Alina Gets Sick

Alina let me know this morning when I woke up that she had been up quite a few times during the night with trips to the bathroom.  I won't get into too many details, but she was pretty sick.  I'm guessing it was from the VERY ripe mango she ate last night.  She didn't seem to have a fever, so we left her with a bunch of liquids and imodium tablets to take while resting.

Noah and I headed out for the day (and stopped back every 1-2 hours to check on Alina) to measure many of the bigger girls that we weren't able to get during the week, due to them being in school or around the orphanage.  This took us the majority of the day, and we still have a bunch left to do...but we did make some BIG accomplishments with that.  We also got all of the 2 medium girls' houses measured.

Just before supper, we stopped back to the room for a break and to check on Alina and saw that the big boys were down at the soccer field by the school.  Alina was sitting on the steps getting some fresh air at this point, and pointed out that Luis David had the goalie shirt on that we had given him for Christmas.  One of my coworkers is the boys varsity coach at Oshkosh North and had given me an old goalie jersey.  It definitely got put to good use.  Unfortunately when I walked down to the field, I forgot to bring the camera to take a picture.  Perhaps I'll catch him wearing it again soon.

At the end of the evening, I spent about a 1/2 hour with one of the visitors that has a room right next to us.  She is a math major and we worked through some test practice problems that Profe Ramon had given me.  Did I mentioned that he asked me to teach next week? - CALCULUS (sigh).  We believe that there were a couple of incorrect answers in the problems he gave me, but I will check on that when I see him on Monday.

That was pretty much it for the night.  Noah and I chatted with the visitors before calling it a night and heading to bed around 7:30-8pm.  Many nights we've been going to sleep about 6:30pm.  I know, that seems pretty early - but it's pretty dark by that time and with all of the work we do all day, 4am rolls around pretty quickly!

Dia de Indio

The coffee that I made this morning turned out WAY better than the coffee from yesterday.  I figured out the problem (which may make some of you avid coffee drinkers laugh)...there was no lid on the coffee pot, so the grounds container flooded which threw grounds into the pot.  I searched quite a bit for the lid before finding it, but that was the solution!  No grounds in the coffee this time around.

Today is Friday.  It is BIG circle, which means that all of the children gather together in front of the medium girls house, the clinic, and the building where we are staying to have their devotional time and to sing praises to God.  The medianos had to recite their Bible verses this morning, and as I've mentioned in earlier years, instead of just one verse as we used to do in grade school, they memorize an entire chapter and recite it.  After the medium boys, the small boys went to the center of the circle to recite their verses.

BIG Circle at Emmanuel

Noah and Jeremias at BIG Circle

The medium boys reciting their Bible verses during BIG Circle

At breakfast, one of the medianos gave Noah a Moon Pie - which I believe is the 1st moon pie he's ever had.  Those are quite common here at breakfast, almost a daily treat for the kids after they've finished their cereal.

I spent the morning working with the kids in reading once again, but the big event of the day was that both the high school and the elementary school were celebrating Dia de Indio.  Normally this is celebrated on July 20th, however the school decided to celebrate today.  The high school had some people from town come into judge the performances by each of the different classes.  There were posters with the history of this special day, as well as the culture and food and flora/fauna of the different areas of Honduras.  They gave presentations on all of this to the judges, as well as showed them traditional games, and bombas.

Monica with her Dia de Indio partner in the high school

One of the many high school performances

In the afternoon, the elementary school celebrated Dia de Indio by having a female and male representative from each grade dress up as the 'indio and india mas bonita'.  Then they also showed their costumes and walked around and introduced themselves in front of 4 judges who voted for the winners - kind of like voting for prom king/queen.  The indio from 6th grade won, along with the india from the 5th grade.  It was a very fun day to be a part of and the first time I have been able to witness these events in the school.

