A Field Day (Carnival) for the Little Girls!

This morning Alina & I headed to the little girls' house (that's my assignment).  After breakfast, Alina helped clean with the big girls.  They taught her how to use a mop properly...Latina-style!  She kept a good attitude while cleaning and I very much enjoyed watching her interact with the older girls, and also watching how the older girls are taking her under their wings.

After cleaning, Joanne and the Maryland group came over to begin measuring the girls.  This group measures all of the children each year so that their sponsors will know what size they're in, should they want to send clothing as Christmas gifts.  The sizing charts will most likely be posted online sometime between September and late October.  The group has pretty much gotten sizing down to a science and are very efficient about it.

Around noon, Maggie (another volunteer who's assigned to the little girls' house) and I went with the small girls down to the gymnasium for their field day, put on by the Maryland group.  They got hot dogs and chips for lunch and participated in a bunch of activities including 3-legged races, baseball (with a big whiffle ball), and numerous water games!  It was a bright, sunny, HOT day down here...so the water games were NICE!  Alina participated a lot, and I even allowed the girls to squirt me with their water guns from time to time.  I also did a 3-legged race with Joanne!  It was fun.  :-)

When the field day came to an end, Kimberly had already brought a bunch of stuff over to the apartment, to begin the "moving in" process.  She mentioned that she'd still sleep in the volunteer house for one more night but that she wanted to get some stuff over before-hand.  We decided that she would take the 2nd bedroom, which has 2 bunk beds and that for the meantime, Alina would sleep in the double bed with me so that she would feel a little more comfortable about being down here.

After everything of Kimberly's was in the apartment, we headed to supper with the little girls.  They decided to bathe the girls first and then do supper (whereas it is usually in the reverse order) since supper was not yet ready.  When all the girls were clean and had eaten, I headed back to the apartment to wait for Amy.

Amy is a long-term volunteer who teaches classes at the middle school (4th-6th grade).  She teaches the Spanish reading classes, but in a small group setting.  For the past few weeks, she has been in the high school teaching for a volunteer that is on a short leave with her family.  So, the middle school classes needed a teacher...which is where Katja mentioned my next job would be.  I made some Mexican guacamole for Amy and just about when I was finishing it up, she came knocking at the door.  We discussed the classes and what they all entailed.  It looks like I'll be up for a pretty busy weekend.  There are 4 books which I needed to read (in Spanish, of course) and then prepare questions for.  She mentioned that she generally discussed the books page-by-page.  The book reading level wasn't too bad at all...the most difficult level being the Chronicles of Narnia (Lion, Witch, Wardrobe) - which I actually haven't yet read in English!...just seen the movie.

So after Amy left, I began reading!

Kimberly Gets her Residency

This morning was BIG circle.  Big circle is when all of the children of Emmanuel gather and sing praises to God, followed by a devotion.  It's an awesome event to be a part of and you can really experience a joy and love for God while surrounded by hundreds of children praising our Heavenly Father.

Today I had to head back to Tegucigalpa with Kimberly so that she could get her residency papers, which are basically papers allowing her to stay in the country for a maximum of 2 years without having to leave every 3 months like she would have to do right now.  I arranged for Alina to stay with the Maryland group while I was gone for the day.  After yesterday, she was a little apprehensive (okay, a LOT apprehensive) about me leaving her alone for the day...but I convinced her than Andres absolutely loved this group and that they would take good care of her.  I showed her how to get to the team house and who to report to.  Later she told me she had a lot of fun and that she worked with the toddlers and then went to the small girls house to put on a puppet show, and ending with playing soccer in the yards...where the bigger boys taught her a few tricks to soccer.

We spent just about the entire day in Tegucigalpa (working with paperwork for businesses and/or the governement is a completely separate story that could take me hours to share how this experience goes!).  Our experience was overall pleasant with quite a bit of help from a man in immigration named Ricardo Carillo.  Although Kimberly should be waiting 30 days to get her official residency card, Ricardo worked hard to get her papers pushed through and said it should be ready to pick up in 10 days!  Kimberly was so excited that she purchased a Snickers bar for him (or was it a Twix?...it was chocolate nonetheless).  We took the rapidito bus back to Guaimaca and were home around 5pm.  At that point, I really needed to call it a night since it had been a lot of travel so far this week.

