sad goodbyes and another adventure begins...

sad goodbyes and another adventure begins...

Thursday was to be my last day with the kids. We were going to have class in the morning, play soccer after lunch, go running to Jutiapa and get licuados, have dinner / huevos rancheros / and then I was going to talk with all of the kids and say my goodbyes. Oh and I was going to do laundry and pack my 7 months worth of life into my travel backpack. The director had a different plan which wasn't communicated very well so it ended up being a very late night for Bethany and I but I still got to say my goodbyes and get soccer and a run in. I played soccer with the kids and a couple of other volunteers for about 2 hours after lunch and then we, Bethany and I, took Gerson, Reina, Francisco and Moises running to Jutiapa. We bought them strawberry licuados and caught the bus back to the Hogar. Bethany and I split a watermelon licuado (my new favorite flavor!). Marlen, one of the cooks, made a special plate of huevos rancheros just for me and said goodbye. Saying goodbye to the cooks was equally as hard for me as saying goodbye to the kids. Orbelina, the other cook, was taking her time off (10 days) and relaxing at her house. I had seen her son earlier and asked if she was going to be there all evening so that I could make sure to say goodbye to her before I left. I walked over to her house and she introduced me to her husband and grabbed a chair for me and a glass of coke. She lives with her family, her daughter, 2 sons and husband in a one room straw and thatch roofed house with a mud and clay stove for cooking right in front under a champa. I had tears in my eyes when I said goodbye to her and gave her a hug and walked away back to the Hogar. She is a lovely woman with a great heart and I already miss her!

My amazing friends Angela and Della sent down tons crafts for making necklaces. With all of the supplies I was able to make each child their own necklace with their names on them and used their favorite colors. I was also able to sit with each kid and allow them to make their own piece of jewelry being able to pick from everything that was sent down. The kids loved it and it allowed me to spend some quality one on one time with each kid right before I left. There were a ton of crafts leftover to make bundles of jewelry. I packed it all up and gave it to Orbelina when I said goodbye, letting her know she could use it as she chose. I told her I thought it would be nice if she wanted to make jewelry with the women in the community to sell it, or that she could put it to good use with her church. I felt very good about doing this and hope that it is truly put to good use. Our cook and other kids that attend our school live about 150 yards from the Hogar on the other side of the fenced wall and it is a totally different life! They live in houses without electricity, with mud and clay stoves and thatched roofs all having to work nonstop for their food and money, the kids included. And then there is the Hogar which is almost like a mansion compared to how the locals in the village are living and the kids have toys, books, 3 hot meals a day, clothes, shoes, beds, toilets, running water, etc. It is just so crazy. I realized walking away from Oreblina's house after saying goodbye and giving her the beads that my biggest regret wasn't going to be not cuddling more with the kids at the Hogar, or not reading to them more, or not tucking them in every night, but rather not spending more time with the real community trying to help with the locals that really have nothing... But that is an entirely different entry.

Ok back to the last day. We ate really quickly, showered and then headed into La Ceiba to watch the local Circus. That's right, a circus came to La Ceiba. They had a tent all set up like Cirque de Soleil but about 1/5th the size. The kids were so excited! We went to the 7pm showing and it was so interesting! This culture is so sexual. I didn't think you could make a circus rated R but this one was! The kids got to see elephants, tigers, a zebra, a pony, and camels. The elephants danced to Daddy Yankee, while the human acts stripped to Stayin' Alive! It was insane! I never thought a circus, which is obviously targeting kids, would incorporate the kinds of acts that this circus incorporated. And I feel that I am an open and liberal person...

We got back to the Hogar late and Bethany and I got to packing and doing our laundry. I woke up to a thumping on the door around 7 am which was/is normal at the Hogar. I went to the door and when I opened it all of the kids were at my door holding a cake. My eyes welled up and I was bombarded with hugs from each of the kids and given cards by all of them. Then Bethany snuck off and came back with a Honduran flag with all of the kids hand prints on it. Bethany had pulled each of the kids one by one into a side room to make me the best going away present/souvenir of my time at the Hogar and in Honduras I could have asked for. I then went in room by room to say goodbye to the kids and give them their necklaces and pawn off the accessories that I was leaving behind. Conditioner and deodorant were the most popular amongst the girls. Running on 4 hours of sleep Bethany and I then headed to La Ceiba to catch a bus on to San Pedro Sula where we would begin our journey.