Noah's friend, Sergio (5th grade representative) with his Dia de Indio partner

Jeremias (Kindergarten representative) and his partner for Dia de Indio

4th grade representatives for Dia de Indio

5th grade representatives for Dia de Indio

2016 Indio y India mas bonita

The Dogs WILL Steal Your Food

This morning when I headed to the kitchen, I noticed that the two rooms alongside of us (with 11 visitors from Tennessee) had left their bedroom doors open for the night (like WIDE open, not simply unlocked), as well as the kitchen door.  This is completely not safe...EVERYONE knows here to lock their doors each evening.  When I walked into the kitchen, garbage was everywhere on the floor.  Dogs had gotten into the kitchen and went through the garbage, as well as any food that was sitting out on the table. We are fairly familiar with our surroundings down here, so all of the food we had, thankfully, was in the refrigerator or our room.  We didn't have anything sitting out on cupboards or the table, due to insects, etc.  I felt bad for our visitors though as they ended up missing a bunch of food (including delicious banana bread) that they had just purchased yesterday, due to leaving that kitchen door open.  When I chatted with them later, I let them know that the doors should be closed AND locked during the night.

We arrived at the medium boys house a little late because one of our children was a little slow this morning.  They had already started circle/devotions.  When we came back to our room, Noah had to make his bed, finish his breakfast, take his vitamins, etc.

We began reading with the 5th graders today, 1-on-1.  There are 4 kids that I will have to work with over the next few weeks, but I know them all so it should work out okay.  Alina and Noah decided to go out for recess with the kids, so they played quite a bit since it was a double recess today.  During recess the high school was selling meals for $20 Lempiras each (about $1 US dollar).  It consisted of a baleada (tortilla with beans and eggs) and an orange drink in a bag.  The typical way to drink these is to rip off a bottom corner of the bag with your teeth and suck the beverage through the bag.  This was a new experience for Noah.  After recess, one of Noah's friends had a huge grasshopper, so the boys played with that for quite a bit.

Noah finishing his baleada and showing us what his beverage looks like

Noah drinking his orange beverage

Gerson and Noah with the grasshopper

Noah held the grasshopper too!

During one of the reading sessions, Profe Ramon (high school math teacher) came over to me to ask if I would be willing to teach next week's lessons - integrating in calculus.  The students have this as a last topic before their national exams.  When I looked at what the students would need to do, I cringed a little bit.  First - it's been a long time since I've done calculus, Second - there's no way that we would get through what they need to know in just 2 class periods.  Ramon said that he couldn't remember how to do any of that, so he really needed my help.  I will be spending my weekend trying to figure out the best 'crash course' to give them.  Thankfully one of the visitors who lives next to us is a math major and just finished Calculus 2 in college, which focuses mostly on integrations.

In the afternoon, we headed to the big girls yard to get started on measuring/sizing them.  It will take us a while to get through the big girls since there are around 80 or so girls (most houses so far only had about 1/2 of that).  Of course there were many girls who were in school, so we will have to go back.  While at the big girls yard, Noah got to play with a gecko.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me for that, so I didn't get any pictures.

One of Doris and Alina's 40-50 selfies 

For supper, I cooked up some pasta with green beans and sauce.  We had a cinnamon roll for dessert.  Alina and Noah played a few games of checkers before we turned in for the night.

Guaimaca

This morning began with heading to the medium boys house once again for morning circle devotions.  Anaiel (one of the leaders of the medium boys' house) led the devotions since there wasn't a team member who came our way to lead them.  After walking with the boys to breakfast, we stopped at the tienda to have breakfast as well.  Alina asked for a plate of 'desayuno tipico' (the breakfast she ate yesterday) while Noah and I tried their burritos with egg, cheese and bacon.

There was no school this morning, so when breakfast was finished, we headed up to the power toddler house to finish measuring/sizing the power toddlers.  We decided we were going to use the entire morning for measuring since many children would be either in the yards or their houses, rather than in school.  Then we walked over to the small boys and were able to measure all of the boys in that house except for one leader (who we grabbed at lunch).  Then we walked to the front yard and got all of the medium boys in the yard.  We were still missing about 14 boys who were out working, but decided to grab those during and after lunch as well.  We also got to the small girls as well, but lacked many of the older girls that live in that house who were in school.  In total we have probably sized 200+ of the 500 children here so far.

