After a rough week, I am off to renew my visa!

Well, I have been in Honduras just shy of my 90 day limit so I am off to renew my visa. And it could not have came at a better time! Last week was very exhausting and challenging. Mondays are always rough in school and class with all the kids, but this last Monday was really rough. Around 3pm, after school, lunch and chores-rest time, I went to wake up the littlest kids to see if they wanted to color with me and another volunteer. When I went into their room there were 2 of the little boys sleeping on a shared mattress and one of the little girls sleeping on a table. The room was covered in poop. Poop was smeared all over the floor, beds and walls. I am thinking it was human and dog poop. It was everywhere and they were all sleeping in the middle of it and the room stunk! I got one other volunteer and we woke the kids up and asked what happened and of course they all had different stories. One of the kids said that he and I made the mess together! We took all the beds outside and cleaned them, mopped the floor and began to clean the walls. The walls weren´t just covered with poop, but also filth that had been building up for over a year. I thought it would be a good idea to just paint the room and have the kids do some little decorations to brighten up the room. All the volunteers agreed so early the next morning I headed into town with another volunteer to purchase some paint brushes and supplies. We began painting around 9 am and finished around 4pm. The only color we had a decent supply of was white so we painted 3 coats of white paint over the filthy blue that the kids had been living with. We didn´t have time to let the kids paint that evening so either the other volunteers will do that while I am away or once I get back we will have that be phase 2. Wednesday was kids day, which here is like Christmas. The kids get to take the day off of school and play games all day and every kid gets a present. It was really fun to see all of the kids so happy. We had a huge BBQ and the meat was amazing! Actually all of the food that day was amazing! We even got a huge cake and a pinata! It was good times, but also very tiring.

Thursday we had class as normal and then I headed to La Ceiba to meet up with my brother and his friend, Jon. They have been traveling Central America for about a month and we had plans to meet up and travel to renew my visa. We went out Thursday night in La Ceiba to La Casona (the local disco) since it was ladies night and women get in for free. Running on 4 hours of sleep we woke up about 6 am Friday to begin our journey which has been non-stop since Friday morning. We took a bus to San Pedro Sula, from there took a minibus to Puerto Cortes, a port we were told we could catch a boat everyday to Belize. Once we got to Puerto Cortes we had a cab take us to the dock where there were no boats. The boats only run to Belize on Mondays from Puerto Cortes. Our taxi driver told us that they run every hour from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala so he drove us to the Guatemalan border where we crossed over and jumped on another mini-bus to head to Puerto Barrios. The power was out when we crossed the border so immigration didn´t check us in. We got to Puerto Barrios around 6 pm after about 8 hours all together on buses, minibuses and cabs. Our hotel attendant told us that the boats from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala to Punta Gorda, Belize run every 30 minutes beginning at 6:30 am. We woke up and got to the dock at 6 am and were told that the ferry doesn´t run until 10 am. We met a local who lived in New York for 23 years and he offered to show us around. He showed us all the local sites in Puerto Barrios which was really fun. He took us to their central market where we bought tons of fresh fruit for about $5. We bought huge carrots, apples, 3 lbs of strawberries, peaches and more. After debating taking a direct cab to Belize City we decided to take the 10 am ferry. We jumped on the ferry and headed to Punta Gorda, Belize. When we arrived they wouldn´t let us through with all of our fruit. But they let us sit on the dock for about 10 minutes so that we could try and inhale as much fruit as possible! Weeach downed about 3 bananas, 1 lbs of strawberries, a couple of peaches, and some apples. Oh and Ryan and I each made little dents in our huge carrots! From there were got on an old school bus painted in Jamaican colors headed for Belize City, an 8 hour bus ride. Oh, our friend from New York told us we were going to have to pay about $100 because customs didn´t stamp our passports when we entered Guatemala. We explained the power was out and he called a friend of his to help us get through without paying. We gave him a generous tip for showing us around and helping us avoid getting ripped off, but the immigration people were very nice.

We arrived in Belize City around 7pm and went out to get some dinner and then passed out in our hostel on the water. That was yesterday, Saturday. Today, Sunday we woke up and Ryan, having some last minute plans, thought it would be best if he headed North with his friend Jon to help him cross the border while I headed West to a small town near Tikal, Guatemala called El Remate. We split up around 7 am today and I headed to the border between Guatemala and Belize. It was about a 4 hour bus ride (in Belize all of the buses are old school buses painted in yellow, red and green) to the border followed by a 1.5 hour minibus ride on the Guatemalan side to El Remate which is where I am now. It is a small hippie town surrounding a huge lake and it is about 30 minutes from the ruins of Tikal. My brother Ryan should be meeting up with me here tonight and then we will be headed to Tikal tomorrow and celebrating Central America´s Independence day, which is tomorrow September 15th, either here or in Flores, Guatemala. From here we are headed South to a couple of small towns before entering Antigua, Guatemala. From there we are heading East to Copan, Honduras and then back North to La Ceiba so I can be back for the school day Monday.

It has been quite an adventure thus far! The food has been amazing and super cheap! Belize reminded me of New Orleans invaded by Jamaicans! The road we took from Southern Belize to Belize City was amazing! We were surrounded by beautiful jungle! I do miss the kids a bit, but I was for sure ready for a break, to see a familiar face, and do some sightseeing-traveling! I plan on heading South in December once I am done at the Hogar so that I will have spent a bit of time in each Country in Central America. If anyone is interested shoot me an email. I hope everyone is well! Also, I would proofread this email if this cafe wasn´t so expensive so I apologies for all of the errors.