A Fun Afternoon for the Toddlers!

This morning began with devotions and my cafecito, followed by updating the blog from yesterday.  When we headed to the Toddler House, I cut the vegetables since there was only 1 knife to be found while Alina went to take care of (round up) the toddlers.  Before breakfast, Alina helped to get the toddlers in line and took the initiative of taking charge in leading the prayer.  Karla (the one in charge of the Toddler House) was VERY impressed.

We served breakfast and then I did dishes.  This morning, all morning, we were in the 'chosa' so that the big girls could get the entire Toddler House cleaned.  They wash mattresses (if needed), pull out all furniture so that they can sweep and mop underneath it and behind it and really do a thorough cleaning of the house, top to bottom.  This is done EVERY Saturday.

When the house was cleaned, we brought the toddlers back to have lunch and then did the dishes afterward.  Alina and I decided to give Karla the volleyball that was donated at her birthday party since Karla had talked about how much she loved learning to play volleyball this past year in the gymnasium.  She said that she hoped she could take us to play before we left.

While the toddlers were sleeping, Alina and I came back to our room to clean.  Alina started with the kitchen, sweeping and mopping...but accidentally poured WAY too much soap into the solution and so she spent the rest of the time working on getting all of the soap off of the floor.  While she was working on the kitchen, I cleaned our room and the bathroom (if you know me, I really dislike cleaning bathrooms...bad McDonald's experience).  The thing is...if you don't clean frequently down here, the more bugs will enter!

When we went back to the Toddler House after naptime, we found out that they were going to take the toddlers out to the sprinkler system on the playground.  It had been painted so nice since last year.  I chose to stay back and chat with the girls in the kitchen (and there was one Ohio girl chatting as well) while Alina went to get soaking wet with the toddlers.  All of the toddlers got baths today BEFORE supper as opposed to after and then we served them their rice, beans, eggs and tortillas.

Alina running with the toddlers under the sprinklers

After doing the supper dishes, Karla let us know that we'd be going on a walk with the toddlers.  We walked in front of the team house, stopping for just a little bit, then walked between the hotel and the medium girls' house, and then towards the office, where Papi came and decided to give all of the toddlers a moon pie (they're pretty common treats down here...check the website to see how many have been eaten to date!).  When we walked past the big boys house, I saw a 'guy' in the distance who I thought I recognized.  When I pulled my sunglasses down just a little bit to be sure (before saying 'hi' to a stranger), Alexander shouted my name.  I've probably mentioned Alexander in prior years' posts, but he had graduated a few years back and is currently studying to be either a pastor or a missionary.  He came back to Emmanuel for the week because he is inbetween semesters and was thinking he'd come back to help out if they needed him.  It was so nice to see him!

We walked around the back way to the Toddler House and dropped of the toddlers before heading home.   The California group has arrived, and I'm so excited to see some very familiar faces yet once again!  There will probably be some pretty exciting posts coming up this next week because of the California-Ohio teams being here!!!

Lots of Math

This morning began once again with devotions and my 'cafecito', but instead of updating by blog next, I had to pour time into the 3 questions that the Profesor Ramon gave me so that I could bring them back to school when it started around 8am.  Two of the three questions were pretty easy to solve (the one on ellipse equations and then giving the domain of a rational function), the 3rd problem on step functions gave me a bit of a problem, and I wanted to discuss it further with the teacher since I wasn't quite clear on what the question was asking.

We are supposed to be at the Toddler House by 6am, so we headed over there and as I hung up my bag, I noticed a moth on the wall.  These moths are super huge, probably at least a 6" wingspan.  Very pretty.

We headed into the kitchen to begin our routine of cutting vegetables, and then heading to the sala to spend time with the kids while the older girls did their circle devotions.  The other children of Emmanuel had big circle today, since it was Friday, so we were a little "short-staffed" since the 2 volunteers from Ireland (Caroline and Claire) decided to see what a big circle was like.  So it was just Alina, me and Rosa in watching the kids.  When it was time to line the kids up for breakfast, they were so disobedient that Rosa had to call others for help so she could leave & collect herself.  I can't even imagine living with 25+ toddlers!  These girls have a lot of work to do.