As we were sizing the medium boys in the yard, Andres' friend (Rudy) had a plastic gecko and asked if he could get a Mexican paleta (sucker) if he was able to scare Alina with it.  I told him I'd take him up on that offer.  He held the toy in his hand, hidden, until just the right moment and then had a medium boy put it on her shoulder.  She jumped quite a bit!  I made sure that he got his sucker later that afternoon.

At 12:30 we headed with the volunteers into town to buy some groceries, so that we wouldn't have to constantly be eating at the tienda and that we'd also have snacks around our room for Alina and Noah to eat.  I feel like Noah has grown in height a little bit in the week that we've been down here with all of the sleeping and eating he's been doing.  That probably sounds silly, right?  On the way home from the grocery stores and the bakery, we stopped by Glenda's stand.  I have written about Glenda in past years...she has a little stand at her house where she sells some fruits and vegetables.  She was so excited to see us and excited to meet Noah as well.  She asked about Bob and Andres and said to say 'hi' to them.  We bought some tomatoes and avocados from here, and she gave us a deal on the avocados (said they were 18 lempiras but would give them to us for 15) because we were back in town and she was so happy to see us.

When we got back to Emmanuel, we put the groceries away, rested a bit (since it was such a hot day and the walk from the gate of the orphanage up to our room is mostly uphill) and then we got ready for church, which started at 4:00pm.  It was a short service again, so when we let out, we headed back to the room and ate a little bit before calling home.  If you purchase a phone down here (I just get the cheapest phone available), you can get deals to call the U.S. for $1.25 for 30 minutes.  So we ordered that package and got to talk to Bob, Kaylyn & Jaden for 1/2 hour for just $1.25.  We each got our turn at talking, although Alina chose to eat a mango from town and just listen rather than talk much.  When our 30 minutes was up, we hung up and went in for the night.  Alina and Noah played a card game of war, and then some checkers before we headed to bed for the evening.

In Need of Shoes

As I sat down to write today's blog, I noticed that this post is my 200th post!  I am just amazed at the amount of time over the years that God has allowed for me to spend down here.  I am thankful for the guidance our family has had in managing our finances so that these trips are possible, I am thankful for family back home that help with the care of our smaller children who are not yet able to come down, and I am very thankful for friends and family who have been so encouraging over the years as well.

This morning we headed to the medium boys' house once again for circle.  Alina decided to join us today because she said that the boys are less "touchy" and she just needed that break.  A girl from the Alabama team led the devotions and I helped an older boy to do the translating when he'd get stuck.  Then the girl and another man from the team took individual pictures of the boys with a Polaroid camera.  I have never seen a camera like this.  It's a new age take off of the old Polaroids that immediately spit out the photo, only it's a digital Polaroid with a printer right inside the camera; and the photo that comes out can be touched (without any finger prints getting on it) and bent instantly.  They told me that all of the colors are in the photo paper itself, and each piece of photo paper costs about $.20.  We were all just amazed at this camera!

We walked the medium boys to breakfast and then headed to the tienda to see what they had to offer for breakfast...on the menu was listed 'desayuno tipico'.  It consisted of 2 tortillas, eggs, beans, butter, sausage, an avocado slice, and fried plantains.  It was Noah's first experience with fried plantains and he wasn't too thrilled with them, but ate them all.

Alina and Noah at the tienda for breakfast 

Breakfast plate: Tortillas, Eggs, Sausage, Avocado, Butter, Beans, Fried Plantains

After breakfast we walked the medium boys to school and Noah sat with them and chatted.  I noticed that the majority of the medium boys had shoes that were ripped in multiple places.  I later found out that a huge shipment of shoes had been sent down just a couple of months prior, but that the storage facility at the orphanage underwent a series of nightly robberies and ALL of the shoes were taken.  This just breaks my heart to see the boys walking around in shoes like this.  I'm not sure how many of my friends in the States would be able to help, but if so...the boys are in need of shoes in sizes children's 4 through adult 8.  I've noticed that the boys go through shoes and wear them out a LOT faster than the girls because they also have their chores around the farm as well.  If you are able, please check out how to send donations by clicking on this link:  Orphanage Emmanuel Donations.  I have sent items to Dr. Reynolds numerous times, and they do arrive on the semi shipment container here.

