Mangoes!

This morning began very tranquil with a cafecito (coffee) to drink while doing my devotions.  When Alina was up and ready, we headed to the Toddler House and went through the normal morning routine, cutting up vegetables for lunch, serving breakfast, washing dishes, taking the children to the chosa and then to the playground.

After a while at the playground, Karla decided we'd take the toddler on a walk.  We went up behind the Toddler House, and the big girls noticed a mango tree with some ripe mangoes.  They asked Karla permission to get the mangoes and the next thing I saw was a BUNCH of mangoes (around 20+ of them) falling to the ground from the tree.  Alina was with them as they all brought mangoes back in their shirts...pulling up the front of their shirts like one big pocket.  They distributed a mango to each of the older girls (including Alina & me) and one girl took the rest back.  We ripped them open with our teeth, into chunks and gave them to the toddlers as we walked.  Okay, yes, I realize that to many Americans that may seem a little on the gross side, but the children are used to that.

We also made a stop at the soccer field, and the children raced from one soccer goal post across the field to the other.  Alina raced with the big girls and the toddlers, and won every time she joined the race.  Then we made our way around the orphanage and back to the Toddler House.  When we got back, lunch wasn't ready yet, so they started up the Willy Wonka movie again.  Alina was really hoping that they'd begin the movie where they had left off yesterday...but they didn't, they started it from the beginning.

We served the kids lunch when it was ready and then washed dishes and headed back to our room for a break.  Alina served herself up a cinnamon roll (and she didn't care to go to the bakery for bread items earlier in the week), and then she laid down for a nap.  It was a pretty hot day with a strong sun, so the nap was well deserved.  When it was time to head back to the toddler house, we served them supper, washed dishes, gave baths and I chatted with Zelenes for a bit while she calmed down the boys in her room by giving them a picture to color.  Little Jeremias said that he was coloring a picture just for me!

Of course on our way back, we stopped at the Big Girls yard and chatted with Michell again  Michell and Alina tried kicking the soccer ball back and forth for a bit, but it was extremely flat.  Alina asked to run back to our room to grab the pump and came back with the pump and a new soccer ball.  She tried to pump up all of the balls in the yard, but most of them must have had holes in them because they would not pump up.  She gave Michell the soccer ball she brought along with and they played for quite a bit before it was time to turn in for the night.

Alina and Michell (with her new soccer ball) trying to pump up a basketball in the yard that they're using for a soccer ball.

Zelenes gets Shoes!

On Friday mornings, all the children (except the babies & toddlers) get together in front of Vero Castro's girls' house to do big circle.  They sing praise songs and then have a devotional time.  It is really neat to see so many children together praising God.  Because we are assigned to the Toddler House, we didn't get to go.  But the circle was out front as Alina & I passed by to head to the Toddler House.  We gave lots of hugs to children that we've gotten to know over the years on the way.

Big Circle (this is a borrowed picture, not mine)

When we arrived to the Toddler House, Karla asked me if I could watch the toddlers in the 'sala' (living/family room) while she did a circle devotion with the teenagers of the houses.  Alina & I headed into the 'sala' armed with 2 Dr. Seuss books & another book about posadas which I read to the children.  The Dr. Seuss books were already in Spanish, but the posada book was in English, so I had to translate it to Spanish.  By the time I was done reading the 3 books, the teen devotions were finished, so we could get the children ready for breakfast (rice & milk).  After breakfast, the routine is doing the dishes and heading over to the 'chosa' (multi-purpose room) for a while.  Generally after being/playing in the chosa for a while, the children either get to go to the playground or on a walk.  This time we headed to the playground because kids were grouped together and separated to get their photos taken for their sponsors.  These photos will become part of a Christmas card for their sponsors.  The girls looked SO CUTE in their dresses and with their hair done up really nice.

After pictures, we took the kiddos in for lunch and then sent them back to the 'sala' for their nap.  Alina & I approached a teen mom named Zelenes (her picture is one of the last that I posted in last year's blog), whose tennis shoes were one big rip back by the heel...the shoe wasn't even connected to the sole.  We brought 5 pairs of size 8 running shoes (donated by Alina's friend Amelia) and let Zelenes pick out a pair for herself.  She picked the purple running shoes with bright green shoe strings.  I would've taken a picture, but she is a very shy person who prefers not to have her picture taken.  She was very excited to have them and we saw her in those shoes that very afternoon when we came back from break.  We also left the mini-1 soccer ball for the toddlers that Alina's friend Paola had donated.  With gifts like that for younger kids, it's best to give them to the one in charge(so the kids don't fight over it), so we left the ball with Karla and are hoping to get a picture of the kids playing with the ball sometime soon.