After serving breakfast and doing the dishes, I headed to school to collaborate with Profeesor Ramon.  He liked the 2 answers that I had (they matched answers that were on the multiple choice government test), and for the question on which I was confused, when I looked at the test, I noticed that he had written the question down incorrectly...which is why I was so confused.  Upon looking at the test, it was a simple step function for me to solve.  We chatted a bit about this upcoming test, and he asked me if I would be willing to come in to their class on Monday and help him teach about circle equations and then review for the test.  Each year I tend to go into his classroom at least once, so I agreed that I'd help him out.

When I got back to the Toddler House, Zelenes and Deisy were waiting to begin their math lessons.  We spent the entire morning going over solving, graphing, and listing the domain and rage of: absolute value functions, step functions, and rational functions.  I'm sure some of you reading this may be confused with all of the math lingo, but this is some upper-level stuff and it was SO fun to be using my degrees in math, Spanish, and bilingual education to work with these girls.  I'm just so nerdy that way!

Karla and I served up the plates for lunch before the children came back from the playground.  We had a good chat about how to raise toddlers...I'm not so sure I contributed very much since this age is definitely not my area of expertise, but I encouraged her and let her know that I was very supportive of what she was doing.  After lunch, the toddlers were sent into the 'sala' to nap while we did the dishes.  When dishes were done, Alina asked if she could stay and help sweep and mop the dining area while I went home to take a nap.  I was extremely tired from the sun and from the math/Spanish combo of tutoring.  It was after Alina came back to the room that I realized that my body was lacking sugar (natural sugar) because I was so weak.  So I headed to the 'tienda' to buy one of the California mango/peach juices to replenish lost sugars.  I was feeling much better soon after.

We chatted with the big girls a little bit before heading back to the Toddler House to serve supper.  Karla wanted all kids to have eaten by 4pm and then dishes done, showers done, and the dining area cleaned.  After the boys showered, I helped them into their pajamas and then read some Dr. Seuss books.  Then I went over to chat with Karla some more before heading back to our room.

Alina mopped the hall area in front of the hotel (she's really into mopping the Honduran way!), and then washed up some string beans and opened our last little container of ranch dressing and invited me to sit outside on the steps with her and snack as we watched the sun go down.  We wrapped up the night by calling home and talking to everyone except for Noah, who was sent to bed before getting the chance to talk.  I'm hoping that the next time I call that I can talk to him because I've missed him twice now when calling.  Sounds like they had a fun family night last night with pizza and movies!

More Math Help

This morning after I finished my shower, when I came out of the bathroom...there it was, right on the side of the armoire...the cockroach we've been looking for.  I was quick to grab the broom and open the door and then rushed over to brush it off the armoire onto the floor and out the door.  Bye Bye!!!

When the adrenaline rush settled a little bit, I sat down with my online Proverbs31 devotions and my 'cafecito' to take in the beginnings of my day.  After that, I updated my blog from yesterday and then worked on getting Alina up (which has been quite a lengthy process these past few days).  We set out for the Toddler House, cut carrots and then took the children into the 'sala' so that the big girls could do their circle devotions together.  Then we helped serve breakfast and washed the dishes.

Since it was Thursday, after dishes were done, Alina and I headed to the school so that I could work with the five 4th graders on reading.  While I was reading with one of the boys, Profesor Ramon approached me and asked if I could work through 3 problems that were on the upcoming test the students were to take on Tuesday.  He had worked through the answers, but wanted to discuss these 3 problems.  He had them written down for me so that I could take them with me (since all 3 problems were of very different types: step function, ellipse with foci, and a circle problem...for those of you that know your math).  I told him that I could meet with him tomorrow morning to go through the answers that I got.  Alina and I finished up with the children and reading and then we headed to the 'tienda' since we missed lunch at the Toddler House.  A volunteer by the name of Devin came over and chatted with us for quite a while.

