Our morning began with the normal routine, heading to the medium boys house and then with them to breakfast, then back to their house before walking them to school. After walking them to school, I checked on Alina (who was still sick with flu-like symptoms) and swept out our room, the kitchen and the front porch. Sweeping is definitely at least a daily thing down here as the floors are all 12"x12" tiles and dirt gets tracked in fairly easily.
Once the floors were swept, I went to check on Bob. He's been working with Mike to put up a technology education building. I got a few pictures (and he took some pictures from the scaffolding as well, so you could see how the building is coming along.
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Bob on the scaffolding with a volunteer |
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Aerial view of building progress |
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Aerial view of building progress |
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Ground view of building progress |
After taking a few pictures, I headed to the special needs yard to be with those children all day. Noah wanted to work with Moncho again today. Some days I allow him to do it, some days I don't. I often wonder if Noah just wants to ride around in a John Deere Gator all day. I found out later in the day that they headed to the medium girls house to fix some electrical things. I'm so glad that Moncho has been so patient with Noah and has made him feel helpful. I pray that this helps Noah in gaining confidence and learning responsibility.
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Moncho with Jordy (Ohio volunteer) and Noah in back |
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Children playing in the special needs yard |
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View of the church from the special needs yard |
We headed to the comedor for lunch. I have a routine now of standing outside the doors to the comedor and holding my hand up to 'high-5' all of the medium boys that enter. They really enjoy this! After lunch, we headed to town (Guaimaca) since it was a Wednesday. Wednesdays are the only days that volunteers are allowed to head into town, because they seem to be the most 'safe' days to do it.
Luis David had stopped me this morning to see if I had happened to bring a scientific calculator with me down from the States. I'm not sure if he thought since I was a math major I would have one on me all of the time or what? Actually I used to bring one down, but since I found an app of a graphing calculator and downloaded it onto my American phone, I haven't had the need to bring an extra calculator along with me. I told him I would look in town for one. On the way into town, Chris saw a store that had calculators. We went in and they had 2 scientific calculators, an off-brand and a Casio. As a teacher, I definitely have a preference for the TI (Texas Instruments) brand, so I let the man know that I was looking for a particular brand, and if I didn't find it in town, I'd be back to get the Casio.
We stopped at the pharmacy first, since the daughter of the Miller family (right next to us) have been sick longer than Alina. I helped translate for them to get decongestants and cough medicine. Then we headed to the first grocery store. Bob had put a list together for me, and there was so much less to buy than the last 2 weeks, so we got through the store fairly quickly. Our next stop was the Claro store. Claro is one of two cell phone companies in Honduras. A friend of the Miller family who had come down with them ran out of data on the modem we had bought at the airport in Tegucigalpa. I don't think she realized how much data that face-timing uses up. She purchased more at the orphanage, but didn't really understand what it meant to activate the phone chip, so that amount disappeared just as quickly and the chip broke...so we had to get this situation fixed. Then we headed to the second grocery store to buy the remainder of the supplies on our grocery lists. We've made a habit of stopping at a bakery that has chocolate-covered frozen bananas on the way back from town, so definitely stopped there and I also bought a tres leches cake for a boy whose birthday is tomorrow.
While in town, I didn't find a Texas Instruments calculator for Luis David, so on the way out of town, I stopped once again at the store we had found on the way in to buy the Casio for him. After walking back (man was it hot today), we got the groceries put away, and although it was just about supper-time, I didn't have the energy to walk to the comedor to eat...I wasn't hungry either. So we just stayed in our room, rested and waited for church. It was one of the shortest services ever!...but that was okay because Alina had stayed back to rest. She feels like she's getting over her sickness, but wanted to be sure. Many girls from the baby house came up to me after church to say that they hoped Alina was feeling better soon, so I know she's making an impact there.
When we got back from church, we called my parents back to to chat with them and with Kaylyn and Jaden. It is best down here when making phone calls to buy what's called 'packages'. There is a sequence of numbers to dial to see what packages are available for phone calls. In the 2 weeks that we've been here, the best package has been 20 minutes for $15L (means 15 lempiras or approximately 70-75 cents). We called for 20 minutes and then when that expired, we hung up, bought another package, and called again. After chatting with family back home, we finished up our game of Phase 10 (that we had started over a week ago) and each read a chapter in our books before heading to bed. It is dark here by 7pm, and we are very tired around that time, so at the latest we are in bed by 8pm.