After a really nice, long, much-needed sleep...Kelsey, Alina & I awoke and got ready for the morning. We headed up to the 6th floor of our hotel for a continental breakfast and Kelsey took this picture of her breakfast, since it was her first Honduran meal ever! It included scrambled eggs with cheese, papaya (pineapple and watermelon were also offered), refried beans, fried plantains, a tamale (wrapped in the corn husk), and desert. Alina chose to have the coco krispies. They also served mango juice which Kelsey tried. She loved all of the food.
After breakfast we were picked up by Jose Ramon, the taxi driver who had driven us to the hotel the day before. We saw Andi first, who is the team coordinator from Orphanage Emmanuel. She comes to the airport with the orphanage bus to pick teams up as they come in. Then the Maryland team came out in their coral-salmon colored team shirts. It was so exciting to see Joanne again after a year. When we got the team settled by getting ALL luggage onto the Emmanuel bus, and then the team headed upstairs to get a bite to eat while Andi, Kelsey, Alina & I headed across the street to the City Mall. It was Andi's 40th birthday, so she wanted to grab a hamburger - since they're scarce around the country, and we needed to get some supplies from the pharmacy (such as shampoo, conditioner, face wash, Q-tips, etc) that would last me & Alina for the next month.
We headed back to the airport for the 11:00 United flight arrival and saw Nate, Mark, Bekah, Erin & Lane come off of that flight - 5 members from the Wisconsin team. They let us know that Bob was in line for customs, but WAY back (since his flight arrived later than theirs). I took those 5 upstairs to get a bite to eat and ordered a little extra for Bob. Once Bob got out from his Delta flight, everybody got on the bus and we headed to Emmanuel.
The big girls recognized me right away as I was getting my luggage to my room and started shouting "Gloria!" (their name for me since LoriAnn is hard to pronounce). I set the luggage next to the bunk that I chose to be mine and then headed down to visit with Coco, Lilian, Doris, Yenci & then walked up to the medium girls kitchen to visit Michell. We had a brief orientation at 4pm with Andi about the rules and expectations of teams (and the WHY behind those rules, which helped clarify a little more for those who've never been here before), and then I unpacked and headed to supper at 6pm. After supper, Joanne held a briefing about Friday's events and we headed to bed since most were very tired from their flight.
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