When the big girls were back in their yard during the lunch hour, Alina and I took the last 2 chocolate muffins and 3 Mexican suckers each to Yensi and Coco, twins that were celebrating their birthday today.  We walked with them to school for the afternoon, and when they went into class, we headed back to the Toddler House.  Marisela was having a mini-birthday party for her daughter Perla.  We had given her a dress (donated by a coworker of mine) and she was so excited to wear it today.

Marisela with her daughter Perla on her 3rd birthday

This afternoon we served supper, did the dishes, and then I spent the next couple of hours working with Zelenes and Deisy on their math problems, while Alina went with some of the teen moms and the other 2 volunteers from Ireland to the big swing (a big ropes swing, kind of scary) that the Team decided to run with the girls.  When she got back it was getting dark and time to get back to our room.  It gets dark here around 6pm, which probably seems a little odd to those of us in Wisconsin, especially since it's still light around 8pm in the summer,..I'm thinking that with the mountains here, that has a lot to do with the sun going down earlier - compared to our REALLY FLAT land in Wisconsin.

Tutoring Mathematics in Honduras

After devotions and getting ready this morning, Alina and I headed to the Toddler House where we cut the vegetables and served breakfast. 

Morning vegetable cutting to use in the afternoon meals

Alina went with the children to the 'chosa' (multi-purpose room) and she showed Ana some drills to do with the basketball that she gave to her.  Ana let me know later that she was very impressed with Alina's skills!  I noticed that  Jeremias was playing with the mini soccer ball that Alina had given to the Toddler House (one of the donations from her birthday party), so I took a picture of that as well.

Jeremias with the Mini 1 (that was the name on the soccer ball)

While the children were away, I worked with Zelenes on her math.  The big girls had missed 4 weeks of school due to the Toddler House being quarantined because of an illness that was running around.  The girls have their big exams next week and since they haven't been in school the past 4 weeks, math has been the greatest challenge.  Zelenes is in Bachillerato 1, which is the equivalent of 10th grade, but they are working on Algebra 2 material with quadratic functions (finding the vertex, intercepts, domain and range)...okay if you're not a math nerd like me, that probably didn't make any sense, but I truly got all geeked out about helping her!  We spent all morning going through this part of the book, and there's more to go through before Monday, including logarithms and conics...so we'll be working a lot together over the next few days.  Zelenes says that her favorite subject is math, so I'm hoping that what I teach her, she can practice and then teach the other girls.  She catches on pretty quickly, and making up 4 weeks of material in 5 days is not going to be an easy task.

We served lunch and then headed back to our room so that I could get some money for the volunteers who were going in to town to stop and get me a few items.  My internet USB modem came with a free week which expired today, so I needed to get a 'quincena' (1/2 month) put onto it, so that I would still have internet access to posts blogs for the rest of my stay here.  And then there are 3 birthdays, 1 today and 2 tomorrow of special kids I know that I wanted to buy a cupcake for from town.  When the volunteers were ready to head into town, we went to the school to watch the kids come back for the afternoon.  Luis David came over and sat by us.  Today is his birthday, and I've known him since the first year I was here - so one of the cupcakes was going to be for him.  We chatted for a bit, and I joked how Alina is catching up to him in height, so they stood side-by-side and it looks like he's still an inch taller than her.  By next year, she'll pass him. Alina also stood next to a girl who's 12, and she was about 20 inches taller than this girl!

When we got back to the Toddler House for the afternoon, the older girls were out in the dining area watching the end of X-Men 3.  When the movie finished, we served supper to the kids, and got them showered up really quickly because there is church tonight.  I had brought my smart phone along to show pictures of our 4 younger kids to Karla and the older toddler boys, and realized that I had a video of Olaf singing the Summer song on my phone from when we were at Disney.  The boys absolutely loved watching that!  They also watched a video of our daughter Kaylyn going through a basketball drill at this summer's basketball camp.

