This is going to be a special blog as I am heading down to Honduras to spend Easter with Noah, who has decided to be a long term volunteer at Emmanuel. He has also started a blog about being down here, but since he is a long term volunteer, he is only writing weekly...if you are interested in reading what is going on with Noah at Emmanuel, click HERE to access his blog.
So I only slept for about 2-2.5 hours last night because I had to wake at about 2am to take the rental vehicle to the Milwaukee airport to catch my 6:30am flight. Since I will be flying back into Appleton, it didn't make sense to take my car down to Milwaukee. So in order not to inconvenience anyone at such an hour, I found a one-way rental vehicle for just $40...a true blessing. When I went to pick up what I thought was going to be a tiny SUV/crossover (like a Nissan Kicks is what the website said), the employee looked through what they had and said that I seemed to be more of a Jeep type of person and gave me a Jeep Gladiator. Quite the large vehicle for just me heading to Honduras.
 |
| Jeep Gladiator |
 |
| Me running on 2 hours of sleep, no makeup |
Anyway, I woke at 2am to get dressed and make sure my passport, money and essentials were in the backpack carry-on I would be taking. I had already packed the 2 suitcases with gifts for some of the kids, quite a few items Noah had requested I brought down and then some other essentials for Noah like a new pair of shoes and a new pair of sandals. He had requested the sandals because his had broken and he can't get any down here due to being a size 14!!! The tennis shoes Noah took down were in SO BAD of a condition prior to heading to Honduras, that I couldn't help but go shopping to a couple of spots with my bestie, Cheryl (thanks for driving me Cheryl) to see if I could find some new shoes in a size 14 that he could wear instead of his roughed up hole-filled Addidas shoes. We found a pair of Nikes on sale for about $30 at Rogans (thank GOD), so that would get included in as his Easter gift.
 |
| Shoes Noah took to Honduras |
 |
| Old vs New |
When I got to Milwaukee, returned the rental, checked my 2 suitcases, got through security, and got to the gate, I found out that the plane was delayed by roughly an hour and a half. There were quite a few people upset since they had connections they were going to miss, so they formed a huge line to try to figure something else out and thus the plane wasn't as full as it was originally supposed to be. I wasn't too terribly concerned at that point, because I still had an hour between when the new landing time was and when my 2nd flight would take off, and the gates were right next to each other, so I wouldn't have to run around the airport trying to get to the next gate. On the first flight to Miami, I sat by 2 boys from the Milwaukee area that were headed to Costa Rica with their soccer team to play 3 games down there. They were very excited and we chatted until takeoff when I just really needed to get some sleep.
When I got to Miami, I saw that the flight there got delayed as well (by about an hour), so I sat down in a quiet area and charged my phone while I worked on hammering out a "version 2" to the version 1 geometry test that our team had discussed and approved earlier in the week. We have tables in our classroom, not desks, so it is crucial to have multiple versions to the test to try to eliminate easy access to cheating.
 |
| Goodbye Miami |
My flight from Miami to Honduras (Comayagua) went well. I sat by a grandmother and her very young toddler age grandson who was very well behaved. I decided to watch a movie on this flight and watched "Still Alice" which is a movie about a lady who gets early onset of alzheimers and goes through the rapid progression. Although it was fiction, it was very informational.
 |
| Flying over Honduras, about to land |
 |
| First afternoon arrival to Comayagua (no planes in sight) |
 |
| The crew directing the plane in |
When I got through customs in Honduras, the taxi driver was waiting to pick me up and take me to Orphanage Emmanuel. The last hour of the ride, I was feeling my eyes get heavy but just didn't want to nap again at that point because I knew I would get in around 5:30ish to the orphanage and it would be an early night for me where I could sleep some extended hours in order to recuperate from the almost all-nighter I had stayed away just the night before.
Noah came up from the Cancha where he was playing soccer with the boys, and met me at the Girls Volunteer House (that is where he is currently living, by himself) and we chatted for a bit, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open so was definitely in bed and sleeping by just before 7pm.
Posts
