in Honduras, they got stuck in customs for about 45 minutes. After an hour, I am still standing outside the gate waiting. I get to see what seems like hundreds of families and friends reunite, and the amount of people exiting baggage claim is a trickle at best. When I saw the first person exit from their flight and meet their family, who happened to be right in front of me, it hit me that I was so excited to see these two ladies and that I have missed them, more than I thought. [I have know Caryn since middle school and Janine since freshmen year field hockey. They are two people that I can go months without seeing and just pick up right where I left off with them. I think that’s a telling sign of a good friendship.]
I was passing my time talking to Nahun, one of the Amigos employees who drove me to San Pedro to get them when I finally see two gringas, one with brown hair and the other with orange and blonde, hair, gauges and a few visible tattoos exit baggage claim, there they are! They look a little overwhelmed especially since I am blocked by a huge family in front of me so I push by, saying “permiso” of course and I hug them both. I don’t think they saw me until I already had my arms around them, but once it registered that it was me the hugged back haha. A few minutes later, we were off and on the hour and half long car ride to the Hogar. We talked the whole ride there (poor Nahun) and they got to see San Pedro, and the countryside — most of which is impoverished and I think might have shocked them both a little bit. When we finally got to the Hogar, all the kids were at the gate ready to welcome them in and started clapping when they got out of the car. We hopped out and the little kids flocked to them, asking them what their names were and giving them hugs. For the next few hours, I took the girls on a tour around the property, showed them where they would sleep and they got to meet all the important people in my life at the Hogar (so everyone haha.) We walked up to the cross shortly before dinner to watch the sunset and they both commented on how beautiful this place was. They loved it Amigos de Jesus, finally I felt like I could breath a little easier. Sharing something you love so much and having someone else love it just as much is wonderful.
The following day, they helped me teach my second grade Art class, get a few projects done and then we just got to hang out. In the afternoon, we went to the rio with three of the older boys to go swimming — well Janine went swimming with them haha. It was too cold for me and Caryn. When we got back we played in the soccer game with a bunch of the middle school boys. They got a kick out of us playing. We ate dinner in the comedor and after dinner the oldest boys played a soccer game under the lights so we headed to the futbol field to watch it. And that night they went to prayer circle with us, which they loved (so many hugs afterwards.) After a day and half at theHogar we left to make our way to Copan Ruinas. I hadn’t been there since Spanish school and I was very happy to be back. Copan is a truly beautiful and peaceful town in Honduras. It was nice to not feel so on guard in public and it also made me happy that my Spanish had improved ten-fold since I had left there.
We booked the nicest hotel in town, it had a pool and a nice restaurant and bar and it was luxurious in comparison to all the places I had stayed in the last year outside of the Hogar and my Host families house. (the nicest hotel only costs 120 a night — split by three people, not bad) For the next few days I had AWESOME food, got to walk around town and just relax with the girls. I had themmeet my host mother and to see the Spanish school we studied at. At night we went out for dinner and drinks and were typically in bed by 11. Unfortunately for the girls, the weather was terrible the whole time we were away and there was a protest at the Mayan Ruins so they didn’t see them. But we did get to go to the Agua Thermales — or hot water springs and since it wasn’t hot, the hot water was actually enjoyable.
The springs were beautiful and the hotel arranged our transportation for us. On the way back the road was so crappy from rain that we got stuck for about an hour in what can only be described as wet clay. We got out of the van to try and help push but the second my flip flop hit the ground it suctioned to the road…uh oh and that was comical in and of itself because I couldn’t even make it back to the back of the car or the other side of the road for that matter with my shoes on…so I took them off, which proved to be equally as dangerous. I guess the hotel is lucky that we weren’t snoody guests, because we thought the whole ordeal was pretty funny – a pain in the butt, yes- but funny. Our shoes/feet ended up caked with clay, the drivers were sweaty and clay was caked on their clothes and hands, instead of arriving back in a normal time frame (having left at 9 am) we got back around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. So much for going to the bird park in the afternoon. But even with the transportation part we had fun at the springs and I know I for one, would go back- but probably during better weather. When we got back to the hotel, we were still covered in clay and the desk manager kind of just looked at us like – where is your decency haha but naturally we didn’t care too much. Later that night before we left for dinner he asked me if we had had fun and that the drivers told him what happened. I could tell he was going to apologize but I couldn’t help but laugh which got in the way of apologizing and I think he realized it wasn’t a big deal to us. The next morning at 5:00am we left to catch a bus and made our way back to the Hogar and then continued on our way to San Pedro to drop the Caryn and Janine off at the airport. It was sad to see them go, but they had a blast while here. I was very happy to have been about to share some of my life in Honduras with them!
Going to the Movies:
Holy week is a big deal in Honduras. Most people (those that can afford it, so maybe not most) flock to the beach or lake for the week with their family and by Wednesday nearly everyone in Honduras is on vacation time. At the hogar we set up a pool for the kids outside, had daily activities planned and various camping trips and days. On the first day of Holy Week Amy and Wilson asked Chepe and I to see if we could set up something fun for the kids and suggested a trip to the movies/mall in San Pedro. So we did just that. We decided that it should only be a trip for those kids who hadn’t received detention in school, had good academics and were well-behaved at the Hoagr, especially since we had limited space in the vans. The first group comprised of kids from 7th to 9th grade, and the second group was mixed with some of our youngest kids (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th grade) as well as our oldest kids (9th to 12th grade.) Each kid got 150 Lempiras for spending (a little more than 10 dollars…which surprisingly goes far in this country) and also get to choose the movie they would like to see. The choices were: Jack the Giant Slayer, Oz: El Poderoso , or a movie about cavemen – in Spanish it’s called Los Crods but I have no idea what that translates to in English. It was such an awesome opportunity to get to take the kids to the Mall. It’s easy to forget that some of these kids had never been in a building so big before or had sat in a movie theater, or ordered food from a fast food place or have even seen a mall before. On the morning of the first trip all the kids who were going, were outside and ready probably an hour before departure and you could feel their excitement. The same thing happened with the second trip.
There were some really great moments on both days. On the first day I had to the bank to cash a check and asked two of our volunteers to stay with the boys downstairs or to walk around with them. As I was standing outside waiting for the bank to open I saw all the boys get off the elevator (coming from floor 1 to floor 3) and simply just looking awestruck. Most had never seen an elevator let alone know what one was. The things we take for granted, huh? Rachel was laughing when she got off and said that when the doors closed no one knew what to do so she pushed the button to go up, the elevator began to move and no one explained to them what it was (because we just assumed they would know) and then they ended up on another floor, some of the boys asked to do it again, so we let them. They thought it was one of the coolest things the mall had to offer. Then on the second day with group two I had Misael walking with me. He’s in 4th grade and one of the sweetest kids I know. It was visible how excited he was to be going to the mall with us. We were walking in from the parking garage and I hopped on the escalator to go up with him, not thinking anything of it –again– but he’d never seen an escalator before, so he tugs on my arm and looks up and says “Meg, que es esooo” (what is this!) and just starts laughing. We got up four more to reach the food court and during this time, he’s just trying to examine the stairs — what’s making them move? Hard questions to answer in Spainsh, I told him it was a machine and electricty made it more. He just said que maciso (which is like “Awesome!”)with a huge grin on his face. I asked him later in the day what his favorite thing about coming to the Mall was and I figured he would tell me it was the movie…but no, it was the escalator hahah. Good this there were three floors and Kristin and Christian held escalator races after the movie.
More to come soon!
My Adventure in Honduras 