This is what many of the shoes look like in the medium boys house

Noah sitting in line at school with the medium boys, waiting for classes to begin

While the children were waiting for school to begin, it began to rain.  Many times the rain only lasts 5-15 minutes here during the rainy season (which we are in right now).  Alina came to grab me to take a picture of the rainbow over by the farm that formed when the rain stopped.

Rainbow over the farm

When the kids went into school, we headed to the biblioteca (library) to talk to Karen about the reading program with the children that Andi had wanted me to help out with.  She asked that I come back around 10:20 which was recess time for the children and she would have a list of children for me and be able to chat with me at that time...so we headed to the office to chat with Sarah about sizing the children.  She had all of the materials printed out to get started, and suggested we begin with the baby and toddler house...so we headed to the toddlers and found them out in the yard playing.  A few toddlers who recognized us from last year (Giselle and Jefferson) helped to bring each toddler over to be measured.  The measuring went very quickly.  There were a few toddlers that were in preschool, but we figured we'd catch them at lunch time.  We headed back to the school to get the list of children that we would be working with during the day in reading, and to grab a few reading books and take a few notes.  Then we used the time in between recess and lunch to head back to the baby house and measure the babies.

When it was lunch time, we headed to the comedor to finish measuring the toddlers.  There are still a few big girls on the toddler list who live in the toddler house and are responsible for the toddlers, but we figured that it would be too embarrassing for them to take their measurements in the dining hall in front of others, so we will be making a special trip to the toddler house to measure them.  For the most part, the toddler house is done.

We spent the afternoon in the special needs yard and measured some of the power toddlers that weren't in school and some small boys.  After supper, we headed to the soccer field by the school so that Alina and Noah could play soccer with the big girls.  Noah had been wanting to play soccer against Claudia ever since he heard that she was the best soccer player.  Although Noah is NOT a soccer player, he did score 3 goals!  When the game ended around 6pm, we walked back to our room for the evening.  It does get pretty dark around 6pm, so we settled down and Noah wrote in his journal about his day while Alina drew pictures on paper before we went to sleep for the night.

Critter Day

This morning when we woke, Alina decided to go to the medium girls' circle (devotional time)...while I took Noah over to the other side of the orphanage to go to the medium boys' circle.  It would be Noah's first experience with "Circle".  On the way, Noah spotted a live grasshopper on top of the small boys' trampoline.  He had seen a dead grasshopper a couple days ago that ants were all over and beginning to carry away, but this was his first live one, so he asked for a picture.  The pastor that gave the sermon yesterday was at the boys house to do the devotion for circle.  The bigger boys wanted me to translate, but I kept telling them that they had the ability to do so.  Of course they chickened out at the last minute, so I ended up translating what the pastor said in English to Spanish.  The lesson was about the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, and that whatever we bring to God, no matter how small, he will multiply it to bless others.

6" grasshopper on top of the trampoline

We walked with the medium boys to the comedor (dining hall), and I went over to say 'hi' to the girls.  Noah ran out of the comedor, waving for me to come.  When I got to him outside, he let me know that he desperately needed food and didn't feel so well.  I took him over to the store and we got him some thick wafers and ginger ale.  I also bought Alina a ginger ale when she got to the tienda because she was complaining of a weak stomach.  It does take a little bit to adjust to the food down here and the difference in diet.  After they ate, we headed back to our room so that I could get them an Imodium to help settle their tummies too.

