Heading Home...Photo Dump

   I had completely forgotten to post about our travels home, which is pretty typical of me each year.  Although I don't remember the travels overall, I did realize (June of 2024) that I still had photos of the travels home, so will put them here for all to see...

Fun to wake up to...at least it was dead

Leaving Emmanuel

Our ride back to the airport in Comayagua

Very common to see trucks stacked like this!

What's up with Kaylyn?

Jaden taking in the scenery on the way back

Arrival to the Airport in Comayagua

Kaylyn in Minor Migration

Kaylyn and Jaden in Minor Migration

Our choice of restaurant at the airport in Comayagua

Ended up buying these pagers for my new students at the new NHS (so they could work out in the pods)

What is up with Kaylyn?

Now she's playing along!

Do they ever get it right?

Our Last Full Day Volunteering at Emmanuel 2023

    This morning Jaden and I woke up to our typical morning view here at Emmanuel.  Then we headed to the Comedor for him to get his last breakfast for this trip, which was oatmeal.  Jaden headed out with Alexander after breakfast to do weed whacking, whereas I headed back to our room to pick up Kaylyn to head to the Chosa.  Usually on Monday mornings, I would hang back and wrap up lesson plans or homework since class is at 8:20am...but since it would just be Kaylyn and Eva in the Chosa today with the toddlers, I decided to go with her right up until class started and then return pretty much immediately after class.

   In today's 10th grade class, I had prepared a Jeopardy game to play with the students which reviewed each of the 6 functions they had learned about (quadratics, rational expressions, absolute value, greatest integer, exponential, logarithmic).  The 16 students were divided into 4 teams of 4 and absolutely loved the game and really got into it!  I am hoping that they learned something along the way, but it really seems to me that their math skills are extremely weak.  Each student got a paleta for participating and for the winning team, each member received a pack of gum.

Drawing maps in school (trace, color and label)

9th Grade class, unfortunately I forgot to get a pic of 10th Grade

   When I got back to the Chosa, Kaylyn told me that she took Mateo to the clinic while Eva hung back and watched the rest of the toddlers.  Also, before and after class in the Chosa, Brithany was fairly clingy.  I don't believe she knew that this was my last day, perhaps she "felt" it somehow?  But either way, she would not leave my side (or my lap which she definitely hung out on most of the time).  For almost the entirety of this trip, she has called me mama, and all of the toddlers when I would come to the door would call Brithany's name and tell her that her "mama" was here.    Kaylyn has been pushing for us to adopt her for the past 5 weeks, even saying that she would share her bedroom...but as I wrote a week-ish ago, I don't feel called to do that.  Although, if I were to adopt a child, she would be up there on the list!!!

   Kaylyn worked through Brithany's hair and found a louse (singular of lice?) as well as pulled out a fair amount of nits.  Lice is pretty common here among the younger girls, both toddlers and small girls.  It is an orphanage.  And unlike many Americans who get freaked out about them, that is not the case here.  You just tackle it on a day-by-day basis until it's gone.  Since we are on that topic, Kaylyn and I headed to the Medium Boys house after lunch so that the tia Berta (who was with the toddlers last year) could go through our hair thoroughly and check for lice.  Kaylyn, who had some dried up nits last week, was clear.  I had 3 dried up nits in my hair.  After checking us and pulling the nits out, Berta put both of our hair up in a french braid.  On our way to get our hair checked, I stopped at the Tienda to buy both Invisible and tia Berta a bag of chips and a soda, and then there was around $100L left of our in the Tienda, which I just told Brenda (who works the tienda most days) that she could put the rest in her name.

Kaylyn checking Brithany for lice and nits

Marbella

Mateo

Brithany pointing to her teeth when I was asking her if she knew each body part...she did!

   I took Invisible all of the lotion, shampoo, soap, conditioner, detangling spray, and toothpaste that we had left over.  And we also gave her Kaylyn's pair of sandals and my tennis shoes, as well as one of our flashlights.  I typically leave my tennis shoes with her as her feet are larger than most females at Emmanuel.  She has been nothing but kind to me ever since I first met her back in 2008...and this is only a snippet of how I try to repay that kindness.

