Cotton Candy and Popcorn and...a Tarantula!!!

    After getting myself ready for the day and heading to the Comedor, I walked with the Toddlers back to the Sala.  It had rained through the night and I found it was going to rain most of the morning, so being in the Chosa like on previous Saturdays just wasn't going to cut it as the Chosa has "windows" all the way around where water and mist will definitely get through.  So we watched quite a few movies.  Around 9am, when one of the big girls went to get snacks for the toddlers, I headed back to the house to grab some Mexican chili-coated suckers for the big girls and also stopped at the Tienda to grab them some "churros" (their word for chips) as well.  The small individual bags of churros down here cost 4 Lempiras (about 20 cents)...extremely affordable when buying in bulk.  What I didn't realize is that due to walking in the rain, my phone would get wet and send me a message that moisture had gotten INSIDE the phone, rendering it practically useless for the rest of the day and evening.

Brithany and I watching movies in the Sala

$4.00L churros

   At 9:30am we had to get the toddlers ready to head down to the gymnasium because both teams were putting on activities for each of the houses and rotating them through at certain time intervals.  When we got to the gym, the first activity was getting cotton candy.  I have never had cotton candy down here before so am kind of wondering if this team had the machine shipped down here on the container they sent earlier in the spring.  Brithany shared a little of her cotton candy with me, she got 2 of them!...a pink and a purple one.  Then another team member came around with a bag of popcorn for each toddler.  They must have also shipped a popcorn making machine because that is another thing I don't remember Emmanuel having down here either.  I hope that they either teach someone down here how to use those machines or let other teams know that they have those available in case they'd like to use them if they come down!  

Brithany getting cotton candy

All the toddlers nicely seated in their rain coats and boots with cotton candy

Brithany with her cotton candy

Brithany with popcorn

   When our time was up in the gym, we headed back to the Toddler House where I once again watched movies with the kids until it was time for me to head to lunch in the Comedor.  The food for the toddlers was brought to them so they wouldn't have to go out in the rain.  As the toddlers went outside to get their shoes on to come out of the Sala, they pointed out a tarantula to me against the wall by their shoes.  They began taking the shoes away from the wall one by one and slowly the tarantula moved until it decided to run...INTO a toddler's shoe.  One of the big girls had to come and coax it out, which took a while.  After she did that the toddlers ran as the tarantula (obviously scared) ran.  I have honestly never seen a tarantula move so fast!!!  Another big girl, Josary, got a container and coaxed the tarantula into the orange container, and then took it away from the Toddler House and released it.  But this is EXACTLY why I have told my own children through the years to check their tennis shoes each time before putting them on!

Toddlers found the tarantula by their shoes outside the Sala

Fernanda's mom trying to get the tarantula out

Scared tarantula, doesn't want to come out

Josary releasing the tarantula to live another day

   Because the toddlers nap after lunch, I stayed back at the Girls Volunteer House and worked on one of the 3 remaining units I need to prepare lessons for.  I decided to work on the geometry unit (inscribed polygons) as that seemed much easier to me than the vectors or statistics units.  I did get most of the way through it, but have a few pages yet to finish.  After the lessons, I headed to supper and then it was a super early night to bed for me since my phone still registered that it had moisture on the inside.  Tomorrow will be another day.

John and Wade have Arrived

   When I got dressed this morning, I went to pull up my jeans (always pull them up using the belt loops, probably bad practice), and a belt loop broke free.  This was the only pair of jeans that I was going to take back out of the 3 pairs I had brought down, but now it looks like there will be all 3 pairs staying down here.  In the high school there is a sewing room that is used to teach kids how to sew (and alter/repair clothing) and some team members who are proficient in sewing also use it to do repairs.  There are multiple sewing machines in the room and although I am not proficient in sewing, when I leave pants down here, they definitely take a little bit of length off and then pass them on to someone who they will fit.  So in addition to numerous shirts I will be leaving down here...there will now be 3 pairs of jeans as well.

   This morning I saw a part of the team walking to the clinic rather early and wondered to myself if they were heading to Big Circle.  Since I have been here this summer, "Circle" has been in the Comedor and not out on the grass with all of the insects and mosquitos.  Eventually I saw the kids from the various houses line up and head in that direction as well.  So, I got my tennis shoes on and sprayed from the knees down with the DEET, then put my fleece jacket on (it was cool this morning and I also wanted to protect against any bugs that might fly higher up), and headed towards the clinic out in front of the hotel.  I saw John Perez first.  Noah told me about who was headed this way yesterday, since he had went to the airport to pick up the teams...so I was pretty excited for a good day!

