Bob Arrives

Yesterday morning was the tarantula in the shower, this morning began with a millipede in the bathroom sink, ugh.  I took this bug outside as well on a sheet of paper and then went about my morning routine of showering, doing devotions with my 'cafecito', and updating my blog when I saw what I thought was a cockroach in front of our door to go outside.  As I got closer, I noticed it was a big grasshopper...so now I've been exposed to 4 different kinds of creatures in our room during our stay this year (aside from the normal mosquitoes, moths and daddy long-legs).

This morning's bug...a millipede

When Alina and I got to the Toddler House, Lori and her 2 daughters were already cutting vegetables.  We chatted with them as they were finishing up and then headed with the children to the sala before serving breakfast.  Since the lock on the toy room in the 'chosa' broke last night, Karla decided that we wouldn't go in there because it would be too difficult to try to keep the toddlers from pulling out ALL of the toys in the toy room.  Normally she gets a rubbermaid container out of toys for the children to play with (since there are numerous containers in the toy room) and then they play with that batch of toys for the morning.  The movie of choice this morning was 'The Croods'.  Thankfully it was something different than our typical Frozen movie or Barbie movie.  Most of the teen moms were cleaning the Toddler House as that is what's done on Saturday morning while the children are away.

When it was time for lunch, we served lunch, did dishes and then headed back to our room to clean and prepare for Bob's arrival.  We swept, cleaned the bathroom and put fresh sheets on the bed for Bob.  We rearranged a little bit of the furniture and got placed our luggage on the floor by our beds.  Then we headed back to the Toddler House where we saw that they were already up and out in the play yard in front of their house.  We weren't there for more than 10 minutes or so when we saw Norman drive by towards the Toddler House.  Knowing that Norman was picking up Bob, we figured that Bob was in the van too and Alina and I went running to greet him.  But it was just Norman looking for the keys to our room.  I gave him the keys and Alina asked if she could run to the house to say "hi" to Bob, so I gave her permission.

Turns out that Bob was already 1/2-way to the Toddler House by that point, so we chatted for about 10 minutes and then he decided to get his luggage in the room and eat a little bit.  By the time he made it back to the Toddler House, we had served supper and I was doing dishes.  We chatted again for a bit, but I told him to get some rest since he looked pretty beat.  We got the toddlers washed up and then took them out for a walk out in front of the orphanage.  I was on the swing with Jeremias for a while when it started to sprinkle.  All of the toddlers began sprinting back towards their house, but they only got to the Medium Girls' House before it became an all out down-pour with heavy wind.  The kids were shivering as we stood under the medium girls house waiting for the rain to break.  We were there for about 20 minutes.  Finally little Emmanuel asked if we could pray for the rain to stop...the faith of a child!  He led the prayer as all of the other kiddos repeated what he said.  Within a minute of his prayer ending, the rain lifted and we finished our walk home!

Alina and I decided to just help drop the toddlers off at their house and then head back home before another downpour began, and wouldn't you know as soon as we walked in our door...yep, it started up again and rained until around 2am.  We were so beat that we headed to bed almost immediately.

La Tarantula

So ever since the 1990 release of the movie Arachnophobia, I have had a more "serious" fear of spiders.  The shower scene in that movie (you can look that up on YouTube if you're not familiar with it) just freaked me out!  For months after the movie, I was thoroughly inspecting the shower for spiders before entering.  When I moved to Pulaski in 1996 and stayed until 1998, I had a problem with these large brown spiders, not much different in size than the ones in the movie.  Finding a spider in my shower there (amongst other places like the kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc) rekindled all of my fears of large spiders...especially in the shower.  Well it's been a long time since 1998, so my fear has passed a bit...UNTIL this morning when I got up at 3:30am, went to the bathroom and then got ready to shower.  I opened the shower curtain and this is what I saw. My heart started pounding 1000 times per minute! Tarantulas don't move nearly as fast as the cockroaches I spoke of earlier, so I knew I had time to deal with both my adrenaline and the spider.  I grabbed my camera to take a picture - after all, it is one of God's creatures.  I had 3 choices: 1) leave it there, 2) kill it, or 3) scoot it out the front door.