Church this evening was pretty short, but very worthwhile.  Alina sat with Michell while I sat with the Alabama team.  When we got back to our room, we had a bowl of cereal and then got ready for bed.  When I went into the bathroom, I saw this little guy on the wall.  It's a gecko.  By the time I had gotten my camera, he fell off of the wall and was heading underneath the door.  Like cockroaches, they are very quick, but I think they're a lot cuter.  They eat the other bugs in the room so that we don't have to worry about too many bugs in here.  They also make an odd sound each night...sort of like a mechanical laugh, which is easy to distinguish.  

A Request for a Basketball?

This morning began like the others with devotions and my cafecito, but changed drastically when we headed to the Toddler House and in their playground area found some (what Alina & I think were) wild turkeys!  There were about 9-10 of them.  It's so neat to keep your eyes open around here...you just never know what you're going to see.

Wild turkeys this morning in the toddler yard

When we arrived at the Toddler House, we went through the routine of cutting the vegetables, serving breakfast, and doing the dishes.  Because today was Tuesday, I had to head to school with Alina to work with the children that are in 4th grade that cannot yet read.  We work with these children 1-on-1, and since I had gotten them started on beginning sounds of consonants with the vowels, the Nacho book that Karen lent me over the weekend helped very nicely to supplement with that.  We went page by page, first combining the 'm' with the 5 vowels and then reading sentences that only had vowels and the consonant 'm' in it.  The next page had the consonant 'p' on it, and combining it with vowels and even the letter 'm'.  Some students needed to stop here, some went on to the 'l' page which was next.  When we got to the end of our 20 minutes together, I copied the sentences down from the page we had left off onto a partial sheet of notebook paper and asked them to practice the sentences today, tomorrow and Thursday morning, so that when we got together again on Thursday, we could go from there...otherwise we'd have to review even more.  To each student who made an honest effort the entire 20 minutes (and all began eager to learn), I gave a chili-coated mango sucker...which made their smile widen even more!

After we finished at the school, we headed back to the Toddler House.  I gave some clothes that I had received from a coworker to a few of the teen moms who we thought they might fit.  One girl was so excited that she rushed to her room to try it on and when she came out, the red dress fit perfectly!  All of them were very excited to receive new clothes and said Thank You with a smile.  It's so nice to see people so appreciative.  We served lunch and then I headed with Alina to the tienda to get her a snack of chips and soda because she was STILL hungry (growing pre-teen, expecting another growth spurt soon).

Alina decided to stay in the big girls yard until they headed to school, while I went down to talk to Andi in the office about checking to see if they have room for us next year.  The neat thing is...next year we are able to come down for FIVE weeks!  Pretty soon I'll be working up to the entire summer!  I'm just so excited about that.

When we headed back to the Toddler House, a team member came by to help me with Helen and her speech.  Helen is 2 years old (I believe, or just turned 3) and Karla says that she doesn't hear Helen talk at all and is wondering if she's delayed.  As a high school mathematics teacher, this is completely not my area of expertise, so I approached one of the men in charge of the team if he had anyone whose career was speech pathology or early childhood education who might be able to help me.  A lady named LeAnn came down and said she was certified in special needs and had a bunch of ideas to help me get started!

Alina spent most of her time playing with a little boy whose mom ran away from the orphanage sometime between last year and this year.  We knew his mom and had even given her a Packer shirt (you can find a picture of her in last year's posts).  For some reason, she decided to take off and leave her son behind.  His name is Noe (Spanish for Noah), but everyone calls him 'Chino' because his eyes make him look slightly Chinese.  His mom was nicknamed China.

Alina and Chino (Noe)

When it was time for supper, we helped serve supper and then I did the dishes while Alina helped the big toddler girls to shower.  When dishes were done, I went in to Zelenes' room to play with the big toddler boys.  Ana approached me and asked if we had a basketball that we could give her, to which I replied that we had THREE basketballs and I'd have Alina bring her one tomorrow and show her some drills.

