Waking Up Early

    This morning I woke up earlier than normal (for a Saturday) due to David and Milton mowing lawn right outside the hotel.  Like my dad, David is an early riser...although he typically wakes up at 2am and is ready to go for the day!  I guess I never really asked him what time he goes to sleep.

   This morning in the Chosa, Britani was sitting on my lap playing with a toy with Abi and when Abi took the toy from her, rather than saying something about it, she hit Abi on the head.  I let her know that she would have to get off of my lap for a bit and to sit by my side, but also that I expected she didn't cry.  Well, she began to cry.  I let her know 3 times that she could apologize to Abi if she wanted, otherwise I didn't expect to hear her crying.  (I do not deal well with crying children by me)  I also let her know that if she continued to cry, she would have to sit further away from me.  Well, we will just say that I had to place her further away from me.  She eventually settled down and came back.  

   I noticed late morning that Mateo had a fever, his forehead, cheeks and stomach were all super hot, but Eva let me know he was already on medication and wouldn't get another dose until after lunch.  At one point in the morning, I decided to try laying down on my stomach on the floor like Eva does from time to time...and I found out why she does this, on very hot days, the ceramic tiles in the Chosa are still relatively cool and definitely cool the body down a little bit.  It is NOT to sleep, because hard ceramic tiles are not very comfortable.

   When we headed back to the Toddler House in the afternoon towards the end of their naps, there was a group of people from Campamento (the next town over) delivering bags of clothes and candy to the toddlers as well as to the older girls helping out in the house.  The group were members of a church from that town, and the pastor and his wife had moved there in January from the U.S. (definitely from the south since that typical Y'ALL was used along with quite the drawl in speech).  I am not sure if she said where she was from but she could definitely tell we were from up north!

   As we walked the toddlers to the Comedor, I stopped at the Tienda because I needed to use the last of my weekly Lempiras (Honduras dollars) to buy a few canned nectar beverages for Kaylyn.  I had enough money for her to get 3 apple nectars and 2 peach nectars.  This is at least getting her some vitamin C and some essentials that she needs to avoid getting sick or heat stroke symptoms.

   Jaden spent the day moving wood to build a fence with Chino by the horse barn.  Zaiden is not working with them since Guato headed to Tegus, and he is also eating with us in the Comedor as well.  They took care of Ace (one of the horses) and the he spent the evening playing soccer with Moncho's grandecitos.

The Youngest King?

   So yesterday at breakfast, Elvia announced that the elementary school would not have classes on Friday, and for that reason, breakfast would be at 6.  That is literally what she said, "at 6".  So, with that having been said, we got to the Comedor this morning just a bit before 6 (rather than 5:45) and found that none of the bowls of breakfast had been set out yet.  I was a bit confused, so Oscar came walking my way and I asked him...didn't Elvia say breakfast was at 6?  He said, "yes".  I replied with, "well, it's just a few minutes to 6 and nobody is here and the tables are not set".  He then looked at me seriously and said that breakfast is an hour later, so 6:45.  So I guess Elvia is saying 6 as in short for 6:45.  Well, it's a good thing I have my Fitbit down here, because I am getting quite a few steps in each day, and today I got DOUBLE the steps to the Comedor for breakfast!

    This morning during what we used to call "big circle" (which was when the kids formed a large circle right outside our hotel room, and prior it had been in the yard in front of the Comedor), Ana Yancy gave the message and talked about King Josiah, who became the king of Judah at just 8 years old!  Imagine the responsibilities.  Well, I had wondered if this was the youngest king and in looking through 2 Kings, found that he wasn't.  The youngest king in biblical times was King Joash, who in chapter 11, verse 21, it says "Joash was 7 years old when he began to reign".  Imagine becoming a king a just seven!

   Kaylyn and I had to deal with lots of temper tantrums in the Chosa this morning.  Many of the toddlers, when another toddler takes their toy away or even begins to use it when they are no longer using it, look back and then flail their entire body on the floor and begin screaming.  Today there were WAY more than normal tantrums and any normal person would have definitely went away with a headache.  For me, I simply knew that this would wear me out so much we wouldn't be able to do our Friday Family Night and watch a movie together because I would need to head to sleep early.

   Jaden let me know that during the course of the day, he chopped grass both with the machete and with a weed whacker.  I am so glad that we brought his sports goggles down so that he could both see what he was doing as well as have protection for his eyes while doing it.  He also moved rocks and raked the leaves from the bushes that Chino cut outside the horse barn.  After dinner, Chino took his medium boys up the mountain on a walk (hike).  Jaden had never been this far into the woods, so I think it was good for him to head along with them.  He said that the hike definitely challenged his lungs as most was uphill into the mountains.