   John was here as a young, long term volunteer, for quite a few years, back when Andres was in high school and came down with me.  Andres really liked working with John and talking to him, and John really liked the Mexican chili-flavored mango suckers that we brought down!  Every year that Andres came down, he hoped John would be here so that he could work with John.  Because of John's efforts, the Grandecitos house was built...the first 2 story dorm here at Emmanuel.  Four more of these 2 story dorms followed after he left.  John recognized me and we chatted for a bit, I let him know that my son just had to go to the airport and help pick him up because he wanted to know who this guy was, that his older brother would rave about many years ago.  John laughed and said he probably didn't impress Noah that much but that they talked on the way back from the airport.

   I said "Hi" to my typical crew of kids and to Graciela.  And then Wade was introduced to the teams and to the new kids as the one who would lead the devotion for Big Circle.  Years ago, Wade seemed to be the "head honcho" (behind Papi, of course) that ran Emmanuel.  Everyone had a huge amount of respect for him and he was so kind.  He was married to Lourdes who had grown up here at Emmanuel, and they have 4 children.  A few years prior to COVID, they moved to the U.S. and I had not seen them since.  So it was nice to see him and hear his voice.  After Big Circle, I found Noah and we started walking to the Comedor together with his special needs boys.  When I turned to look back, Wade saw me and extended his arms for a hug to say "hi".  We chatted for a bit about our trips down here and how we hadn't seen each other since he had left.  It was a nice chat.  He will be down here about a week and his wife and kids will be staying for 5 weeks, so there should be plenty of time to catch up.

Wade leading Big Circle

The girls side of the circle

Wade

The boys side of Big Circle

Noah and his boys

Andi leading the praise songs

   After breakfast, I helped Dayana and Kevin all morning with the worksheet problems that Profe Jorge had given them, while the 10th grade and 11th grade were doing their retake test in math.  Dayana and Kevin only missed the first test by a point or two, so instead of retaking, Profe Jorge wanted them to work through probably around 50 problems from the first trimester.  They were NOT easy problems, and personally if I were these 2 students, I would have asked for the retake test because I feel this ended up being way more difficult than just retaking the test.  Today's task was taking them through solving quadratics through factoring, completing the square and the quadratic formula.  Quite a bit for the 3+ hours I was in the school with them!

   I headed to lunch in the Comedor and then back to the house.  Hector's boys were cutting grass using weed whackers up by my house this afternoon, so when I saw Hector taking a break, I went out to give him a chili-coated sucker for him and each boy that was with him working as a thank you for doing what they do.  They were all super appreciative, all of them saying thank you for the sucker.  Because of all the weed whacking around the house, I had to go through and sweep all the rooms inside because quite a bit of grass creeps inside through the crack underneath the doors and through the screen windows.  Just like Monday when I mopped...my Fitbit registered that I got a LOT of steps in with the sweeping motion, so I rather easily hit my 10K for the day.

   This year I brought a brand new small fan down here for my bedroom, in addition to the one I already had.  I had left the fan in the box when I put it in my suitcase and discovered that it had both a base and a clip.  I chose to attach the clip to the fan, so I could clip it to my bed and blow on me at night which meant I didn't need the base.  The base sat in the box for the past few weeks here, and after Anna and Olivia left, I noticed that there were 3 fans in their bedroom that were not attached to anything.  So at lunch today, I took my new base and one of the fans from their bedroom (now that they are gone) down to Noah to see if he could bolt them together.  Noe who is a young man that works in the special needs boys house, saw it and asked if he could have the base because he had a fan without a base.  So I told Noah to fix it up and give it to him.  He came over by me at supper to thank me...I continue to be amazed by how much children here appreciate small things like that and am thankful that each of my children have had the opportunity to serve here and realize this appreciation because that has also been engraved into their hearts due to their serving here.

Millipedes

   Just a few days prior to me coming to Emmanuel, Anna and Olivia told me they had a tarantula in the house.  And although I have not seen any tarantulas in the house yet (only a dead one outside the hotel), we have had at least a millipede pop out somewhere in the house on a daily basis.  I have had 2 in my room since being here, normally I see them in the kitchen, dining room, and living room areas.  And occasionally I see them in the bathroom.  This morning there were 2 in the bathroom that I saw.  One was in my shower (got to shower with a millipede this morning) and the other was in the middle sink in the bathroom (there are 3...I use the one on the right side and Nora uses the one on the left).  I must have cleaned them so well that it had no scum to hang on to in order to get itself out of the sink, because it spent all day there just trying and trying to climb out.  Perhaps I will help it outside at some point.