When we left for our room, we stopped by the 'cancha' (playground area and soccer field) that's in front of the school, which is where the Big Girls were.  Alina played soccer with them for a while before they had to head in for the night.  I just sat by the sidelines chatting with some of the other girls that didn't care to play.  When we got home, Alina ate the rest of the super-size cinnamon roll (yep, growth spurt) and then went to the Team House to get 2 boxes (yep, you read that right, boxes) of milk from Claire (a volunteer from Ireland) since Claire had said that she's not able to drink the milk here.  And that was pretty much it for Tuesday!

My First Monday at Emmanuel 2015

Alina's and my view each time we walk out of our room

This morning began like most of the others, with my cafecito and devotions, then heading to the Toddler House to cut vegetables, serve breakfast, wash dishes and head over to the chosa.  There was a light sprinkle this morning, so we didn't head out to the playground to play, but spent all morning in the chosa.  Karla got out some wooden puzzles and we needed to sort through them to find out which ones had all of their pieces and which ones were missing pieces.  The kids absolutely loved the puzzles!

While we were in the chosa, Kim stopped by to have three children color a picture for their sponsors.  Kim is Elisabeth's mom (Elisabeth was a staff member here for a few years, in charge of the little girls' house and worked with sponsors).  While the 3 girls colored, we chatted quite a bit about Emmanuel, the work here, Elisabeth's current trek through Panama and the rest of Central and South America, and just life in general.  It was nice to have that time to chat with her while the girls were busy coloring pictures for their sponsors.

We went straight from the chosa to lunch, then put the kids down for a nap and did dishes.  Alina and I headed to the school while the children were napping to watch the children line up for their classes, then back to our room for a very quick break.

When we got back to the Toddler House, we took the children out to the playground.  It's the rainy season now, but that means it rains off and on between the hot, strong sun.  If it rained this morning, it will be dry by the afternoon.  We let the kids play on the playground until the moms came home from school and then headed in for supper.  Again, I did dishes after supper and when I finished, Karla gave me a nail clippers and asked me to cut all of the children's nails.  I began with the small boys and then headed to the big boys room, and then the big girls.  The only room I didn't get to was the small girls, since by that time the children were moving once again to the chosa.

Karla explained to me that Monday nights are 'Mom nights'.  This means that all of the toddlers whose moms are there (teen moms) get to spend between 45 minutes and an hour with just their mom, while all of the other children are together elsewhere.  The teen moms are generally responsible for a room of children, so their own child(ren) usually doesn't get any more attention than a child whose mom is outside of Emmanuel.  I stayed behind and watched the moms interact with their kids, which was really nice.  I chatted with a mom, Rosa, about how she came to Emmanuel while her daughter colored (which her mom says is her daughter's favorite activity).  What a story!

When all of the children were brought back together, Alina & I headed to the Big Girls' yard once again.  Michell was out waiting for us and while Alina played with Michell, I chatted with Lucy who may have the opportunity to go to Denmark in 3 weeks to participate in a youth program.  She is very nervous about her English and was asking about tips on how to speak and read it better and faster.  I said the big thing is for her to open up her mind and shuffle aside the teenage fear of speaking in front of others.  She knows the rest, I'm confident of that.  When it was time for her and Michell to go inside, Alina and I headed back to our room for the night.  Alina must be in another growth spurt because I had purchased enough groceries for 3 weeks while shopping last week, and it appears we're going to run out with her eating habits at the end of each day!!!

La Cucaracha

I woke up around 1am this morning with my heart racing due to a very bad dream (something about a roller coaster type ride, but worse).  Since I was up I decided to go to the bathroom before trying to settle myself down.  When I came out of the bathroom and headed back to the bed...that's when I saw it, a cockroach, crawl out from between the mattress and the box-spring at the foot of the bed and run along the crack until it crawled back between the two at the head of the bed.  And that my friends was the determining factor that made me decide to go use the upper bunk bed for the rest of the night.  My heart, which had settled down from the bathroom break, was once again racing, and it took me quite a while longer to settle it down in order to fall asleep.

