A Honduran Birthday

On Saturdays, we are still volunteering.  Volunteers only have Sundays off, so the morning routine with the medium boys is still the same...walk over at 6am, get them settled down a little when they come out of their rooms, take them to breakfast, and since it was Saturday, we were in the yard all morning.  The tia (lady who is in charge of them during the day) got out coloring pages, so one of the boys gave me a page of a turtle to color.  It was an adult coloring page, so I knew it would take a while.  One of the medium boys, Salomon, came over frequently from playing soccer to check my progress on it, so when I finished the picture, I gave it to him.  It rained a lot this morning.  I think that if they knew it was going to rain this much, they would have kept the boys inside.

On Saturdays, they eat lunch earlier than normal.  Because I was prompted by Luisito (one of the teenage boys who lives with and is helping the medium boys) to celebrate Luis David's birthday "Honduran style", Noah and I concocted a plan to carry through at lunch.  Noah ran up to get the 'necessary supplies'.  I walked the medium boys to lunch, got Noah's and my bowl of food and set them down and waited for Noah.  When Noah came in, I approached Luis David and told him that I'd like to take him to the store for his birthday (Noah was coming around the back), so I asked him who I needed to ask permission for him to be able to go to the store with me.  He said 'Papi', so I asked where David was...he pointed him out.  I said, "ok!" and then officially told him Happy Birthday & gave him a hug.  Noah quick handed me the egg, and I said, "I'm so sorry" and smashed the egg on Luis David's head.  So in the United States we give the number of spankings and then give a 'pinch to grow an inch', down here in Honduras if you are the birthday child, you get eggs thrown at you.  In 10 years of being down here, I have never celebrated their birthdays this way, so Luis David was quite surprised.  I let him know that I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for Luisito.  I found out later that during the day, he had to change his clothes and wash his hair THREE times.

After lunch, we headed back to the room, where we reorganized the room for Bob.  A double bed would be completely too small for me and Bob to share, so we pushed Alina and Noah's twin beds together and shoved a blanket between the 2 mattresses before putting a sheet over the top.  It's now a fairly large bed.  I gave the double bed to Alina and Noah took the bottom bunk of the extra bunk beds that were in our room.

I spent from 1:00-3:00ish with Luis David.  I wanted to take him to the store, but the girl who runs the store had a visit with her mom today, so the store was closed.  The first weekend of every month are allotted to families who wish to visit with their children.  It's a pretty busy time down in front of the orphanage, and it's fun to see the children who have visits sprint down to the gazebo in front of where our room is to see their mom and other relatives.

Luis David and I just sat in the chosa (gazebo-like hut) in the big boys yard chatting).  He shared quite a bit of what's going on with him and his plans for the future and said that when he headed into the capital city of Tegucigalpa a week ago, it was the first time that he had been outside Orphanage Emmanuel (probably aside from the town the orphanage is located in), and it scared him quite a bit.  He thought Tegucigalpa was a pretty ugly and scary place.  As we were chatting, Noah came up the road with Bob!  I was hoping to have been back at the room when Bob was dropped off, but I guess he got in earlier than I had expected, so I quickly said my goodbyes to Luis David and headed with Bob back to our room so that he could put his suitcase away and rest.  I think he slept for the rest of the afternoon, evening, and through the night!

Noah and I met up with the medium boys for supper and then we headed to the cancha (soccer field) for them to play soccer until 6pm when it gets dark and is time to head to their rooms for the evening.  Noah and I headed back to our room and settled in for the night too. 

The Container has Arrived!

Today is Friday which means that in stead of heading to the medium boys house, all of the children will come out in front of our rooms, the big girls house and the health clinic to have 'big circle'.  The small boys and the grandecitos had to recite their bible verses today.  There was a light mist through all of this, but when the boys finished reciting their verses, the downpour came!  So 'big circle' was cut early and everyone headed to breakfast.  Noah decided to trade his arroz con leche for what the children were eating (trigo).  When he traded, Santos grabbed his arroz con leche and quickly began to eat it.  Arroz con leche is a real treat for breakfast for the kids...but every day we've been here so far, they get trigo.