David's Birthday Party

     This morning I walked to the Comedor with Jaden for breakfast and then headed to the Chosa for the morning to hang out with the toddlers and Kaylyn.  On Thursdays and Fridays, I will most likely be in the Chosa as I do not have math classes to teach.  Kaylyn brought her book along with her to the Chosa and by lunch time she had finished her book.  She is reading through her books very quickly and I am sure all will be finished well before it is time for us to head back.  Micah (son of another volunteer here, April) decided to put one of the girls glittery gray sweaters on while in the Chosa.  It was entertaining enough for me to take a picture.

Micah in the glittery sweater

   I decided to bring my Zambos (salsa verde flavored) to the Chosa to share with the toddlers.  These are fried/dried plantain chips and honestly, it takes a lot for me to be able to eat an entire snack bag...so it was best I share.  The toddlers go absolutely bazonkers when someone brings food and just flood that person.  I am not one who enjoys being surrounded by tons of people, and even the toddlers had me handing out the chips as fast as I possibly could so that I had some space to breathe.  I found it most useful to just say their name when I was about to hand it to them because then all the children knew who that handful was going to.

   Jaden didn't wear pants today because he only has 2 pairs of pants and they were both in the laundry (yes, we had to do laundry today).  This meant that he wasn't able to week whack today, and in his lingo had to be "gas boy" all morning long, running with the gas can to each weed whacker as they needed it.  He then helped raked up the grass and tried to weed whack the entryway to the horse barn.  Before supper, he hung out a bit with Chino's medium boys.

   Instead of going to the Comedor for supper, we headed up to the Small Boys' House.  Invisible (my nickname for Pamela) had planned a birthday party for David (son of Cecilia) and invited me and the kids.  There was "arroz chino" (like Chinese fried rice with beef and shrimp), bread, orange soda, and cake (both vanilla and chocolate).  She gave David gifts - a watch, shoes, and some clothing and then also bought a pinata which he got to hit at with an old broom handle until it broke open little by little.  It was a good time for all the small boys.

   On our walk from the party back to our room, Jaden saw the grandecitos playing in the school playground, so he asked if he could join them until they went back to their dorm at 6pm.  I let him since we could see him from our room, for the most part.  That gave Kaylyn and me a chance to just rest a bit as we waited for Jaden to come back.

Invisible (Pamela) and Cecilia

David

Invisible (Pamela), David and Cecillia

Rollie preparing the pinata

David swinging at the pinata

Who Likes Pedialyte?...Nobody!

    This morning at breakfast, I gave Noe the muffins that Ellie, Kaylyn and Zoey had made last night.  Prior to heading to the school to teach, I worked on the answer key to the homework for 9th grade, finished up the lesson plan for today and then worked on the answer key to the homework that 10th grade had assigned for Monday.  We wrapped up graphing systems of equations in 9th grade today, working through 3 examples together (yesterday we did 2 examples).  I decided to do the last example of the 5 in English so that students could see how similar words are in the 2 languages in the arena of mathematics.  (intercepts = interceptos, solution = solucion, verify = verificar, multiply = multiplicar, divide = dividir, etc).  They were amazed that they could go through a problem in another language and actually understand it!

   Kaylyn spent the morning with the toddlers in the Chosa and said that they watched the Princess and the Frog, which is her favorite movie.  Then she said that the toddlers had to drink Pedialyte because of all of the sick toddlers this week that have had diarrhea.  She said most of the toddlers either refused to drink it, spit it out, or just dumped out their cup of Pedialyte on the floor.  I wasn't surprised because all 5 of my children hated that beverage growing up.  I remember tasting it once myself and thinking "There has GOT to be a better way than this yucky stuff to get kids their electrolytes back!"

   Jaden began his day by watering Alexander's plants in the Greenhouse, then he said he had to go on a "scavenger hunt" (his words) for Chino.  When he finally found him, they were weed whacking and Jaden still has a lot to learn about that since he kicked up a lot of stuff, including a rock which hit him in the chest.  I reminded him that he needs to be wearing his goggles and NOT his glasses, thankfully nothing hit went under the glasses and hit him in the eye.  Chino said that he had told Jaden a few times which way to swing the weed whacker in order to not kick so much stuff back up at you, but I am guessing that Jaden is just going to have to learn the hard way.  After week whacking the grass, they had to rake it up and dispose of it.  Then he went to the horse barn for some chores and finally hung out with the medium boys a little bit.  He let me know that Chino got a new boy in his house named Cristofer (who I was introduced to that evening at church).