After our lunch break we returned to the Toddler House to get the kids supper and then to give them showers.  On the way back to our room for the evening, we realized that Michell was once again given permission to stay out later & chat with us if we wanted to do so...so, that's what we did.  Alina played for quite a bit with Lilian who likes to pinch Alina's cheeks and make them very red for some odd reason.  They ran around quite a bit.  When the evening came to an end, we said our goodbyes and then headed back to our room.

The Toddler House "Pets"

This morning we headed to the toddler house to chop vegetables, serve breakfast, do dishes and then I hung laundry with Vilma.  When morning chores were done, Alina & I headed to the school to ask Karen about teaching reading.  Karen & her husband Mike are staff members here.  I believe she said she's visited a few times and in December they decided to move here for an undetermined amount of time.  She initially said they came from Georgia, but in talking to her more, we found out that her daughter lives in Little Chute and Mike worked for Neenah Foundry for 30 years before they moved to Georgia.  Small world!!!

Karen has a handful of students who are not able to read at all.  I decided that she should send those students my way and we'd work through the alphabet and beginning sounds over the next couple of weeks, rather than have them sit and listen to others read right now when they are not even recognizing the sounds letters make.  Alina & I were busy with students all morning, and since school lets out for lunch after the toddlers have already eaten their lunches, we had to head to the tienda to eat.  Hamburgers were on the menu today!

After our lunch break, we headed back to the room because Alina wanted to pump up all of the balls that she had received at her birthday party from her friends for donations to the children down here.  We opened the donations suitcase and as she pumped up the soccer balls, Alina did end up breaking one needed, but we were thankful for the extra packs of needles that Amelia & my dad had sent.  I laid out the shoes and other items on the open lower bunk bed.  When it came to pumping up the basketballs, I took over since Alina's arm was quite tired by that point.

As we were heading back to the Toddler House for the afternoon, I noticed movement in the Toddler yard...in looking closer, I saw a big iguana.  I really wanted a picture, but every step I took to get closer to it, the iguana would start to run.  Then I saw more movement, and more!  There were FOUR iguanas in the play yard!  I got a couple of pictures, but you'll have to look closely to see them.

Iguana on the cement in front of the lower right corner of the green wall

Iguana in the grass below the center of the purple wall

While at the toddler house, we played with the children, fed them supper, did dishes, gave the kiddos their night-time showers and then Alina played with a few on the trampoline.  As I was finishing up, Karla came over to ask me if I could take one of the babies from the Baby House to the clinic.  He fell in the bathroom and cut his chin open & most likely needed a couple of stitches.  I was brought over to the baby house and introduced to little Osman, who seemed very calm.  The entire walk to the clinic was a walk of calmness and cuddles, but when he laid down on the clinic table...it was another story.  I had to hold his body down while Carelia held his head up so that LaShawn could stitch his chin.  Man to young children have a lot of strength when a needle is coming at them!  But I figure that any kids who were in the near vicinity of the clinic and heard little Osman's screams will most likely decide that they don't need to go to the clinic any time soon.

After bringing Osman back to his house, I headed to the big girls house to spend some time with Michell.  Little by little, she is coming out of her shell & chatting with me.  This once 'mysterious' little girl who would just stare at me and watch everything I did with minimal talking is surprising me more & more each year!  I met her first when she was 8 years old.  She's now 14.  What a blessing she is!

When Michell had to get inside her house for the night, I headed to Karen & Mike's house because Karen had mentioned a book that she had for beginning readers called 'Nacho'.  I'll be looking through this book over the weekend to see how I can incorporate it into what I am doing with the children in reading on Tuesday & Thursday mornings.

Guaimaca

We were told that we were supposed to be at the Toddler House by 6:30 to start preparing the vegetables for lunch.  When we got there, the vegetables had already been started.  I'll have to look back at last year, but I'm pretty sure that we arrived around 6am last year.  Perhaps we'll have to start getting there earlier.  We finished cutting up the carrots and pataste and then got the girls some breakfast...rice & milk.

Pataste

After breakfast, we went over to the chosa (I'll get a picture of this on a different day) so that the kids could watch a movie for a little bit before taking them on a walk around the orphanage.  I believe that the walk is to get them tired out for their afternoon nap, but I definitely got super-tired too.  They went off of the pathways and up & down huge hills...WHEW, what a workout!

When we got back it was time to serve lunch and put the toddlers down for a nap.  Three volunteers met up with Alina & me, and a few young adults from Emmanuel to head into town.  I needed to buy groceries for the next 3 weeks, for when we're not eating with the kids (mainly on Sundays) and also needed to buy laundry detergent and coffee, and the famous solid dish soap that I always bring home to do our dishes with.  We got some delicious homemade bread from the 'My Little Bakery' shop, including cinnamon rolls, banana bread and a vanilla-raisin bread.  When we got back to our room, we got all of the groceries put away into the kitchen and then headed back to the Toddler House where we served supper (they had tortillas tonight!) and gave quick showers so that we could get to Wednesday night church.  David led the service.  We walked Michell back to her house after the service and then headed back to our room.