   After getting ready for the day, I headed to the Comedor to be with the toddlers and then walk them back to their house.  An 8th grade girl who works at the toddler house had asked me to give her a crash course in multiplying binomials before her retake test this morning, so we spent time at one of the tables in the dining area at the Toddler House going over as many examples as we could.  I sent the notes sheet along with her so that she could study along the way.  Time went fast and soon it was time to take the toddlers to school.  Because I had been helping the girl, I wasn't quite ready so I ended up lagging behind the group.  That was a good thing, because right around the Team House area (about 1/3 of the way to school), Anderson was all by himself in the middle of the road crying.  So I took his hand and said, "Come on, Let's go" and started talking to him about school, asking him what grade he was in, what his teacher's name was, if he had tests this week, etc.  Just anything to distract him into walking again.

Morning view from the front door of the Girls Volunteer House looking to the right

Morning view from the front door of the Girls Volunteer House looking to the left

Morning view from the back door of the Girls Volunteer House looking to the right

   When the toddlers were all situated in their classroom, I headed back to the house.  The 10th and 11th graders I was working with the past 2 afternoons had asked me to make a practice test for their big retake tomorrow.  So I spent the morning hand writing a test for each grade.  The 10th grade test ended up being 5 pages long (because it was hand written) and the 11th grade test was 3 pages long because they had 1 less topic.  My goal was to finish making these by 10am so that Nora could copy them in the elementary school.  I finished by 10:04.

   At the elementary school, Nora was in the 4th grade classroom because the 4th grade teacher is also the director of the school and pulls double duty.  So she told me that the printer was in the teachers lounge and I went there to make 3 copies of each test.  The printer they have is extremely slow, it is just a small ink jet printer that you hook up to a computer, not an industrial printer solely to make copies.  It took a minute for each page to print, so I was there for roughly a half an hour.  I hope that at some point perhaps a church or school might donate a larger working printer for the school to use.  Once I had the tests, I put them together and stapled them before heading back to the house to make the answer keys.  I finished the answer keys just in time for lunch.

  Before lunch, Noah called me from the airport.  He had ridden on the bus to go and get the teams that were coming in today.  He also had some more information on some potential surprise visitors that were flying in today as well...but more on that tomorrow if it materializes.

   On the way out of the Comedor after lunch, Graciela handed me a warm piece of bread (like a bun) that was just made and had hints of cheese in it.  I thanked her and walked with her towards the Girls Volunteer House to gather up all my things for math time.  At the school, all 6 students came in and took the test, or the bits and pieces of the test that they could figure out.  Dayana and another student also stopped by to get help on a worksheet they were given to make up 1-2 extra points on the original test they took...so it was a busy afternoon!  Before leaving the school, I gave Profe Jorge all of the practice tests along with the answer key since he said he would take that into consideration as he went through their big completed retake tomorrow.

   I have been here 15 days, and my SIM card had a plan that said it would last 15 days.  Although I wasn't cut off, I decided to order another 15 days.  After I placed the order, Noah told me that when my SIM card is about to run out I would receive a text saying I only had 20% left.  I never got that text.  So now I am wondering if I didn't need to put that extra money on it?  Perhaps I have way more data than I know what to do with?  So I decided to start using data and watch a movie each night, well at least until I get that 20% message.  I am using our Netflix account from back home, but the movies available are different here in Honduras than they are back home.  If I find a movie I enjoy along the way I will let you know!

Recuperacion - Remediation and Retakes

    This morning began pretty normal, with me waking, showering and dressing, making my proffee, taking my vitamins, writing yesterday's blog and publishing it so it would be visible to friends and family, and then heading to the Comedor to be with the toddlers...all in that order.  I begin the day wearing pants since it is a little cooler and the mosquitos are worst in the morning.  When I got to the Comedor, the toddlers weren't there, so I sat and interacted with some of the bigger girls and listened to the big boys recite their verses before heading to the Toddler House.  At the Toddler House, all of the littles were in one room (not the sala) just waiting for the bigger girls in charge to get done sweeping and mopping.  They were trying on different rain boots as it had rained throughout the night.  Brithany and Clara had outgrown their boots and were no longer able to squeeze into them, so they had to resort to wearing their tennis shoes and were told not to hop in puddles on the way to school.  

The forecast for today and through the week

Hector's big boys reciting their verses

   When it was time to go to school Brithany and Sara each grabbed one of my hands and we headed to school.  We saw a toad in the road that looked like it was run over by a gator.  The kids shouted "Guacala!" (which means yuck or gross) as they pointed to it.  Nobody seems to like toads down here.  When we got to school, the kids wanted to see pictures of Mindy (our new puppy back home), so I went through the phone to find a few pictures of her as well as a video of her playing fetch.  Then we watched a video together of Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo singing a 30th Anniversary rendition of "Time to Say Goodbye".  I chose this because it is one of my favorites to listen to, and it is very soothing, hoping to settle the toddlers down just a little bit.  Then it was time for them to get in line and they behaved so well (for once) that they were the first to get excused into their classroom!