My head quickly reasoned through all 3 responses.  If I left it, there'd be a chance it would crawl back into the room onto one of our couches or worse yet, into one of our beds!  If I killed it, that would mean I'd have to get pretty close to it and then try with all my might to pound at it with a shoe or a rock, leaving a yucky, fuzzy yet gooey mess for me to clean up.  Yep, I'd have to go for option #3.  I opened the front door and grabbed the broom.  I scooted it out of the shower, but then it ran to hide behind the sink pedestal and the wall.  So I needed to cram the broom bristles back there to scoot it out.  When it came out, I brushed it out of the bathroom into our main room.  By then I could tell the spider was ticked off since it froze with its front 2 legs up and its head raised.  So quickly I started scooting it out the front door and then over the porch ledge onto the grass.  There...now I can say I let a tarantula loose out into the wild, or back into nature - and I didn't kill God's precious (yet creepy, crawly, gross) creature.  :-)

My morning encounter in the shower

All I can say after this experience is that I'm glad it happened in year #8 down here in Honduras rather than year #1!!!

So I did not need coffee this morning as I was already awake.  I quickly took my shower and then did devotions.  We left our room a little early since there were around 16 girls still in Veronica Castro's Medium Girls' House (there are 2 medium girls houses here) that we didn't get measured.  Monica came over by me and offered her help which once again, we were VERY thankful to have!  We got all 16 girls measured before Big Circle began.  Since we are at the Toddler House this summer, we didn't have the opportunity to participate in Big Circle, which was a little sad but Alina and I have participated in numerous Big Circles over the past 2 years, so we were okay with it.

At the Toddler House, we cut the vegetables, watched the children in the 'sala' while the teen moms had their circle devotions outside, served breakfast when they came back, and then took the children to the chosa.  Ana and I went to the dining area around 10am so that I could work with her in practicing her mathematics review for the college entrance exam again.  It's coming along okay, but there are many problems to do.  I'm hoping that we can get through them all before I leave on Wednesday next week.

We served the toddlers lunch around 11am and they headed into the 'sala' to take their nap while the older girls cleaning the dining area, halls and front play area.  I headed to our room to change from pants to shorts as the sun was shining brightly by now and it was rather hot out.  I stopped by the store to grab a large bottle of soda and some Doritos for the girls to eat while watching Maleficent later.  I had a boy run into town yesterday to get a copy of the movie Maleficent for me.  I'll leave it here with the girls.  Ana, Alina and I watched it while the toddlers were napping since Ana wouldn't be here later on in the evening when the other girls were watching it.

When nap time was done the toddlers came out and played for a little bit before we served them supper.  As I did the dishes and helped Ana give showers to the 4 boys she's in charge of, Alina was helping with the cleaning in the dining area, and halls.  She absolutely loves to mop with the girls, and the girls like her help.  I'm not sure that many volunteers help with mopping.

Alina mopping the hallway

Alina washing out her mop

I worked through another 12 math problems with Ana before I headed out.  Karla and I put a bunch of toys away back into the 'back room' of the 'chosa' and while she was trying to lock up, the lock on the door broke.  She was very concerned that since the door was now loosely open, the kids would just be a wreck going back into that room and pulling EVERYTHING out.  So I left early to head to Mike and Karen's apartment (which is next to our room) to ask Mike if there was anything that he could do to seal off that door before tomorrow morning when the toddlers would be in the chosa.

At the end of the evening, we took 2 pairs of running shoes (size 8) to girls we had measured earlier this morning that didn't have tennis shoes and we also gave the brand new pair of size 7 tennis shoes to Veronica Castro's 11-year-old daughter who has been growing like crazy!  All 3 girls were SO excited to get some new shoes.  We also took the 2 baseball gloves, 4 baseballs and the pack of plastic baseballs (for hitting practice) down to Max who told us that he'd use them with his house of boys because he's been trying to teach them how to play baseball.  That about wrapped up our day.

Thank You Monica!

My normal routine for the morning is devotions with my 'cafecito'.  Once again I didn't have time to type yesterday's blog since I woke up very late (due to staying up late last night watching a movie with Alina and Doris calling).  We left almost right away for the Toddler House.  When we arrived, we cut the veggies and then found out that the team that's here grabbed all of the big girls with the exception of Deisy to do circle devotions.  In addition to that, Papi (David) came around and gave moon pies to each of the toddlers.  This does 2 things: 1) makes the toddlers hyper, and 2) fills them up a little bit so they're less likely to line up well for breakfast.  They hyper-ness was very difficult to manage since Deisy was the only one in charge (and then 3 of us volunteers).  Then when the team's devotions ran late, we needed to round up the toddlers, feed them, do dishes, clean the dining area, etc.  I had to make my way to school by 8:30am and as I was leaving the big girls were coming back, so I'm not sure how late they were to school?