Alina's 1st Full Day at Emmanuel

Because we did not yet know our responsibilities, Alina & I headed to the medium girls' circle this morning.  Most of the girls that I had been responsible for 6 years ago when I began coming to Emmanuel are now in the medium girls' house.  I placed Alina in the circle next to Michell, since generally the kids are part of the circle and adults stand either with the children or behind them.  They sang songs and then had devotions.  Alina was quite shy with the girls...I think that although she's been working on Rosetta Stone at home, it was slowly beginning to sink in how much she still needed to learn.

After circle, we headed with the medium girls to their dining hall.  I met Amy, the volunteer who is assigned to the medium girls' house, and she mentioned that they may be needing help in the school or with the special needs classes.  She was really excited to tell me about the school's teaching opportunities, but in the past I have never been assigned to the school since I'm only here for a few weeks and that would mean swapping teachers often, which isn't in the best interest of the children.

After breakfast, Alina & I headed to the big girls' yard so that I could introduce her to Yensi.  They were heading to breakfast and Yensi was carrying a bundle of wood for their kitchen.  She passed the wood to a friend when she saw me and came & gave me a hug, then gave Alina a hug (since she recognized Alina).  After chatting quickly, because she was on her way to breakfast, we headed back to the apartment to rest.

Just after 9am, I went to see Katja in the office to see where I would be assigned - the little girls' house once again.  Since most of my girls through the years have moved up, it'll be a year of learning quite a few new names!  I'm excited about that though.  Kimberly is in the power toddler house, so we probably won't be seeing much of each other, but she did get the "okay" from Katja to move into our apartment, so she'll be doing that this weekend.  Also, Katja wanted me to start working in the school...so I needed to head back to talk to Amy, and perhaps I'd have to chat with Elizabeth about my afternoons and perhaps working with the special needs children once again in the arts and crafts.

After my chat with Katja - Kimberly, Alina & I headed to town to get some groceries.  I think the difference in cultures started to get to Alina a bit when she walked past various houses of poverty, and on the dirt road leading in to town.  Kimberly was handing out sweets to children along the way and although Alina had treats in her purse, she didn't give them out.  We headed to the older grocery store first (for a better picture of what this grocery store is like, think of the general store on the TV series Little House on the Prairie).  After getting our first batch of groceries, we headed to the newer but not necessarily larger grocery store in town.  This is where Alina got a bit sick & asked to go outside.  Unfortunately the town in not safe enough to allow Alina to go outside and wait by herself, so Kimberly took her to the Tigo store (for cell phone & internet service) while I finished shopping and then made a purchase for Kimberly as well as for myself.  By the time I got to the Tigo store, Alina didn't look so good.  We got a "toot-toot" back to the orphanage (think of those tiny golf cart-type taxis in China) because it would be quicker than walking.

I rested in the bed with Alina while she slept off her travel illness and later Kimberly brought over some supplies.  Across the hall, a man named Barry (who I had met 2 years ago and helped finish the painting of the girls' volunteer house) moved into the apartment with his pastor and a younger man.  He remembered me and as soon as he mentioned his name, I remembered him from his voice and demeanor.  Alina & I headed to the medium girls' yard so that we could play with them.  When it was time for supper, Alina headed with Michell to the medium girls' dining hall while I headed to the small girls' dining hall.  While I was serving supper, Sofia ran over to tell me that Alina was crying.  I'm guessing she was overwhelmed by so many girls trying to speak to her all at once in a language she didn't understand.  She came back with me to the little girls' house and we had supper there.  After supper we needed to get the girls showered and their hair combed so they'd be ready to go to bed.  Doris painted Alina's nails which turned out really cute looking like a french manicure with tiny black flowers painted on each nail.  I wish my camera was working so I could've taken a picture to attach to this blog.

Before going to bed, I chatted a bit with Amy about teaching in the school.  It looks like I'll be taking on the middle school "lectura" classes (4th-6th grade).  It's a pull-out system where I'll have 4-6 students at a time and we read a certain book together.  I'll keep you updated on this as I get more information.

Arrival to Emmanuel

Our flight out of O'Hare was scheduled for 5:30am which meant that I needed to wake at 2:30am to get ready.  Alina got up at 2:45 (of course I had to get her up).  We left the house with Jim & Jeanne at 3:15am and headed for O'Hare.  They dropped us off at the doors and we headed in.  Alina was so excited!  She had spent a bit of time the night before asking questions about the airport and the flight.  This was going to be her first flight ever!

