Seeing Familiar Faces

    This morning I woke, showered and had some oatmeal for breakfast.  I decided to clean the bathroom which was extremely dirty...not because Noah made it dirty but because he didn't have time to clean it from the storm last Sunday night when water came through the window and splattered dirt everywhere, including on the toilets and walls.  I got everything cleaned up fairly well (although noticed later in the day that I missed one wall), so Noah shouldn't have to worry about cleaning the bathroom for another week or more.  It is a fairly large bathroom with 3 showers, 3 sinks and 3 toilets.

The kitchen of the Volunteer House

The living room of the Volunteer House (with Noah)

Long hall with 3 bedrooms on left and 1 bedroom + bathroom on right

My room for the week

   Noah and I spent about an hour researching and discussing possible places for him to visit in May.  His 90-day visa expires then and he will have to leave the country for at least 72 hours.  Right now on his list are Costa Rica, Panama, and Cancun (Isla Mujeres).  We will be looking at plane ticket prices, hotel prices as well as things to do in each of those locations and hopefully get him set up with his plans before I leave.  We will also need to move his flight home to the States until later in July.  We did some of our research in the Volunteer House, but then moved to the Tienda a little later to research some more.  I saw Lourdes, Brenda and Julissa at the tienda and said "hi" to them all.

   When we went back to the Volunteer House, I gathered up the 3 little girl dresses I had bought back in the States as well as a plush stuffed bunny and headed to the Toddler House to find Brithany.  She ran at me and gave me a big hug.  I showed her the dresses and asked her if she would like to go to church with me tomorrow and if she wanted to wear one of the dresses.  She shook her head "yes" eagerly with a huge smile.  Then I gave her the bunny and I am not sure she stopped smiling in all the time I was with her!  She was on the playground when I found her, but they moved the toddlers back to their house to play on the trampoline a bit before lunch.

   After lunch, Noah went out and I decided I needed to take a little nap.  Although I slept really well last night, I got a bit confused because my watch was still on Wisconsin time and my phone was still on Miami time...neither of which is Honduras time!  So I woke multiple times but in my semi-sleeping state, never really knew what time it was.  But the bed itself, even though a twin size, was very comfortable for me.

   When Noah came back we walked to the Team House and I chatted with Mirna for a bit before Noah and I had to head to the Big Girls House.  We had to head there because the Grandecito Boys asked Noah to ask Graciela if they could use the school's soccer field (La Cancha) after supper to play.  They said Noah has a way with words and generally when he asks for something, can get whoever he asks to say "yes" (doesn't work that way at home, haha).  Of course, Graciela said "yes".

   From the Big Girls House we headed to the Comedor to supper.  Oscar and Julissa have been setting a plate out for me and Noah to eat together, which has been nice.  From the Comedor we headed back to the Team House since Noah's data plan needed to get reloaded.  For whatever reason, his app to reload his phone's data plan is not working, so I had to do it for him but since I don't have a Honduran SIM card this time around, we had to head to a Wifi spot so I could take care of that for him.

   When we got back to our house, Noah headed to the Cancha to play soccer with the boys and went down just a little bit later.  When I headed down, the toddlers were walking past the Volunteer House so I got to say "good night" to Brithany before she headed back to the Toddler House for the night.  Noah used the new tennis shoes to play soccer with the Grandecitos and scored a goal.  Unfortunately I didn't see it because another boy was chatting with me at the time, but I did take some pictures of them playing.  After the soccer game, we walked back to the Volunteer House and decided we were in for the night, so I was able to finish up Day 1 of my blog down here.

Honduras for Easter 2024

    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.