The reading pull-out program that I am doing is going well.  Rachel stopped by after working with a couple of kids to see how it was going.  I'm hoping that she can continue doing this after I leave so that their reading isn't so sporadic with different materials being used each time.  When we got done reading, all 3 of us headed back to the Toddler House to serve lunch and help clean.  I helped walk the toddlers to school with Zelenes in the afternoon and then headed back to our room to book a hotel for our overnight stay in Tegucigalpa.

When I went back to the Toddler House to serve supper, there were some team members there and Alina led the toddlers in their 'prep' to get ready for supper and also in prayer!

Alina (yellow shirt) getting the toddlers ready for supper and leading them in prayer.

After supper and bathime, Alina and I headed to Ana Yanci's Medium Girls' House to measure this last house.  Monica (a girl I've known for the past few years) asked me what I was doing, then she wanted to be measured first.  I explained each measurement I was taking (bust, waist, hips, then belly button to knee for skirts), then I sent her to Alina who took a foot measurement for shoes.  Then she asked if she could do the measuring of all of the other girls!  As a mathematician who likes accuracy, I glanced at the measurements that she was taking sporadically while I wrote down what she was telling me.  She was doing great and we got through the entire house really quickly!  I was SO thankful to have her helping me.

When we got back to our room, we called back home to the States to chat with my kids who were with Bob.  Bob leaves tomorrow afternoon, so it would be the last night we could chat with everyone.  Although Jaden was sleeping, we talked with Noah, Kaylyn and Bob.  With 5 minutes left to go in our chat, the power went out.  I'm guessing that our cell phone tower went down too, because my phone cut out at exactly the same time as the power went out.  Power came back on around 1am.

Grocery Shopping for Bob

It rained (poured) all night long, and with a metal roof/ceiling, it can get pretty loud.  Alina and I both woke up several times during the night.  My morning routine wasn't any different this morning aside from the fact that it took the entire morning to load just the pictures for the last 2 days of blogs, so I wasn't able to enter any blogs this morning like I generally try to.

When we left for the Toddler House, Alina told me that she saw a live tarantula in a 5-gallon bucket at the medium girls house.  Guess they had a visitor during the night.  We headed to the Toddler House and did the normal routine there too, cutting vegetables, watching the toddlers in the 'sala' while the teen moms did a morning devotion together, served breakfast, washed dishes, and then headed to the chosa.  A few children (Nicol, Jeremias and Alejandra) decided to start calling me 'Mami'.  They are such cute little kiddos!  We watched the movie Frozen for the ump-teenth time...I think Alina might have it memorized in Spanish!

After the movie was finished, I headed to the dining area of the Toddler House with Ana to help her prepare for the math portion of her college entrance exam, which will take place in October.  She had a review for this exam, so we went over about 25 problems.  While we were going over the math, Alina walked with the Toddlers to play at the playground in front of the orphanage.  On the way back from their walk, Alina bought 2 big bottles of Mirinda (a type of orange soda) and Sprite.

After lunch, we headed into Guaimaca with a bunch of volunteers to do our last grocery shopping for our stay here.  Bob had emailed me a list of things he'd like to have, which we added to our own list.  We came back with 2 very heavy backpacks and an additional plastic grocery bag full of items that will be used between now and next Wednesday when we leave.

After unpacking groceries, we headed back to the Toddler House to serve supper, give baths, and say goodbye to Claire (a volunteer from Ireland) who was leaving for home tomorrow.  She gave suckers to each of the toddlers before leaving the house for the night.

Since it was Wednesday, we had to finish up early so that we could get to church by 4:15pm.  There we met my friend Lori from New York who was here last year with her husband and 3 children.  They just came in today.  Alina wanted to sit with them, while I sat with Deisy.  The California pastor, Frank, (who was originally from Mexico) spoke.  I have mentioned him in the past couple of years' posts because he speaks in an accent that is so familiar and "like home" to me...that it's just a really nice way to enjoy the sermon.  I am still getting used to the Honduran accent and some words that are different than their Mexican counterparts (you know, how those of us in Wisconsin tend to say 'bubbler' while other states say 'fountain'?).