   This afternoon while we were with Invisible and tia Berta, Jaden was working with the pigs (feeding them and cleaning their pens) and also fed the cows with Herlan.  We all walked to the Comedor together for supper, where they had beans, rice, and crema; as well as a really sweet bread that was made in the Panaderia (bread shop) at Emmanuel.

   After supper, we put the last load of laundry in and then packed our suitcases.  We COULD fit everything in just 2 suitcases (we came down with 4), but if Noah is truly coming down here as a volunteer, we need all of our suitcases at home.  So we put the smallest suitcase inside of the largest suitcase, and then loaded them.  There was definitely extra room in each one.  We decided to hit the hay early and not watch a movie since we were planning on getting up around 3:30am to make sure the rooms were all clean and everything was ready to go before breakfast.

Jaden Gets a Haircut

    Our time is winding down here, as I told my 2 kiddos...one more free day, one day of work, then we head home.  I let Jaden head to the Comedor by himself for breakfast this morning since I had a bunch of things to pack up to give away today and we also needed to get ready for church.  He said that they had the Corn Flakes again this morning.   David and Lydia headed to Tegus (Tegucigalpa, capitol of Honduras) early this morning with Milton for a few days to themselves and to prepare for the group that is coming in September.  Milton told me this last night and let me know I would not see him until I returned, so we gave each other a big hug.

   Rollie did the service in church today and asked about the 5 questions we need to be prepared to answer if someone who either doesn't know about God or someone who adamantly doesn't believe in God would most likely ask.  Questions such as: Who is God?  Who created God?  Why does God let bad things happen to people?  Why does God allow people to suffer when He could stop it?  It was a very good last sermon for being down here and hard to believe that when we head to church next Sunday, it will be in the United States in English, and completely different.

   After church, we did some lighter than normal cleaning (since we had cleaned a bit yesterday as well), and then we packed many items up to give away to those who live here.  We packed all of Jaden's items up except for the clothes he would wear today through Wednesday, from socks to underwear (both of which we had purchased new before coming down here) to shorts to shirts.  I will just need to do a load of laundry later today and then on Monday evening for last minute things to give away.  Then I got the blog done for Saturday, as well as finished up my last lesson plans for Monday's 10th grade class (a review game...more to come on that tomorrow).

   At lunch, we gave a huge bag of Jaden's things to Cristian for the special needs boys.  I am not sure how often they get clothing, but it seems like many of Jaden's clothes would fit them fairly well.  And sure enough, when supper rolled around, many of them walked by in new socks and shirts and pointed at them, telling me and Jaden, "Thank You!!!"

   About mid-afternoon when today's laundry was done, we headed to the Toddler House to give Graciela the last of Kaylyn and my items.  She said thank you once again and said she would be sure to get them distributed among the girls, junior staff and staff that needed/wanted them.  We also had 4 pairs of wired ear phones which we had gotten on the way down from the airlines, that Graciela was eager to take off of my hands, so I was glad we had picked them up.  We then headed to the store, where I just had Jaden and Kaylyn with me and Ellie met up with us so we could spend the remainder of the time before supper there.

   At 2:45pm, Jaden left the Tienda to go searching for Eliberto, because we had heard that he was the best at Emmanuel for cutting the boys' hair, and although Jaden's hair was still fairly short from me cutting it that way prior to coming down here...I saw what Eliberto had done with the other boys' hair at Emmanuel and thought that Jaden could really use a new back-to-school style.  So, I would just have to wait until supper in the Comedor to see how that turned out.

Jaden's new back-to-school cut

   Kaylyn and I headed back to our room quickly before supper began to get some paletas for Oscar and the kitchen crew, and for Invisible to share with Berta as well.  Then we headed down to the Comedor.  Jaden came in and I felt his haircut looked AWESOME.  He let me know that Hector gave him a freshly cut coconut and cracked it and put a hole in the top so Jaden could drink the coconut water and then eat the coconut.  Hector also invited Jaden to go on a walk after supper with the grandecitos.  While Jaden was gone, Kaylyn and I did our 1/2 hour of reading and when Jaden got back, we ended up watching a movie to wind down the evening.  Although I thought we'd be watching back to back nights of Mission Impossible, Kaylyn didn't really care to watch it, so they settled on an animated movie called "The Monkey King"...it was unique (weird) to say the least.