Visiting Eduardo

This morning we headed down to the continental breakfast that was included with our stay rate.  Since we've been to Staybridge Suites in St. Louis, we have not found a better continental breakfast...until now.  This was just exquisite, and delicious!  Fresh fruits of all types (I even tried the "eyeball fruit", don't really know the name of it, but it does look like an eyeball), and hot foods spannish both Latino and American cuisine.

After breakfast, we weren't up in our room very long and we got a call from Grazia who is the interpreter/guide for our Compassion International visit with Eduardo (Andres' sponsored child) today.  We were supposed to be down in the lobby at 9am, but she arrived around 8:30 and just wanted us to know she was waiting downstairs.  We headed down right away since we were so excited to go see Eduardo!

We stopped at the project first and the Compassion project director, Emis, brought us to the office and talked a little bit about the project which services over 200 children.  They have a few classes and activities during the week in the afternoons/evenings, but most of their activity takes place on Saturdays from 8am-2pm.  They serve both breakfast and lunch to these children that come, who most are coming from extreme poverty...living in houses made out of wood that is barely thinner than cardboard.  Emis told us that the parents are happy that their children can at least get 2 good meals a week at the Compassion project because many of these children go hungry.

Eduardo and his mom showed up about 20 minutes later, and then Emis led us through the project on a tour, showing us various classrooms that they use and area also used for government-provided classes for parents of the Compassion children.  He told us that they had quite a few parents who learned how to read in just 5 short months on instruction!  Grazia let us know that this is definitely one of the bigger projects in Tegucigalpa (she said there were numerous projects located around the city, but not any other facilities this large).  They also have a room for vocational workshops, where they are teaching the girls cosmetology and the boys music, computers and a few other careers that will better prepare them for when they graduate from the project.  Eduardo told us that he has a job installing glass railings in the new mall that's being built out by the airport.

Next we went to Eduardo's house.  We found out that they've moved out of Comayaguela (a very dangerous city that is only separated from Tegucigalpa by a river) and into a safer neighborhood in Tegucigalpa.  The house is nice and has a terrace which has a good view of the large statue of Jesus that is up on a mountain & overlooks the city of Tegucigalpa.  We met his older sister and younger brother once again, AND we met his baby Tatiana Elisabet.  His daughter was born almost 6 weeks ago.  We all took turns holding her (of course me the most!)...she is SO precious!!!  We also met his fiance, Katina.

After visiting for a little over an hour, Andres asked Eduardo where he'd like to go for lunch.  Eduardo didn't hesitate to say that he'd like to go to the same spot we went to 3 years ago when we had met him...the cafe court at the MultiPlaza mall right across from our hotel!  When we got there, Andres & Eduardo ordered a large pizza to share from Pizza Hut.  Grazia, Emis and Eduardo's mom ordered from Subway, and Bob & I ordered from a Latino fast food place (interesting how the Hondurans ordered from American places and the Americans ordered from Latino places.  Eduardo's mom saved 1/2 of her sub sandwich to take home to her kids and Eduardo & Andres boxed up the pizza that they didn't eat for him to take home as well. 

While at the mall, the most exciting thing happened to Eduardo...we saw Luciano Emilio (a famous professional soccer player on the Olimpia team that Eduardo loves)!  The next thing we know, Emis and Bob are taking a picture with Luciano Emilio in the middle of Andres & Eduardo.  Think of seeing a famous Packer player (and being a HUGE Packer fan), running into him in the mall and actually getting a picture with him!  I'm sure this is how Eduardo felt.

After the mall experience, we headed bowling.  It was the very first time bowling for each of the Hondurans.  I really wanted Eduardo's mom to bowl, but no matter how much I asked her, she turned us down & said she'd just prefer to watch.  It was really fun.  Since we lived closest to the bowling alley, we were dropped off first at the end of this visit.  Since Eduardo is graduated from the program, Andres gave him our address, phone number & email and told him that if he needed anything he just had to contact us.  Unfortunately no one in Eduardo's family has a phone (had I known this I would've kept the phone I had purchased for this trip for him, versus giving it to Danny...but I had no clue).  We'll be keeping him and his family in our prayers!

When we got back to the hotel, we headed to the mall.  Bob needed swim trunks for possibly swimming in the pool later (which we never actually ended up doing).  I got a few more shirts, courtesy of Bob, and then we saw it...CINNABON!  We had a yummy cinnamon roll and Bob mentioned that today very closely resembled our first date: Cinnabon, bowling, latino eating and a movie (we planned to go watch Total Recall later in the evening).

After the mall, we headed to the Steak & Lobster restaurant at the hotel.  All 4 of us got very dressed up since it was a more formal restaurant, and we sat at a table alongside the pool.  It was just a gorgeous end to a great day!  We were sure to get a bunch of pictures too.  :-)