When we came back to our room, I quickly typed up the 2 days of blogs of the pictures that were loaded this morning, and then Alina and I began watching Despicable Me 2 on Netflix.  The internet was working pretty well, which is a rarity.  About half-way through the movie, Doris called from Tegucigalpa.  We chatted quite a bit and we've now changed our plans to leave Orphanage Emmanuel a day early so that we can spend an entire day in Tegucigalpa where Doris is...and spend it with her!

All in a Day's Work!

So after my morning devotions and heading to the Toddler House to cut veggies, watch the toddlers in the 'sala' and serve breakfast, we needed to leave to begin measuring the big girls.  There was no school today (like the Profesor Ramon mentioned), so we knew that we should be able to catch just about all of the girls in the Big Girls' yard.  We got through 20 or 30 when the California and Ohio teams asked for all of the girls to come to the gym and participate in a VBS.  I went as well, and it was pretty fun for the girls.  Alina participated with Michell.

California and Ohio teams doing a VBS with all of the girls

After the VBS was done, we headed back with the big girls and got a few more measured before it was time for lunch.  Alina decided that she wanted to each lunch in the 'comedor', a huge dining hall that was built between the time we were here last year and this year.  I headed back to our room while she ate since I wasn't very hungry.  When lunch was over we finished measuring the big girls that were in the yard, and then headed to the team house, the 'cocina' (kitchen) and to 'costura' (the sewing class) to get the 12+ girls that were in those locations before taking the filled out information to the office for Kim to enter.  We dropped this chart off in the office and Vero Castro's medium girls were in the yard right in front of the office, so we asked to measure them.  I believe we got about 1/2 way through the medium girls and will have to finished up with the other medium girl house another day.

After supper we headed down to the big girls' yard and found the teams playing a game of soccer with the big girls.  Alina wanted to play too, so below you'll find a picture of her against Claudia (I mentioned her yesterday).  Claudia is to soccer what Alina is to basketball...a tough player who's pretty good and walks around with confidence.  Alina decided to give her a rough time on the field.  I think she's hoping that she'll have a chance to get Claudia on the basketball court, because Claudia can beat her "hands down" (LOL) on the soccer field!

Claudia in the black shirt and Alina in the blue shirt.  By the time the picture snapped, the ball was already to China in the yellow shirt.

We took 'Invisible' (Pamela) the new size 9 red & gray tennis shoes, although when we gave them to her...we saw they were a mens' size.  She said she knew just the big boy to give them to, so we trusted her decision.  Generally I pass along my tennis shoes and sandals to her before I leave anyway, so this year will be no different as I have a 2nd pair of tennis shoes waiting for me at home.

When we got home for the night, we decided to show you how much walking we do.  Alina and I are always wearing sandals and what you'll see in the photos below is pretty typical in how we come home and how our feet look.  It makes me wonder how dirty Jesus and his disciples feet got back in their day and also makes me realize how awesome it must have been to have someone else wash them.

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair.  And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

John 12:3 (NIV)

Alina's feet at the end of the day

Alina's feet after washing

Alina's Little Friend

This morning began with devotions and my 'cafecito' and enough time left over to enter yesterday's blog.  I've found that the later it gets in the morning (the closer to 6am), the more time it takes to upload pictures, so some mornings I'm just not able to get the blog completed due to that.

We headed to the Toddler House and went about our normal morning routine: cutting vegetables, taking care of the kids in the 'sala' while the big girls and teen moms did their circle devotions, serving breakfast and then taking the children to the 'chosa'.  Today I walked to school with the girls because Profesor Ramon wanted me to help while he taught a lesson on the equations of circles in class.  Although when I got to school, I found out that there was a "miscommunication"...he fully anticipated me to teach the lesson.  The good thing is that, as a geometry teacher, I teach this lesson multiple times each year (as I generally have 2-3 geometry classes)...so I could "wing" the lesson.  It actually went very well and in the end, I had the students work in pairs to complete a more difficult problem and if they graphed the circle, they got a 'paleta' (Mexican chili covered mango sucker).  Every student got one.  The students later told me that: 1) their teacher never lets them work in pairs or groups, and 2) I made the lesson SO EASY for them!  YAY!

