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| Alina and her braided waves |
After breakfast I went to chat with Sarah in the office about Luis David's plan to study at a culinary school in Costa Rica. She let me know that she broke down all of the costs for him and he has that information. It will be expensive, and this appointment we made last week for him to get a passport is only the tip of the ice berg in costs that he will incur. I also chatted with her about Michell and how we'd like to bring her up for a visit to the U.S. once she graduates in December. Sarah reiterated (we had emailed in June) that the chances of a Honduran citizen obtaining a visitor's visa to the U.S. are slim to none, thanks to our president and the caravans of people sitting at the border from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. She let me know that it would be much easier to get Michell a student visa - but that means she would have to study in the U.S. Either way, we would need a report from her school (which is what David, the founder of Orphanage Emmanuel, said he'd need to see when we spoke to him last year).
So, my next stop was to the school to chat with Elvia. I have known Elvia the entire 12 years I've been coming here to Emmanuel. Elvia is now the principal of the school, grades K-12. She said she'd be happy to chat with Michell's teachers and to put together a report on how Michell is doing. She thought that there wouldn't be any issues at all, since Michell is a good student, and would give me a copy and send a copy to David.
My next stop was to the library. I wanted to grab a couple of books for Noah to read while down here. Apparently Kaylyn and Alina remembered to pack books, but Noah sort of forgot. After a few attempts at trying to take Kaylyn and Alina's books to read and being unsuccessful, I figured I'd look in the school library. There are quite a few books in there that are in English as they have been donated by people in the States. They are rarely (if ever) read by students down here.
At lunch I asked David if it would be okay to purchase the movie Aquaman for Michell. He asked a little bit about the movie, and I let him know that Alina and Noah had seen it and for Michell's age (18), I really didn't see anything wrong with it. David told me I could get the movie for her, so I was pretty excited especially since all of the girls in her house told me that they hadn't yet seen it. I gave some money to Milton to run into town to get it for me in the afternoon. Milton has been my "movie guy" the past few years when I've wanted to purchase movies for the medium boys.
Around 1pm I made my way to the comedor to spend Luis David's break with him. It was his 21st birthday today, which in Honduras is the legal age to becoming an adult. The tradition for ANY birthday here is to smash an egg on the person celebrating a birthday. Down here, it's pretty common to get "egged" multiple times throughout the day of their birthday! Apparently David had told everyone that if they egged Luis David in the kitchen/comedor, they would be punished/grounded for a month! So Luis David's safest bet was just to stay in the kitchen all day. The 2nd reason why I went to be by him is that Mary Beth let me know the team was going to bring him a cake and they needed him around. So by me telling him I would come to him and spend his break with him, that would ensure he was actually in the comedor when the team members came with the cake. The pastor of the team said they'd also like to help Luis David financially with his endeavors to study in Costa Rica. What a blessing!
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| Luis David in the comedor with the cake from the team |
We chatted until 2pm and then I headed to the toddler house with Alina. Noah had taken Kaylyn to the horse barn to give her a ride on Pharoah, one of the horses. We met up in the comedor during supper time to drop the toddlers off, then ran quickly to our room to go to the bathroom, etc. Morgan, who is a staff member in charge of the power toddlers where Luis David lives, invited us to his birthday party up at the power toddler house. They were having chinese rice and cake. It was a really fun time...got a little messy when Alina took Noah's egg and smashed it on Luis David's head (he wasn't in the kitchen!) and then there was a cake fight (smashing cake in the face is also common here). I really wished I had gotten a video of Alina getting Luis David with the egg, but I didn't really she was ready to do it. It was the first egg he received all day! It was a fun time. I hung around a little bit to help clean up while the girls went home to shower all of the cake off of themselves.
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| Luis David and Noah with his cake from Morgan |
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| Luis David getting Kaylyn in the face with cake |
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| Luis David going after Alina (after she got him with the "traditional" egg) |
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