   This evening for supper, Dilmer was the absolute last child in the Comedor to finish his food.  Because he was eating so slowly, at one point Rollie came over to him and had a serious conversation with him (guessing about picking up the pace with eating his food) and Kaylyn reported that after Rollie talked to Dilmer, Rollie rolled his eyes.  I had to chuckle at that because I would have definitely been in the same boat.  Dilmer was SO SLOW in eating that ALL of the other children had left the Comedor to head back to their houses for the evening, and he was STILL there, alone in that huge Comedor with one of the bigger boys who helps at his small boys house helping him to eat the last bites of his meal.

   At church, 3 team members gave their testimony to the children of Emmanuel.  One of them spoke a bit of Spanish, so she did her testimony in Spanish, not needing translation from Rollie.  After church, staff was invited up to the Team House for pizza, so we headed that way as well and enjoyed good times with other staff and the team.  One lady came up to me and was excited, saying "I haven't seen you in FOUR years!!!"  Although I did not remember her, I smiled and asked "Has it really been that long? 2019?"  But that was definitely the point where I realized that when some people (team members of very short term volunteers) are not remembered by staff or children here, I was now in that same situation...just like those here.

Sick Toddlers Make Kaylyn Sick

   Kaylyn getting nauseous last night and being unable to go to Lydia's birthday party carried over into this morning.  So we needed to leave her rest in the room.  I had some medication for upset stomach but only 4 chewables since for some reason when I googled "first aid kit", they didn't list this medication.  Kaylyn went through all 4 pills.

   Lori taught both 9th and 10th grade today, so was at the school from 7:00-9:40am when recess began.  There were a few guys from 11th grade who stopped in to check out what the students in 10th grade were learning.  They let me know that they already had finished all of their math for high school, meaning they finished the calculus I had taught for the past number of years.  They also said it went pretty well and "easy", so I am guessing the long, long hours I put in last year to rewrite the book's examples (because it left out key steps for comprehension) as well as writing out all of the steps to each homework problem that would be assigned paid off!  When we were cone chatting, I headed to the room quick to drop off my school backpack (so the toddlers wouldn't play with it), grab a refill on water and then headed to the Chosa.  April and Zoey were both there, glad Zoey was feeling better!

   Jaden spent the morning with Guato (who will be leaving permanently on Thursday) cleaning the milking machines and feeding the chickens.  In the afternoon he went with Chino to cut grass, not sure if he used a machete this time around.  Jaden did tell me that at 1:30pm, there would be items up in the Team House for sale to help out the orphanage.  Typically they have shirts, knives of various sizes, machetes, and other types of goods, but I may have to wait for the next team that comes to go up and check this out since I completely missed it today.

   Kaylyn was feeling well enough to head to supper with us (she missed lunch, but had an apple and some banana bread that we had purchased in town last weekend).  For whatever reason, Oscar (who works in the kitchen) forgot that I said she would be gone for lunch only, so there was not a plate set out for Kaylyn.  Because it was raining, the small boys came in with their frog rain jackets.  They always look so cute when they have these on!  Usually I say "hi" to Dilmer, who was one of my daughter Alina's special boys.  I believe when she was here, he called her "mom" because his mom is not here at Emmanuel.  Kaylyn wanted me to get a picture of him in his jacket, so while we were eating she went back to our room to get my camera to take a picture.  Perhaps Alina will see this blog entry and see her special little boy!

Alina's boy, Dilmer

   About an hour after supper, Kaylyn headed up to the Girls Volunteer House to make cupcakes and bread with Ellie and Zoey from the 4 mixes that were given to them by Noe and Oscar.  They had 2 mixes of strawberry cheesecake, a mix of lemon poppyseed, and a mix of birthday cake.  The plan was to make the 4, and then take a sample for each of them (and for Zoey and Kaylyn their family) and then the rest went to Oscar and Noe.  Somehow the birthday cake went "missing" and nobody but Kaylyn, Zoey and Ellie got to "try" it.  But the remainders of the mixes that were given out were enjoyed by all.

Sick Toddlers

    This morning I made a fresh pot of coffee.  Prior to this morning, it was taking 3-4 days for me to go through a pot of coffee, but I am guessing with having gone into town and buying cream and sugar (for Kaylyn) that it might go a little bit faster now.  I also asked Karen if she liked coffee and since she said she did, let her know that she could help herself to the coffee any time she wanted.

   I headed to breakfast with Jaden, although I didn't eat there (just drank my coffee with vanilla bean flavored protein powder mix).  Then we came back and I spent the rest of the time in our kitchen wrapping up the lessons I would teach today on graphing rational functions.  This is a topic I haven't taught in way more years that I can remember, so I needed to make sure I was detailed enough for the students.  I created a 5 step process for them to get to the graph of the function.  It seems that when students have the processes laid out for them down here, they do so much better with the math.  When I am not here, it is taught SO much differently.  I had to teach today from 8:20-9:40am.