We checked in, which is now a really simple process...no waiting in lines since everything is automated.  Then we had to wait for security to open.  Alina's bag needed to get rechecked because she had forgotten that there was a bottle of Propel in her backpack.  Security was really nice with her since it's her first time learning the "rules".  On the way to our gate, we stopped at McDonald's and with perfect timing because a long line formed quickly after we got there!  We ate at the gate and boarded when they called us, arriving in Miami about 10:00am their time.  We hit a bit of turbulence on the way, but Alina handled it quite well.  When we arrived to Miami, we called Bob and chatted for a bit, then called Kaylyn (who was with Julie) to chat with her since Julie had sent me a text after I had fallen asleep the night before saying that Kaylyn had caught seven fish that day!  Kaylyn was SO excited about having caught so many fish.  I could tell she was having fun on her vacation with Julie, Kelly & Ashley.

When we boarded the flight in Miami (for Honduras), we sat on the plane for over an hour.  There were 2 problems: a potential storm in Tegucigalpa which would make for a slippery, short, more dangerous than it already is runway; and the plane had too much fuel in it to land on this short runway.  They emptied the plane of the excess fuel, but we still had to wait for clearance from the storm before taking off.  Due to the time differences between Miami and Tegucigalpa, we arrived in Teguc around 12:30pm.  When we came through our luggage needed to get checked, which didn't end up being a problem.  Kimberly was waiting for us as we came out.  She said she'd been there since 9am and was beginning to get a little worried since she had no idea that our plane was delayed so much - she was figuring we may have missed our plane.  She said she had seen the Maryland group come in that morning, but most importantly that all of her immigration/residency papers that she thought she'd need help with that afternoon were taken care of.  This definitely eased my mind since I had a hard time the past few days trying to secure a hotel for the evening in the event that we needed to spend the night in Teguc after an afternoon at Immigration.  We ate at the McDonald's in the airport and then headed to the bus station to catch a rapidito (quick-direct bus) to Guaimaca, where Orphanage Emmanuel is located.  From the bus station in Guaimaca, we walked to Emmanuel.

Each year when I walk to Emmanuel, it's the same: for the first few days, the hill behind the apartments and hotel that leads to the medium girls house, the little girls house and then the girls' volunteer house tends to get me winded, sweaty and is back-breaking (so you can imagine what hauling luggage while climbing the hill is like).  Within 3 weeks, I'm able to take this hill without breaking a sweat.  We could hear the singing start at church and since we didn't know which apartment we'd be in, we took our luggage to the girls' volunteer house.  Katja met us at the house since she had seen us from church climbing the hill.  She offered to take the luggage to the apartment in her gator, so I went along to help while Kimberly and Alina headed to church.  I met them back at the church.

What a service to arrive to!!!...the 2 sisters of Doris (Wendy & Lourdes) had babies that were getting baptized!  I was so excited to be there for that event!  It was nice to see Doris after the service and a bunch of other children that I haven't seen in a year.  My how time has passed!

When Alina & I got back to the apartment, I realized that my camera was broken.  Unless by some act of God along the way, I doubt I will be able to take any pictures this trip.  :-(

We turned in for the night since both of us were exhausted.

Leaving Home

What a day!  It's time to head to Honduras!!!  I was a "little" behind in my preparations (more so than other years), so Bob came to my rescue by running a bunch of errands around the Fox Valley for me.  One of these errands consisted of sending this box of donations off to Dr. Don Reynolds who is in charge of sending the container shipments down to Honduras.  I would like to express a HUGE thank-you to Val Guy and to those in my summer school classes for donating material for their sewing room and other much needed items for the children at Emmanuel.

While Bob and Alina were running errands, I packed my suitcase.  We had packed Alina's clothes the day before.  When they returned, Alina & I finished with the packing while Bob took care of a few other things (getting songs on an MP3 for me, getting Jim & Jeanne's address entered into our GPS, etc).  Finally it was time to go!  We dropped Noah off at Mom & Dad's house so that he could get to his baseball game that evening and took off for Illinois just before 1:00.

When we arrived in Wheaton, we began looking for restaurants along the way to Jim & Jeanne's that would be a nice place to take them to supper - in appreciation for allowing Alina & I to spend the night and then their willingness to take us to the airport in the morning.  Bob saw a restaurant called the 7 Dwarfs and mentioned it...wouldn't you know it was the restaurant that Jim & Jeanne had in mind to go to when we arrived?  Before heading to the restaurant, they showed us their garden and landscaping out back (we were amazed!).  The restaurant was nice and had very delicious food!  I loved the wall mural as well as all of the different paintings depicting the story of Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs.  After supper, Bob took off for home (what a LONG ride for him to drive us down, eat and then head back!) and Alina & I headed back to Jim & Jeanne's where we chatted for a bit before finalizing plans for the morning and then headed to bed.