Today was Claudia's birthday, so we got her some 'churros' (chips) from the 'tienda' and also gave her 3 'paletas'.  We also brought her a pair of the running tennis shoes that were donated for Alina's birthday, since she is a size 8 and doesn't have tennis shoes to play soccer in...and she's probably the BEST female soccer player!  She plays in her crocs.

I went back to our room for lunch because Profesor Ramon gave me 3 more problems to solve from the test that the students were supposed to have for tomorrow (although he told me that due to a teacher's conference in town, there would be no classes tomorrow and the test would be pushed back to Monday).  I told him that I'd get the problems solved over lunch and get them back when school resumed at 1:00pm.

When we headed back to our room after dropping off my solutions to the test problems, we stopped to chat with Kim (Elizabeth's mom) about measuring the medium girls and the big girls.  She had done measuring at all of the other houses and just needed these two houses done.  I let her know that I'd be able to measure all day tomorrow and see how much Alina and I could get done.  Alina seemed to be occupied while I was talking to Kim and when we said our goodbyes, I saw why.  She found a little friend on one of the flag poles!!!  I let her know that she should put it in the shade so it didn't bake out in the hot sun.

Alina and her little friend

A close-up of her little friend

When we headed back to the Toddler House, Kim was measuring the last of the toddlers and the teen moms.  When that was finished, we gave them supper, baths and played with them for a bit before heading to the Big Girls' yard.  We stopped in to Michell's house and chatted for a couple of hours with the 'tias' (night care-taker lady) permission, then headed home for the night just after 7pm.

A Sunday with the Big Girls

As I was doing my devotions this morning, I saw another cockroach (ugh) run from underneath the bunk bed that Alina is sleeping in to the rug on the other side of the door.  I tried to sweep it outside, but it was too close to the big chair & ran underneath.  Just when I thought we wouldn't have a problem for a while...another shows up.  There is no food in our room, so eventually it will have to choose to leave or die of hunger (if we can't shuffle it outside), right?

Church began at 8:15am this morning.  We got there around 8:00 so that we could green the kids as they came in.  A girl from the Ohio/California team led the service today, but I liked that David (Papi) began the service and Lydia (Mami) closed the service.

David beginning the service in prayer

Lydia ending the service with a summary of the message and in prayer

After church, Alina and I headed to the 'tienda' since we had not yet had breakfast.  They were serving hamburgers, which ended up filling me up for the rest of the day!  As I was walking back to our room, I saw Papi's crew of boys painting the fountain in front of the church.  I chatted with them and gave them each a 'paleta' (Mexican spice-coated mango-flavored sucker) for their hard work.

Papi's crew hard at work painting

After chatting with these boys for a bit, I headed to the Big Girls yard where Alina was playing a game of Skipbo with Yensi and a few other girls (Grandma Wendt would be so proud!).  I also dropped of an envelope that my former student, Kelsey Phillips, had sent along with me to give to a girl named Isabel Rosario.  Kelsey had come down last year with a few Wisconsin people to work with the Maryland team.  While she was here, she connected with 2 girls and sent 2 envelopes filled with a letter, pictures and some gifts for them.  I work with Isabel in the school on reading, so it was easy for me to find her.  She said she remembered Kelsey and was very excited to receive the envelope!

Alina and Yensi

I left Alina to play Skipbo with the girls, but I had to run to teach some more math to Zelenes and Deisy at the Toddler House while the toddlers were napping.  I spent around 2 hours there with them going through material that would be on Tuesday's test, and then when Alina came we headed down to the 'cancha' where the team was putting on an Olympics-type of competition for the big girls.  We watched the tail end of the competition and then walked with the big girls back to their yard and chatted until they had to go to supper.

Around 5pm, I went back to the Toddler House to tutor Karla in math.  She had been working all day (I believe watching Katja's children), so this was the first chance she had to get together with me.  We spent about an hour and a half going over graphing rational functions, step functions and absolute value functions, and then listing the domain and range of these functions (I know, the math nerd in me is coming out again).  When we finished for the evening, we started heading back to our room but as we passed the Team House, Juliet and Veronica Diaz were there opening the gift shop...so we stopped by, chatted and purchased a few items for our kids back home.