   I also noticed on my way out of the school that there was a laminated posting outside the teacher's lounge about which uniforms the TEACHERS were supposed to wear each day, so it is not just the students that have to wear uniforms.  I have always noticed through the years that the teachers dressed in the same colors, and just wasn't sure if they coordinated what they were doing through the years or if it was told to them.  Today I received my answer with seeing this notice:

   After teaching, I came back to the room to drop my things down and then headed to the Chosa where the toddlers were.  I found out that Zoey and Micah were out sick and Kaylyn wasn't there either because she was chosen to take the toddlers to the clinic with April.  When she came back with Sara, she said that Sara had a 102-degree fever and needed to rest have have cool damp clothes placed on her head and neck.  When April came back with 4 toddlers, she let me know that they have had some massive diarrhea overnight and just needed to be monitored a little more closely, especially if they asked to go to the bathroom...to NOT hesitate in taking them but to take them ASAP.

   Jaden got to spend the day in the pig barn, cleaning pig pens and also bathing pigs with a power washer.  When he said he power washed the pigs, Kaylyn gasped...but I am guessing the power washer didn't have as much power as what we know in the United States.  Perhaps it was just a special nozzle on the end of a garden hose.

   This evening, Kaylyn said her stomach wasn't feeling so well, so even though there was a really nice birthday party for Lydia (founder of Emmanuel), she really wasn't up to going.  She stayed back.  Jaden and I went and I ended up sitting at a table with Ellie, Julissa, Noe and Oscar, whereas Jaden sat at a table with Felipe and Zaiden.  Jaden helped serve the plates of food to all of the tables.  We were entertained once again by the same crew who danced for us last year at Lydia's birthday party and since Ellie hadn't seen this before, she was laughing to the point of tears...which was what I did last year.  It was a really nice event put on by Elvia and other staff, and we were there until 8pm.  Jaden, Ellie and I all walked back together since the party was at the front of the orphanage by the security gate, and then parted ways when we got to the fork in the road where one way led to the hotel and the other led to the female volunteer house where Ellie stays.

Noe with his cupcake

La Tienda

   Last night a team came in from Clover, South Carolina.  The pastor of the group gave the sermon this morning and Alexander tried to translate what he was saying to Spanish.  I am going to guess the pastor didn't know Spanish and as such, didn't know when what he had said was fully translated, so he got quite ahead of Alexander to the point where it became more and more difficult to translate.  Dulce, who was also a child here who is now grown, married and with children of her own happened to be at Emmanuel today.  I believe she went on to the university to become as lawyer as well.  She took over for Alexander in translation of the sermon.

   After church, Jaden, Kaylyn and I headed back to our room to clean.  I may have mentioned last Sunday that this day is our only day off, so is the day we can really do a deep cleaning.  Since Kaylyn felt better this Sunday, we got everything off of the floor in our room and swept and mopped the entire room (bathroom included).  We didn't stop there, but moved on to the kitchen that we share with the family in Hotel Room #2 (Karen and her 2 daughters, Dara and Nachita).  Then we moved on to the front porch and swept and mopped all but the porch in front of Room #3 because there is a bee hive and it was hot outside, so the bees were pretty active there.

   After lunch, we asked permission to take Britani, Jeremias and Alejandra to the Tienda (store).  At first it was just Britani and Jeremias because Alejandra had to clean the Comedor from lunch.  When 1:30 came around and Alejandra still wasn't with us, Jeremias suggested we go to the school playground to look for her.  Sure enough, she was there.  Jeremias decided to stay at the playground because Karen (who lives next to us and is in charge of the grandecitas house where Alejandra lives) is actually his sister, which means Dara and Nachita are his nieces.  So then the rest of the afternoon it was just Britani, Alejandra and me.

Jaden, Jeremias, Kaylyn and Britani

   At 1:30, Kaylyn and Jaden went on the team's tour of the orphanage, led by Alexander.  On this tour they show you all of the buildings and give you a bit of the history of the orphanage.  Neither of them have done a tour, so I think that now everyone in my immediate family has participated in a tour at some point.  Kaylyn and Jaden have now done it with Alexander leading the tour, Alina and Noah have done it (I am not sure who led that tour), and Andres and Bob have done it with Wade leading the tour.  When I did the tour at the beginning of coming here (in 2008), it was Papi (David) who led the tour.

   In the evening after supper, I used that time to update the blog, get Kaylyn and Jaden registered for school with the Neenah Joint School District for fall, and then prepared tomorrow's lesson on rational functions for the 10th grade.