August 4th - Arrival at Orphanage Emmanuel

I woke up at 3:30 this morning to catch the 5:45 Hedman Alas bus to Tegucigalpa. I realized 2 things: 1) the sun goes down at 7pm here (which explains why they get up so early & go to bed so early at the orphanage), and 2) I was charged WAY too much last night for the taxi to take me to my hotel. He charged $20USD. At that point, I didn´t care, because my hotel taxi was not at the airport to meet me...but I did ask this morning how much a taxi would cost to go to the bus station & he said 80 Lempiras (or $4USD). I asked him to call his taxi and used that rather than waiting for the taxi driver from last night - who was going to take me this morning...for another $20USD!!!

The Hedman Alas bus to Teguc (as Hondurans call it) took 4 hours. It was a coach bus and they played the movie ¨The Guardian¨ with Kevin Costner. It played in English with NO subtitles - which I found surprising seeing as the majority of the riders were Spanish-speaking.

Carlos picked me up from the bus station and took me to the Metromall in Teguc where I met up with Esti & Anita (the other 2 volunteers). I bought 2 packages of Special K granola bars to snack on if I got hungry. It was about an hour & a half ride to the orphanage. We saw lots of cows and donkeys along the road-side as we went...similar to what I had experience when I had traveled on rural roads in Mexico.

Katja met us when we got to Orphanage Emmanuel and showed us to the female volunteer dorm. We then headed down to their internet cafe to let our families know we had arrived safely. I sent an email to Bob & he had responded before I logged out. Lindsay, another volunteer here, gave us a tour around the grounds. Anita & I also walked around with Lindsey as she gave out medications to the girls during supper. I was offered 2 tortillas, which were VERY good. When I got back to the volunteer dorm, I unpacked and settled in. All of the volunteers seem SO nice.

Katja held a meeting at 5:30 to give us our responsibilities for this week. My main responsibility is to help split the current library into a primary & secondary school library. Each of us 3 new volunteers received different responsibilities, but we seemed to feel they were a perfect fit for us. I really believe that Katja prayed to God to speak to her about how to best use our talents.

After the meeting, the volunteers (mostly college-age students) hung out to chat for a while before heading off to bed at 8:45.