So I woke up around 5am to once again have my cafecito and my devotional time before getting ready for church.  Church doesn't start until 8:15, but I don't want to fall out of the pattern of being able to get up early.  As it is, Honduras is 1 hour behind Wisconsin time, meaning 8am in Honduras is 9am in Wisconsin.  When Alina & I arrived at church, we headed up to the very front row to sit next to Michell.  Alina commented that this was the first time ever sitting in the first row here at Emmanuel.  I let her know that she'd better pay attention or Papi (David, the founder of the orphanage) might tease her like he did another girl during Wednesday night's service...about tuning out because she's thinking about her boyfriend.  A man from the Alabama team that is here gave the sermon, which was unusually short, but effective.  He gave a sermon last year about a horse saddle and the different parts to the saddle and compared that to our relationship with God.

Sunday Service (from left to right): Yensi, Michell and Alina

After church, Alina & I quickly went home and changed and then headed to the tienda for a bite to eat, then headed to the big girls yard until they had to get ready for lunch.  While they were eating, we went back to our room to do some cleaning.  We washed a load of laundry and then folded the numerous blankets that had been washed and just left in our room when we arrived.  The closet is now full of sheets, blankets, pillow cases, towels and wash cloths.  As I was folding a towel, a cockroach dropped down from between its creases and ran onto Alina's bed.  We had already put all of the suitcases on her bed because we were going to look for the OTHER cockroach and didn't want it constantly running underneath stuff.  Now it appeared we had 2 cockroaches that we needed to find and scoot out of our room.  So I started to move the suitcases off of the bed and it appeared the cockroach disappeared.  The last place I saw it go was underneath Alina's suitcase, so I lifted her suitcase up from off of the floor and set it down a little more harshly...yep, a cockroach fell out of the creases (and this is why we keep our suitcases zipped shut at all times).  It ran under the big couch.  I got the broom and told Alina to lift the couch.  We were more grossed out than flittery, fluttery and screaming.  It was a pretty calm 'grossed-out'.  She moved the couch, but we didn't see anything.  We spent quite a bit of time going back and forth between moving the couch, the love seat and the chair and trying to find it, but we didn't.  Then we headed to the bed.  We lifted the mattress, but no cockroach...so our hunt was a failure this time around.  Perhaps later.  I'll keep you posted on that.

In all of the commotion of searching for the cockroaches, when it was time to go to the Medium Girls' yard, I left the key in the room an locked the door (ugh).  So while Alina went to chat and play with the medium girls, I had to find a way to get into our room so we could get the keys.  When there's a problem here, there's a lot of running around.  I view it as 'exercise' opportunities!  Andi sent me to Katja who sent me to Heidy...but it all turned out well and we got back into the room.

Alina brought the big girls some paletas.  These are mango suckers that are coated in a hot chili pepper.  I've been bringing the girls these paletas since I started coming to Emmanuel 8 years ago.  They absolutely love them and ask me for them every time. Due to the quantity we bring down, our bags (Bob's especially) tend to get checked by the airlines now.

Alina and some of the Big Girls

When the girls had to go in for the night, Alina and I headed back to our room and I made us some guacamole.  We followed that up with a cinnamon roll (since guacamole doesn't really fill the stomach).  We met 2 volunteers that moved into Zue and Elizabeth's house, named Sara and Morgan.  Sara is taller than I am (nice!) and is really into basketball.  I let her know that she needs to take Alina down to the gymnasium when she gets the girls down there...and also that Alina brought 3 basketballs down here to play with.  Alina seemed to be very excited at the chance to play basketball.

This evening's healthy food: Guacamole

To wrap up the night, we called home.  We chatted with Bob and Kaylyn, but found the the boys were already in bed.  There was lots to talk about and lots of happenings to be filled in on both sides, so we went over our 'allotted minutes', meaning what should've been a 1/2 hour $1.50 phone call (that's the package deal we ordered) turned into using a lot more money since the call lasted 37 minutes...as anything over 30 minutes gets charged at a LOT higher rate.