Solid dish soap that we typically buy to take home for the year

Alina snacked on a guayaba while we sat on the front steps of the building, feeling right at home with this beautiful place.  When she went to throw the guava away, Luis David passed by with the other boys on a tractor and he shouted 'hola Alina' to her.  He's one of Papi's (David's) workers this year, which really is an honor to be working for the founder of the orphanage.  The guys waved a few more times as the tractor ran past us doing errands all around Emmanuel.

Before heading to bed, I checked the USB modem I had purchased in town.  When I got on to Facebook, I saw that my Doris was online and we chatted a bit before I realized that I was just exhausted from all of the travel yesterday and all of the work today.  I believe we were sleeping by about 7:30pm.

Honduras 2015

I thought this day would never come.  After 7 years of heading to Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras, I have been SO excited to get down there for year #8!  Alina and I finished packing yesterday and Bob & I headed out together last night for some sushi while Alina waited up for us, anxiously awaiting left-overs to be brought home.  We got up around 3:30am this morning so that we could be out the door by 4:30, in order to catch our 5:56am flight to Atlanta.  Before leaving, I headed to the younger kiddos bedrooms to give them a small kiss on the cheek (although I had given them kisses & hugs last night while they were still awake).

Bob brought me & Alina to the Appleton airport and helped us rearrange our checked luggage - guess that our home scale is about 1/2 to an entire pound off.  When it was time to head through security, we said our goodbyes (can't wait for Bob to join us in a couple of weeks) and then headed in to catch our plane.  Alina & I stopped for a coffee and then we shared a lemon poppy-seed muffin before our flight.  The last time I had flown out of Appleton, we had went right over our house, but this flight took us over the north side of Lake Winnebago, so Alina got to see all of Doty Island and it made much more of an impact on why it's called an "island" than just seeing it on a map.

Yep, still sleepy as we wait for our plane in Appleton

In Atlanta, we didn't have much time at all to catch the next flight to Tegucigalpa, so we made one bathroom stop and then grabbed food to eat on the plane.  The flight to Tegucigalpa was just over 3 hours.  Each of the seats of the plane had a small TV to watch shows/movies, play games, listen to music, etc.  I chose to watch a movie called 'Run All Night' and Alina watched the SpongeBob movie and then began to watch TinkerBell.  When we arrived in Honduras, we exchanged our dollars to Lempiras and I purchased a cheap phone so that I could call back home when we arrived to the orphanage to let the family know we were okay.  With phones down here, calls to the USA are only about 5 cents per minute - which is why I prefer to get a $20 phone here and then call the US, rather than use my own cell phone and pay quite a few dollars per minute.  We were picked up at the airport by Norman (can't wait to take the bus system again...much more reasonable & cultural) who took us out to the orphanage.

When we came into the orphanage, we met with Andi (the volunteer coordinator) and Katja (long-time friend) who let us know that we'd once again be staying in 'Hotel #3' and working in the Toddler House mornings & nights, and I would be teaching reading in the school during the day.  As we pulled our luggage out of Norman's van, we heard Invisible (my nickname for Pamela who I've known for the past 8 years...you'll hear more about her later) shouting, "Gloria! Gloria!", which is what they call me since they cannot pronounce Lori or LoriAnn.  We put our luggage in our room and headed down to say 'Hi' & visit for a 1/2 hour until school let out.

Invisible let me know that there have been many changes since we've been here last year.  Two staff members who were friends of mine (Elizabeth & Zue) have now left.  Elizabeth will be studying in Europe after a trek through Central & South America, and Zue is getting married!  I also found out that about an hour before I arrived, Doris left.  Doris was like a daughter to me, I had many blog postings about her through the years.  She left her cell phone number with the big girls around the yards so that they could get the number to me when I came.  I did call her later on in the evening and left a message.

After chatting in the special needs yard with Invisible, we headed to the school.  There we saw Elvia, Michell, Karol, Yensi, Coco and others...again, many of these girls were in past posts through the years.  They've grown so much over the past 8 years I've known them.  We chatted quite a bit while we were walking them back to their yard.  I had a nice chat with Elvia, who is in charge of one of the big girls' houses.  She let me know that she too is thinking of leaving to study some more.

Our final stop was at the Toddler House where we said 'hello' to Zelenes and the rest of the crew.  We let them know that we'd be starting there tomorrow morning!

Hotel #3 - my bed in the background

Alina's bed

When we got back to our room, we called Doris and then Bob.  We are pretty much set to get all of the donations of sporting equipment out throughout our stay here...and will try to get pictures as we do so.

Alina's Birthday Donations...Ready to Go!

Welcome to Honduras 2015!