The medium boys were in the yard in front of the school all day, so we headed that way so that Noah could play soccer with them.  He played hard and all morning and afternoon.  He did get a little sunburned, but enjoyed every minute of playing with them.  The boys also discovered that there is a little lake running underneath the yard and under the cement slab where the gazebo used to be they found a toad, a bunch of tadpoles and a crab.  I didn't know that crabs could live in fresh water?!?!  Boys being boys, of course, fed the tadpoles to the crab and watched it eat them, they played with the crab while it was on the ground, carried it around all day in a jar, and at the end of the day decided that the crab and the toad needed to fight each other.  Again, Noah fit right in & was enjoying every minute of spending time with these 40+ boys.

Noah and Gerson with the sapo (toad)

The congrejo (crab) that the medium boys caught

When the boys headed to the comedor for supper, we headed to the tienda.  Noah ate a hot dog (loaded with cole slaw, ketchup and mustard), while Alina just had some chips and I had 2 very tiny loaves of vanilla bread.  We headed back to our room after that because I wanted Noah to rest from all of the play and his slight sunburn.  Hopefully he'll be able to sleep about 11 hours so that he'll be ready for a full day tomorrow.  We still don't have an assignment in terms of a house that we are supposed to report to in the mornings, lunch times and supper times (toddlers, power toddlers, medium boys, etc), but it appears we'll be doing some sizing of the kids this year as well as a little bit of pull-out for reading during the day.

Alina's feet after a day of playing soccer

A Sunday at Emmanuel

This morning I woke up at 5:30am, although our alarm was set for 4:30...I guess it's still a little difficult to get up yet.  I woke Noah at 6:30 to shower, and Alina at 7am since she had showered last night before going to bed.  We were told church began 'a la 8 en punto' (8am sharp), so we were there about 7:45, but people didn't start arriving until about 8 and I don't believe the service got started until around 8:15ish.  The sermon was delivered by a pastor on the Alabama team who is from the same hometown as Wade's father.  The team doesn't appear to be very large in size, but I do recognize them from last year.

After the church service, I took Noah and Alina to the tienda for brunch.  Due to not stopping at a grocery store in Tegucigalpa (I felt bad that the 4 other passengers of Norman's would have to wait for us to shop), and due to not yet being assigned to a house, we will need to eat at the tienda for a bit yet.  I'm so thankful that I brought a few extra dollars to cover this expense.  Andi let us know that we should be assigned to a house sometime on Monday.  I am guessing she will be putting us either with the toddlers or the power toddlers, but it's just a hunch.  Wednesday we will head in to town to get a few snacks and things to have around us in case the kids get the munchies.  At the tienda, we met 2 volunteers: Arturo (from Texas) and Jordy.  The tienda was serving chicken salad tacos, so Noah got his first chance to try Honduras tortillas.

When we finished eating, Alina headed to the yard out front of the church to chat with the medium girls while I took Noah to the medium boys house.  They were wrapping up watching 'The Croods' (again), so we stayed and took a couple of pictures before walking with them to the dining hall so that they could eat lunch.  After lunch, we spent time in the big girls yard and I had a heart-to-heart chat with Doris.  After our chat, I grabbed Alina and Noah so that we could head back to our room to get some more water and then took them once again to the tienda (Alina said she was 'starving').  On the way, they heard 'ball bouncing' in the gymnasium, so they stopped to see the small boys finishing up a game of basketball.  As the small boys were eating a snack, Alina and Noah took to the court to show off a few moves.  When everyone left the gymnasium, we headed to the store.  They were serving hot dogs with cole slaw, mustard and ketchup piled on top.  We each got a bag of Zambos chips for later and they also had some ice cream.

Left to Right: Sergio, Noah, Gerson

Alina (in yellow) shooting and Noah (in black) defending

After supper, we spent a little bit more time in the big girls yard, chatting before heading back to our room for the night.  We played Connect 4 and a few card games, then Noah spent some time writing in his journal while Alina worked on her Spanish.  Noah and I headed to bed while Alina used that time to read one last chapter in her book before turning the lights off and heading to bed herself.