It is now Tuesday and I have been away from the kids for only 5 days and it feels like weeks. I was sad to leave but happy to begin traveling and I really feel that I will be back. It is a pity the organization isn't in better hands. If it operated properly I would highly recommend it because the kids are great... But I wouldn't. I don't regret my time their but I do have lots of recommendations for people interested in volunteering abroad and would not suggest this project. I do plan to return someday soon to check up on the kids as I really grew fond of them. I will miss my door being knocked on first thing in the morning by a child wanting a toothbrush, I will miss being able to walk out of my door to get a hug whenever I want, I will miss eating with Francisco and having someone with me that shares my passion for food, I will miss the cooks and hearing them laugh at me whenever I showed how excited I was about the meals, I will miss Ruth and her crazy laugh, I will miss Moises and his millions of questions, I will miss Gerson and his excitement towards soccer, I will miss running with Reina and Daniel, I will miss hearing Carolina speak English, I will miss Joel and his eyes and smile, I will miss so many things. I will miss many things but there are only a few things that I will not miss, I will not miss the bugs, the cold showers, or the pounds of vegetable oil cooked into every meal. Oh and I will not miss Maynor's scream! The two things that made this experience were the kids, the amazing, totally unique and loving kids, and the amazing people that I have met from volunteers to cooks to hitches. Overall this was an amazing experience that I will never ever forget and has forever changed me. Seeing how people live happy lives with so little...

I am now on my journey to Panama. I talked Bethany into traveling with me for a bit so we went from San Pedro Sula, to Copan, Honduras on Friday and spent the night in Copan. We then went from Copan, Honduras to Antigua, Guatemala where I did the volcano hike again which I did with my brother back in September. This time it didn't rain on us! We then left early Sunday morning to go to Chichicastenago for the Sunday market which is amazing! From there we headed to Lago Atitlan which is a huge lake surrounded by 3 volcanoes and is breathtaking! We are now back in Antigua gearing up for a full day of travel tomorrow to El Salvador where we will spend a couple of days. From there we are going to Tegucigalpa to spend the weekend with the grandparents of a past volunteer and from there we will part ways. Bethany will head back to the Hogar and I will head on to Nicaragua. I have to say Guatemala is AMAZING. I am in love! I cannot think of a person that I know that would not enjoy it here. I know my mother would LOVE it and I keep trying to think of a person whom I think would not find it beautiful and ideal and I just cannot. I don't want to leave but I am extremely excited to see what the rest of Central America has to offer.

My time is done at the Hogar so I will just write a couple of more entries while I travel to let everyone know that I am safe and having fun! Thank you all for reading my blog and to those of you whom responded. It let me know people were really reading it and that I wasn't wasting my time writing it. I hope that everyone is doing well and that you are all staying warm, dry and safe and spending lots ofquality time with people that you love.

Take care.

OH! Also, I will post all of my pictures when I get home. It takes way too long on the computers here in Central America. But there are some amazing pictures that I guarantee will convince people to come to Central America, especially Guatemala.

Soccer, Movie Nights, Lice, Peter Pan, Running, Insects

Alrighty, well I have lots to write about and not much time. I am leaving the orphanage in 2 weeks! Everyone keeps asking me how I feel... I am going to cry like a baby saying goodbye to the kids. I can already tell. Just the thought of saying goodbye chokes my up. I am going to try and get a good cry out the day before so I don't make a scene in front of the kids, but I know it is going to be extremely hard for me to leave. In my last 2 weeks I plan to take groups of kids running every day, I am making each child a necklace with their name on it and their favorite colors as my going away gift, and I plan to spend quality one on one time with each child. And as for me, I plan to go on my favorite hike and to my swimming hole one last time.