Big Circle

Noah trying the Trigo

After breakfast we headed back to the room so that I could gather up my items for calculus class.  Today the students were taking a test, and Profe Ramon asked me to administer the test while he administered a math test to another class.  There were 2 errors on the test, so I had to prepare what I was going to write on the board to correct those errors and also a few formulas for the students to have.  After the calculus test, a few students came up to me and said, "Thank you" for teaching them the material because they didn't believe they would pass the test without my help.  When I gave the tests to Profe Ramon, he asked if I could correct them as well.  This was the part that was difficult for me because every teacher has their own way of correcting things, especially when it comes to math.  It was also difficult because I didn't really agree with the point system that the government put on each question.  Thankfully, I was able to get all 17 corrected by lunch and returned them to Profe Ramon.  It looks like a few students are going to have to redo the test (I think they are allowed only 1 retake).  I headed to lunch, ate, then headed back to the house to rest for a bit because that was just too much calculus for me this week and my brain really needed a break.

Before supper, I headed to the tienda to chat with Lourdes and get a gatorade, then I headed to the medium boys house for devotions.  Today, Chino (one of the teens in charge of the house) had the medium boys share about how God had worked in their life this week.  After ensenanza (devotions), we headed to supper and then I ran back to our house to grab the movies while the medium boys showered.  The boys decided they wanted to watch Power Rangers, however they didn't get to watch the entire movie due to time.  We watch their movies in the living room, but the boys have to be in their bedrooms by 6pm.  We'll continue the movie later.

When it was time to go, I asked Luisito if the container had arrived, and he said it had...so Noah and I rushed down to the warehouse and they had already had 1/2 of the container emptied.  The container is a semi-trailer that is sent from either Alabama or Tennessee (this one was from Tennessee) loaded with food, clothing, building materials, gifts from sponsors and others, etc.  Alina was hard at work helping to empty the container.  After his experience last year and knowing just what to do, Noah jumped right in too!  Wade told us that with all of the help, the container was emptied in record time - 50 minutes!  This is good, since we were told that the driver is paid by the hour from when he picks up the container at the port in La Ceiba.  There are 2-3 boys that ride on the top of the semi-trailer while it leaves the orphanage because the power lines at the entrance are too low for the semi...so the boys have to lift the power lines up and walk the length of the trailer before letting them go so that the semi can pass under them.  Noah wanted to help out with this, and he was invited to help, but I said that since his father wasn't here to 'okay' it, I wasn't about the let him.  Wade and David thanked all of the staff and volunteers for helping unload the container and then we headed back to our room to turn in for the night.

Alina unloading the container

Noah unloading container

David (Orphanage Emmanuel founder) unloading the container

I Slept with a Millipede!

This morning I woke up and turned the shower on (it takes a while for the hot water to come through), and then headed back to the bed to fold up the sheets on the bed, and put into a pile at the end of the bed.  When I pulled them off the bed to fold, there was a millipede crawling ON the bed at the foot of the bed.  With as slow as those things move, I know it was in the bed when I was...YUCK!  I'm just hoping it was never by the head of my bed, or on me or anything else!  I got my notebook and put it in front of the millipede for it to crawl on and then took it outside.  I'm not much for killing creatures anymore.

After showering, getting dressed and brushing my teeth, I sat down to do devotions as I do every morning, then I worked on finishing up the calculus lessons.  Today would be my last day of teaching, since tomorrow is their big test.  At 6am I headed to the medium boys house and once again Noah was not ready, so had to stay behind.  We waited at the medium boys house until it was time to head to breakfast and I ate, grabbed a bowl for Noah and then headed back to the room to finish up my plans for calculus.  When it was time to head to school, I brought Noah along with me to help take a few pictures of the class.  This is actually also a 'punishment' for him, because if he's at the school, he likes to play with the little children during their recess or P.E. class rather than sit in a math class all morning...but he did take some really nice pictures!

Derivative Rule for Quotients

The graduating class of 2017 learning calculus

Explaining how to use rules of derivatives

Ruth (in front) watching the process of using rules of derivatives

The class working towards learning calculus in a week and a half

The students asked if I could come back in the afternoon and teach as well.  I had absolutely nothing planned for the afternoon (in terms of calculus), so I said that if the principal okay-ed it, then they would have to come with questions, because I had nothing prepared.  The principal said that the students could have calculus class all day (WHO wants that???), so that became my plan for the afternoon.  During the 1/2 hour break from 10:00-10:30, Noah said that he wanted to head back to our room and spend the rest of the morning there, so I walked him back.  I began reorganizing and folding the blanket 'mess' in the armoire.  Noah and I found 2 cockroaches in there!  One of them I swept outside, but the other went onto another shelf that I hadn't cleaned yet.

When break was over, I cut my armoir cleaning short, and headed back to school to teach for the second 1.5 hours.  At lunch, I headed to the comedor and ate, and then grabbed Noah's bowl and took it to him.  I finished cleaning out the armoire prior to heading back to school for the afternoon and found 2 more cockroaches.  I went to get Nathaniel next door, who is about Noah's age and likes to kill cockroaches.  He told me that there were actually THREE in there.  Unfortunately he only killed one and the other two went into hiding, so we'll have to be on the look-out for it in the next few days.

