When we arrived on July 22nd, we noticed that one of the dressers in our room had a small termite problem. After quite a few days of sweeping larger and larger amounts of termite left-overs out the door, I finally decided to put our DEET to a 2nd use and we were problem-free for 2 weeks. Now we noticed that the termites have migrated to the other corner of the dresser and we're once again dealing with the daily clean-up. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to tackle them again.
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The small particles on the floor is what's left behind daily by the termites |
After sweeping our room and a few other chores, we headed to church. Julissa came over to sit by us on her own accord, which was fine with me but a bit 'unusual' because generally we would have to invite a child to sit with us and then get permission from the person who is in charge of caring for that child. Pastor German from in town came to preach the sermon today.
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Alina, Julissa, and Noah |
After church we walked to the power toddlers house and then to the medium boys house to grab some children to take to the tienda. In years past, we've mostly taken girls to the tienda or toddlers because those are the houses we have been assigned to. It seemed only fitting to take boys this year since we have been spending so much time with the medium boys. I chose Jeremias from the power toddler house (you may have seen pictures of him in last year's blog) and then also his big brother Josue David from the medium boys house. Alina chose to bring Toni, and Noah chose to bring Oscar. We had an awesome time and I learned that boys will eat WAY more than girls!!! Good thing I had brought plenty of Lempiras (the Honduran dollars).
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Alina, Jeremias (in orange), Noah, Oscar (in yellow) and Toni (in my sunglasses) |
Many of you may now be wondering about Oscar...there are a few children here who have lighter skin. I've been told that the region in Honduras (called Santa Barbara) is where there are numerous Hondurans living that have light skin, light eyes and light hair.
When the boys houses walked by to go to the 'comedor' for lunch, we said our goodbyes and they headed in to eat some more with their house. They were all very appreciative and said thank-you for the plate of food, chocolates and ice cream that we had bought them.
After lunch I headed with the Miller family to the big soccer field. Pastor German had brought a team from the town of Guaimaca to the orphanage to play against our big boys. I figured that Luis David would be playing (he is the goalie), so wanted to go watch the game for a bit. Last year he had asked me for a goalie shirt, some gloves, and cleats for a Christmas gift. I know absolutely NOTHING about soccer, so when I had gotten back to the States I decided to ask my colleague at Oshkosh North who is both a math teacher and the head boys varsity soccer coach for some help in what exactly a goalie shirt was?!? He said he had a spare one that I could just have to send down. Well, when we came down this year, Luis David was wearing it and very proudly. He drew a few stripes on the shirt and wrote his name on the back. I know that I would not be able to wear a long sleeve shirt like that in 95-degree weather with complete sun. But I wanted to really show my appreciation to my coworker for what he had done for this boy who I've known for 9 years! Emmanuel won 5-2.
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Luis David as the goalie waiting for the ball to come his way |
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Me with Luis David |
When I got back to our room, I made some guacamole to eat. It's so much easier to eat cold food on hot days. Alina saw that the medium boys were playing soccer in the field just below our room, so she went to play with them. When they went home for the evening, we called home. Unfortunately we ran out of money on our phone and were not able to chat as long as anticipated, so we will be sure to get our phone restocked to call later in the week.
I ended the evening with a good long chat with Michell and 3 other junior staff. I have lots to share regarding this chat first with my husband, and hopefully soon with all of our family and friends. I was really blessed to be able to spend this time with Michell because since I'm with the boys this year - I don't have much time during the day to be able to really chat with her. We chatted for about 30-45 minutes before saying our good nights and heading to bed.
We're really making an effort to appreciate each day from now until Saturday because it will go fast. We are beginning to miss our family back home, but also really that it will be really sad when we go as well. As my husband put it earlier in the evening, our goodbyes will be "bitter sweet".