I will for sure be happy to leave the insects! We have spent 3 weeks doing some serious delousing on all of the kids. I have been living with the kids now for over 6 months and I only have 2 weeks left. Yesterday Bethany did a search on my head because I felt a little itchy and... dun dun dun... I have lice! I actually took it really well because I know I don't have it nearly as bad as the kids (although now some are lice free and the others just have a little bit). I just cannot believe that in my last 2 weeks I get lice! But at least I have time to do 2 treatments so that I come home lice free:). But seriously, feel like a piece of fried chicken for mosquitoes. They are everywhere and I get bit all over, now I have lice, we have rats in our kitchen that are the size of my cat, cockroaches and geckos are everywhere and our bathroom is the mosquito hang out! This is what I will not miss! I know I will not go home and open a drawer in my kitchen and feel let down that there are not fleeing cockroaches, ants and termites (i almost forgot)... Termites are everywhere in our room! My tampons and teaching notebook were both consumed by families of termites (thousands). The other day I opened a drawer in the kitchen to get a knife to cut a pineapple and there was a dead cockroach that had been smashed and killed in the drawer being consumed by hundreds of tiny ants! It isn't a "Honduran" thing. There are more insects in general here in Honduras, I do believe that, but the Hogar is so filthy and unsanitary that it doesn't help at all. Especially with 20 kids running around! Ok, enough about the creatures at the Hogar...

Out of all of the movies Greg so generously sent down for Christmas, the kids' favorite movie is Peter Pan!!! They LOVE it. We have Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Madagascar, The Lion King, Fantasia, Tom and Jerry, The Incredibles, Cinderella (I thought they would love this one because it would remind them of me, the blond hair I mean), Beauty and the Beast, and other good ones... But the kids LOVE Peter Pan. All of them. We have both the 2003 version with real actors and the 1953 cartoon version and they love both! It cracks us volunteers up, the littlest boy, Joel, runs around yelling "Peter Pan, Peter Pan." They really enjoyed hearing that I love Peter Pan as well and that when I was a kid I would go to the theater to watch the Peter Pan play, drama, with my mom and brother. I didn't tell them this until after they had clearly expressed it was their favorite. We try to only let the kids watch movies on the weekends after dinner and once they have all bathed, brushed and complete their chores. On occasion they will watch movies during the week if we need a way to calm them down and have no other ideas or if they have all behaved well.

There are 3 boys from our town that come to our school but don´t live at the Hogar. They all love to play soccer and I told them the next time they play at the field down the road to invite me. They have come to invite me about 3 times now but I was always busy with the kids. This week they came again on Tuesday and I didn't have anything going on so I went over with them just "to watch." All of the kids from the neighborhood came out to play and I couldn't say no so we all played, barefoot and in our regular clothes. There are some kids, about 7-11 years old, that can play! It was a blast. Tons of little kids came to watch and a couple of the parents as well. I asked if they would want to play again the following day. They said that they would love to and told me to invite some of the kids from the Hogar. I got permission from the director to take some kids the following day to la cancha (the field) to play with kids from the village. We had captains and picked 2 teams. The mother of the 2 boys I teach came to play, the wife of our handyman, tons of kids from the village and I brought 5 of the boys from the Hogar that love to play soccer. We played for 2 hours in just under 90 degree heat from 2:30-4:30. It was one of my most memorable days here in Honduras. The 5 kids I brought behaved amazingly!!! Behavior is an issue usually with the kids from the Hogar when they are playing soccer. But everyone got along, I felt like the kids and I were really connecting with the village and it was the most exercise I had received in months! I thought I was going to pass out! The following day Bethany (my only roommate currently) decided to come so we took 7 kids, 4 boys and 3 girls. Even more people from the community came out to play and watch. We had 2 teams of about 13 each. The field was actual size so we didn't have subs considering the youngest kids playing were about 5 years old and didn't take up much space. It was a blast and again we played for about 2 hours! The kids from the orphanage need more exposure like this. The kids from the village are good solid players with really decent skills. The kids from the Hogar could be if they got to go play with the other kids from the community daily. It is just a matter of safety and having volunteers-people willing to take them.

I found out the following day that 2 of the boys that we were playing with were our cook's sons and that they live in the village. All of the houses in the village agua caliente are typical houses that you find in small villages in Honduras. They are small hut like houses built from mud, clay, sticks and leaves. When I was talking to Orbelina, our cook, about her boys, I asked if they had a TV in their house. She said no, so I told her that she should bring her kids to the Hogar to watch a movie that we could do Friday or Saturday movie nights and have the kids from the village come to watch movies with our kids. I checked with Stacy and Julio and got permission and told her that she should tell the kids in the village and they should all come around 7. It got to movie time and all of the kids were waiting very impatiently for Peter Pan to begin and there was no sign of Orbelina nor her kids. I walked up the road to check and she had fallen asleep right when she got home. After experiencing during Christmas what it is like to cook for 35 plus people 2 meals a day I understand why. I saw her this morning and she apologized but said that her kids and the other kids from the village would love to come have movie nights. I hope that this actually turns into something beneficial for our kids, the kids from the village and the community as a whole.