When it was time to head back to class, I went and let the students know that I was there to answer questions.  They had a lot of homework to catch up on, so they asked as they hit problems that they needed help on.  At the end of class, they asked me where I lived; I told them Wisconsin, which of course they had never heard of...so since I had my laptop and internet modem along, I brought up a map of North America and showed them Honduras and the United States (so they could see the size difference), then zoomed in on the USA and showed them where Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia were (where most groups who come to Emmanuel are from) and then where Ohio is (the group that left today), and then where Wisconsin is.  Then I zoomed in on Wisconsin and showed them where Neenah was.  Then I realized that there's a street-view to Google Maps, so I plugged in my address and they were able to see our house!  It was an awesome picture taken last fall when our Autumn Blaze Maple tree was complete covered in its beautiful red leaves!  They students were awestruck by the tree, so I explained that each fall in Wisconsin the leaves change to red, orange or yellow before falling off.  They had never seen this before!

When school was over, I went back to the room to fold the laundry I had washed that day, and then we headed to supper at the comedor.  The medium boys were able to play soccer in the cancha (soccer field and playground) out in front of the school this evening, so we joined them down there before heading in for the night.

Visit to Guaimaca

Once again this morning, Noah was not ready on time to head out the door when Alina and I needed to leave to go to our assigned houses, so he was locked in the room for the remainder of the morning.  The medium boys asked where he was, so I had to explain that it is expected that Noah make his bed, brush his teeth, wash his face (as a pre-teen he is starting to break out), and get dressed prior to leaving.  These are also expectations of the medium boys at their house, so they understood that these things were expected to get done.  I walked with the boys to the comedor where they had breakfast and then took Noah's breakfast back to him in the room and stayed there to finish preparing the calculus lesson that I had to teach this morning.  I was scheduled to teach from 8:30-10am and then from 10:30am-noon, so the class was getting 3 hours of instruction in calculus!  That's a lot of material to prepare.

School went well.  The students took lots of notes and asked questions.  When I was done teaching, I headed to the comedor and ate lunch, then took a bowl of lunch to Noah.  He had to eat quickly because Wednesdays are the days that volunteers are allowed to head in to town (Guaimaca) to go grocery shopping.  Bob sent us a list of items that he'd like to have available, so we had all 3 backpacks ready to go.  We walked into town with the Millers and hit the first grocery store which is located on the main square.  It was AFTER we got into town that I realized I had forgotten my camera, so I will try to remember to bring it when we go back into town next week.  We got most of our groceries here, but then headed to the other grocery store just 2-3 blocks away where we got a few more items.  On the way back to Emmanuel, we stopped at the bakery to get some cinnamon rolls, and then at the other bakery for Alina and Noah to get a frozen chocolate-covered banana.  At that bakery I bought 3 tres leches cakes for the birthdays coming up this weekend.  Finally, we stopped by to see Glenda to see if she had any carrots.  Both the Miller family and I had been looking for carrots and she only had two (but they were huge), so we each bought one.

We took a while trying to get 2 family's worth of groceries into the refrigerator and freezer.  I'm glad that there is currently no one in the 3rd hotel room, because groceries for 3 families in that refrigerator might be a stretch.  Alina headed to the baby house and the Millers headed to their assignments.  The boys were mowing the lawn outside our rooms, and quite a bit of grass got kicked up into the rooms and on the porch, so Noah and I swept them out and off.  

Church began at 4pm and two ladies from the Ohio team talked to the children and staff.  After the service, Luis David was waiting outside by David's all-terrain vehicle.  He double-checked to see if Bob was coming on Saturday, and when I said "yes", he said he was happy that Bob was coming on his birthday.  This really caught me off guard because I didn't know it was his birthday (I really have to put it into my calendar!).  He asked me how in the WORLD after 10 years did I still not know when his birthday was?  I said, "I don't know, but it's a good thing that I got THREE tres leches cakes then!"  (Two were already spoken for, but the 3rd was going to be a treat for Alina and Noah...guess the use was meant for someone else).

We had heard earlier this week that the team was going to challenge the orphanage staff to a game of basketball at 6pm.  Alina was very excited about this, so after church she and Noah came home and got changed right away.  At 6pm, we headed down to the gymnasium, but the lights were out and nobody was there.  I sent Noah up to the team house to ask about the game, and when he came back he said that the Ohio team had decided not to play since it was their last night at Emmanuel.  Alina and Noah were a bit bummed out.  They quickly went through as much of the obstacle course alongside the gym as they could without ropes before we headed back to our room.  We played Phase 10 together, then read a chapter in our books before heading to bed.

