My First Full Day at Emmanuel

This morning although I planned to wake up at 5am, I didn't actually get out of bed until 5:30 due to snoozing the alarm multiple times.  I was still extremely tired from all of the travel.  I'm hoping that my husband doesn't have the same "travel issues" that I had, but am assuming that everyone goes through it - so I'll try to be patient with him that first day as all today were patient with me.  :-)

I quickly showered and chatted with the other volunteers.  There are now 8 of us:  Nazhita, Christina, Emilie, Caroline, Kelsey, Fia, Kimberly and myself.  Katja told us that I would be at the little girls house, so I headed down that way to eat with them and do dishes.  Esperanza is still here and in charge of the little girls house, but Mariela (Gerson's wife) has left with her family to continue to do missions in Costa Rica.  After doing the dishes, I headed to the new baby house to say "hi" to Brandy.  I'm so excited that she may have the opportunity to adopt a little baby named Lidia who came to Emmanuel.  Lidia's mom died when she was just 8 days old and it's not known who her father is.

After the baby house, I waited at the toddler house to talk with Katja about going into town for some groceries.  After getting the "okay" from Katja, I headed to town with Kimberly, Andres and Kelsey.  Guaimaca has changed so much from last year.  First of all it's LOUD.  There are DJs playing at the grocery story and just blasting music out into the streets.  The streets are crowded with these little 3-wheeled taxis that, when I saw them, I immediately thought of people in Asia.  We stopped at 2 different grocery stores and then headed to the "My Little Bakery" store.  They have some awesome banana bread, which although it's still not nearly as good as my mom's - it's pretty good for Honduran food.

The Maryland team arrived in the afternoon, so I got a chance to see Joanne (YAY!).  We also spoke to Katja again about Kimberly (who had originally been assigned to the toddlers and just felt it wasn't for her).  Katja said perhaps Kimberly should go with me and work at the little girls house, so we headed there for supper to help out with dishes.  After suppertime, we headed back to the volunteer house & relaxed and had good conversations before heading to bed.