For a little background, the Hogar was robbed at knife-point by 3 men with machetes before I arrived. We currently have an armed guard, 2 actually, that rotate 24 hours shifts. Also, recently one of our girls who is 13 snuck out and slept with one of the men from the village who is suspected to have been one of the robbers. He is about 20 years old. The man has supposedly made threats towards the head Tio Julio (the Honduran man that lives at the Hogar) because he sees him as the father figure protecting the girl. One day the man was yelling at Julio from across the street and Julio grabbed the guards gun and in front of the kids walked up to the man on the other side of the gate and shot 2 rounds, one in the air and one in the ground, while yelling at the man. The other men from the village and the mans mother all got involved. I still don´t know what exactly was said but I know that it feels as if basically the kids are in a prison. They are in a fenced in enclosure and not allowed to leave, their is an armed guard that has the key to open the gate, at night we are all locked inside the building, the building doors are only open from 7am to 7pm (more or less). The kids cannot communicate with people from "the other side" of the fence unless it is school kids and even then the people that run the Hogar are cautious. Only the director of the organization that has a donated van which only he feels he is allowed to drive can take the kids places. He isn't even comfortable with us volunteers taking the kids places on the bus to get them exposed to life away from the Hogar. Inviting kids from the community to watch movies at the Hogar, playing soccer with the kids from the community, and taking the kids running, in my opinion, are amazing ways for our kids at the Hogar to socialize and get out. I understand that there is a safety issue, but I feel that the chances of us getting robbed again and feeling threatened will lesson if we make friends with the community and people appreciate and respect us.

None the less, I will continue to take the kids running. Yesterday, I took Daniel (a 10 year old boy with a beautiful smile who has the most potential to succeed, he is very smart) running to Jutiapa. We ran there and I bought him a licuado (smoothie). It was a really good time. We worked on money and doing the math of making a purchase. He is a really quick kid and picks things up really quickly. We were planning on walking back home but he asked if we could take the bus because he didn't want his smoothie to melt and he wanted to save the rest for his siblings. He is such a generous kid. When we got back to the Hogar he shared his smoothie with all of the kids. This morning Bethany and I were leaving to go running and Daniel came up to us and asked if we could take him. We agreed and then went and got Reina to see if she wanted to go. She jumped at the chance, finished her chores, changed her clothes and we were off. The four of us ran to Jutiapa, bought some water and apples and gave the kids another lesson on money and math. We returned to the Hogar walking. It was another good time.

I think that is all of the news I have for now. My last 2 weeks are going to be very sad. I can already tell. If I felt that these kids were getting the love and nurturing that they deserve I don't think I would be so sad to leave. Maybe I would... Who knows. I hope all is well with everyone from home. I will be home in about a month and a half. I cannot believe it. My plans for when I leave are to travel to Guatemala for a couple of days, then El Salvador, then back to Honduras to go to Tegucigalpa and stay with a past volunteers family and go to a market, then off to Nicaragua to meet up with some past volunteers then to Costa Rica and to finish my journey in Panama. I am happy that I am traveling after leaving the Hogar. I will have that to look forward to and after 5 weeks of traveling I think I will be ready to come home as opposed to going home directly from the orphanage and La Ceiba.

Take care!

Happy New Years!!! 2009 is Here.

New Years at the Hogar was much more relaxing than Christmas. We watched movies and danced all evening until midnight. Again, the dancing here is insane. The girls, whether they are 4 yearls old or 40, dance like crazy, crazy dance! I cannot even explian it. At midnight we lit sparkles and then sat down together to dine on homemade lasagna, fried shrimp, garlic bread, and tres leches cake. The dinner was amazing and the majority of the kids were still awake to eat and enjoy it. The volunteers then got January 1st off which was lovely because I was still needing to catch up on sleep and recover from Christmas. So we were able to sleep in until around 9 and head to one of the hotels on the beach in Sambo Creek (a Garifuna village about 20 minutes away) where we spent the day by the pool. It was lovely!

I am running late for meeting the other volunteers and have to go. I will write more the next chance I get.

I hope everyone had a lovely and safe New Years.

Happy 27th Birthday Angela (January 5th)!!! I love you!