Boss Baby

This morning shortly after I woke up at 3:30am, I could hear the sound of people mowing the lawn in the background.  We found out later that the mowing was taking place at the medium boys house and the power toddler house.  At 6am when I got to the medium boys house, I found them hard at work mowing and raking and cleaning up the grass clippings.  I had headed to the medium boys house alone today because Noah has been sleeping in more and more each morning, and was not yet ready to go today.  Rather than get upset and trying hurry him up, last night I wrote him a list of what he HAD to have done prior to heading to the medium boys house (very similar to what the medium boys have to do prior to 6am) and said that if it wasn't done, he would get locked inside our room until I came back.  Well, it wasn't done, which was probably for the better because Noah likes to wear shorts (complains when I tell him to put his jeans on) and with all of the grass-cutting, I'm sure that the mosquitoes were out in full force.  I already have 42 bites from just 1 day of not wearing DEET and just from my knees down!

The boys worked hard in their yard right up until it was time to leave for breakfast.  Alina took the camera with her today.  After breakfast, I took Noah's cereal bowl up to the kitchen to put in the refrigerator for him to eat later.  Since he was now ready, I let him walk with me to the medium boys house to pick them up and walk them to school.  I dropped them off at school and then headed back to our room, where Noah ate his cereal while I finished preparing today's calculus lesson.  I heard that the high school was spending the first hours of the morning taking their national English test.  At 10:15am we had to head to the school so that I could teach calculus.  Today's lesson was on area under the curve.  I had an hour and a half to teach.  We didn't get quite as far as I wanted because the students struggle with fractions (not much different than high school students in the States), but we did get through 2 lengthy examples.  I headed to lunch with the students and Noah was nowhere to be found, so once again I had to take his bowl of food back to our room.  He had spent the time that I was teaching out on the soccer field at the school, and even when the kids went in for lunch, he played there alone.

At lunch, Milton gave me the movies I had ordered on Friday.  SO exciting!  They were able to get me 9 out of the 10 movies I asked for!  I can't wait to share these with the medium boys and having movie nights with them from now until we leave.

After Noah finished eating, we headed to the yards to be with the special needs children.  I began working on the answer key to this year's calculus test (that the students will be taking on Friday) and have already found 2 errors!  After school, we walked the medium boys home to the chosa (big gazebo out front of their house).  We waited for supper to come while some of the team members stopped by to give gifts to some of the boys.  Some other boys were being disciplined for bad behavior in school...but most of us just sat and waited.

All day the children had been asking me about having chicken for supper.  When we walked to the dining hall, we found that they were serving FRIED chicken!  This is a real special treat for the kids as they only receive this when a team comes and pays for the children to eat like this!  Typical supper is just rice and beans.  Tonight they had tortillas and fried chicken in addition to the rice and beans.  I began eating, and Luis David came over by me and said, "I need to talk to you."  I told him to start chatting, and he stood there for a few seconds, as if he preferred to talk in private.  I moved over a bit, creating a space on the bench and patted my hands on the bench and said, "Sit down here and talk to me."  So he did, and he began to cry as he told me what was going on in his life at that moment.  I gave my plate of fried chicken to Moncho (who's in charge of the medium boys) to give away to some boys that wanted seconds, and put my full focus on Luis David.  Although I don't want to share details, he is going through a pretty rough patch right now.  I have only seen this boy cry once before in the 10 years I've been down here, and that was many years ago when he was very young.  Please pray for him to be able to overcome the difficulties he's going through.

After supper was over, we made a quick stop back at our room (long enough for the medium boys to shower) and then we took the movies to their house to watch a movie for the night.  They chose Boss Baby and we thoroughly enjoyed it before heading home.  Alina was waiting for us back at our room.  She had been locked out all day, but spent just about ALL of the day with the babies (which has been usual for her).  We rarely see her except for early morning, perhaps sometimes at lunch, and then in the evening.

Lydia's Birthday

This morning Noah and I headed to the medium boys house while Alina headed to the baby house.  We were with them until it was time to walk to breakfast.  After breakfast they walked back to the house and watched TV until it was time to head to school (morning chores got done quickly today).  They were watching a movie about a soccer player that went to Europe to try out and play for a professional soccer team.  I'm not sure the name of the movie, and some parts were 'fast-forwarded' through (perhaps PG-13?), but the boys seemed to like it.

When we dropped the boys off at school, I saw Nikoll and Alejandra.  They ran up to me and gave me a hug.  While I was chatting with them, many of the medium boys ran out, celebrating, saying that they had no school today...so we took them to the yard to play all morning (since I had the day off from teaching calculus, too).  We headed to lunch at 11:50 and then back to the yard for the afternoon to play some more.  Even though I tried to stay in the shade all day, by the end of the day I looked like a reverse raccoon - from my sunglasses and the suntan I've been getting.

Noah and Chino in the yard this afternoon

At 4pm, we headed to supper, and from there I headed home.  Generally the boys head to their house to shower, and I don't believe that my help is needed for that since they are 10-12 years old.  From about 4:30-6pm I spent with Michell, just sitting and chatting.  She let me know that she would not be around tomorrow because she had a doctor's appointment in the capital city of Honduras, Tegucigalpa.

At 6pm, Alina, Noah and I headed to the team house.  Staff and volunteers had been invited to eat there again.  What I didn't realize was that it was Lydia's birthday.  We all sang happy birthday to her before praying and then eating.  She replied with, "This is the LAST time you celebrate my birthday!!!"...jokingly, of course.  After supper we were invited to do a devotional study on Ephesians.  The team breaks up into smaller groups of 5-7 to discuss verses from the bible.  It was a fun, educational time and a time of sharing our stories.  When the bible study was finished, we headed home to bed and fell asleep almost instantly because it was later then normal for us!

Sunday at Emmanuel

This morning we got to sleep in a big.  On Sundays the volunteers have off of their daily assignments, so we slept in a little more than normal before getting up and getting ready for church.  I will still up a bit early (5:00am), but it's much later than my normal 3:30am wake-up time.  Alina and Noah woke up and we all headed down to church.  A man from the Ohio team led the sermon today and talked about how we will not find safety, security and significance in physical things (family, husbands/wives, girlfriends/boyfriends, friends, jobs, house, car, etc).  We only find these things in God.

Zelenes had come back this weekend on a short break, which was pretty exciting.  She had graduated last year (VERY smart in math) and was now in school in order to become a police officer.  She was leaving shortly after church was over, but had asked me yesterday for my phone number so I tracked her down before she left to get it to her.

We headed back to our kitchen and made pancakes for breakfast.  When I bought the box of mix last week I bought vegetable oil thinking that I would be making them in one of the big frying pans, but when we arrived to the orphanage I found that the kitchen had a fairly new griddle, which made making pancakes SO much easier!  Noah took a couple of pancakes (with syrup) down to Michell, who was playing soccer just below us, and she said she really liked them.  After cleaning up the kitchen and changing out of our Sunday clothes, we headed down to the cancha (soccer field) to watch the girls play with the team.  Noah played soccer while Alina and I watched.  Noah said that it was the 'Americans vs the Hondurans'.

We walked the big girls to lunch and then rested a bit in the tienda where I bought Noah and Alina a Gatorade and Alina also got some cheesy popcorn.  We waved at the boys as they walked by to go to lunch.  After lunch, Noah got to ride on the tractor trailer and go collect garbage with Luis David (a boy I've known for the 10 years I've been here).  Luis David works for Papi (David, the founder of Emmanuel).  It's nice that this is Noah's 2nd year here and he is getting more used to how things work.  Noah helped to collect all of the garbage cans around Emmanuel in the trailer, take them to where they were to be dumped, dumped them and returned the empty garbage cans.  Then he asked permission to go to the medium boys house where he got to watch a movie with them.

Noah collecting garbage around Emmanuel

While Noah was away between lunch and supper, we hung out with Michell some more and just enjoyed the afternoon.  It was overcast and breezy, so perfect weather for us Wisconsinites, although the Honduran girls were a bit cold.  At supper, I noticed that Nikol and Alejandra were wearing the dresses that we bought for them.  When they saw me, the quick jumped up from their supper table and came running to give me a hug and said thank you!  In the comedor there are now 3 TVs where they sometimes play a movie while the children eat.  It is just such a relaxing environment down here.

After supper we walked with the little girls until we got to our room (which is on the way to their house), and then Alina and Noah played a few games together (Phase 10, Connect 4, etc) and played a few card games with the Miller children who are in the room next door to us, before we went in for the night.  As usual, we each read a chapter in our books to settle down for the night before turning the lights off and heading to bed.  With all of the sun and all of the work that we do down here, it is VERY easy to fall asleep by 8pm.

Alina with Nikol (pink flowered dress) and Alejandra (navy dress) and Genesis