   I headed back to the Girls Volunteer House in order to prep for the tutoring I would be doing after lunch.  The three 11th graders requested a review of "Limits and Continuity" which I definitely needed to brush up on in order to make a review as this is not a topic I teach back in the States.  And being an upper level topic (generally pre-calculus), it is not something that comes naturally nor can I "wing it".  So I spent the morning going through the topic and working through 3 pages of problems.  The three 10th grade students requested a review of "Matrices" which I do know well and didn't need to review prior to the afternoon.  

   At lunch, I found out that a girl named Naomi found the flash drive that Noah had lost yesterday, and returned it to him.  I am sure he was relieved to have that returned since it contained all of the movies he had purchased for the Small Girls House to watch.  Oscar comes to greet me each meal in the Comedor and to ask me how I am doing.  He has such a good heart and I wish him all the best when he decides it is time to leave Emmanuel.  He has already graduated and I am sure just waiting on God's timing for his life.

Today's lunch: cole slaw, beans, chunks of hotdog(?) and a tortilla

   After lunch, I gathered my things from the house and headed to the school to tutor the 10th and 11th graders.  There was also a 9th grader there from the Toddler House today that has her test tomorrow and didn't understand "Systems of Equations" and solving the systems via the Elimination method.  So I worked with her has well, since I wasn't able to go to her house after supper.  The two older grades feel they have a better understanding now after 2 days of the topics that are on the test and requested a 3rd day of tutoring tomorrow where I would make a small practice exam for them to take without help, whether it be me, their notebooks or their textbooks.

   Supper in the Comedor was quick and then since it was Wednesday, we had church at 5pm.  Tammy Young spoke to the kids about the new horses and how they were chosen and the long process of getting these 2 colts to Emmanuel, which was crafted by God all along the way.  Tammy and her husband Chris run the Tennessee International Dude and Guest Ranch in the Sequatchie Valley.  She has a phenomenal southern cowboy accent and the story of the horses kept me captivated!  For those that don't know, a horse was the ONLY "pet" I ever wanted as I was a child, and my wish every year on my birthday until I reached adulthood (and didn't make wishes anymore was to have a horse of my own.

   After the service, Nora and I made our way back to the Girls Volunteer House and she used her keys to let us into the front of the house since my keys are for the back of the house.  When she opened the first screen door, she jumped a bit.  I looked down and saw a rather large toad that was facing the main door, ready to enter as soon as we opened it.  I think this may be the same toad that was calmly watching us from the side of the house last night too!  So we decided to head around back, use my keys and then I grabbed the broom to open the main front door and nudge the toad back into the yard.  I am not sure how a big toad like that got wedged between the 2 doors, but obviously he couldn't find his way back out.  One of God's creatures, gotta let him live.

Ready to enter the house!

   Before going to bed, I got probably one of the best texts ever...but I will wait until that materializes to share it with all of you...to be continued on that.

No Power

    Just as the past few days, I headed up to the Comedor after getting ready and drinking my "proffee" to sit with the toddlers, and then we walked back to their house.  As we came up on their house, I saw that same creature on the wall that I took a picture of yesterday.  All of the toddlers wanted me to take another picture, and told me to be careful because it was dangerous.  Since I had already gotten a picture yesterday, I just decided to leave it be this morning.  I sat with the toddlers in the Sala where the movie clip we watched was Coco.  When it was time to take them to school, we all walked together and Dunia (the lady in charge of the toddlers) let me know that they were making chicken burritos to sell today and asked me if I wanted any because they sell out fast...so I ordered two, one for me and one for Noah.

   We got to school and I made sure that they lined up and got to their classrooms before heading to the high school to talk to the director about helping any kids who didn't pass their first trimester final exams.  They have one shot on a retake to pass or they'd need to repeat their grade.  Today is the last day of final exams, but I'm not sure there were any math tests going on today.  He said to come back at recess and chat with the 2 math teachers and we could put something together.  So in the meantime, I headed back to the house and continued to work on the lessons/units that the teachers gave me when I first arrived.  I got all of the lessons made for the polygons/circles unit, whether I teach it next week or leave it behind for the teachers to pick up where I left off.

   At some point during the morning, the electricity went out, so the fans in the house all slowed down to eventually turning off.  I have mentioned in many prior blogs posts that this is quite common, although it's the first time it has happened on this trip.  Noah messaged me to say that the burritos were done and at the Tienda, and asked if one of the two was his...to which I said yes.  He was quite focused on finding a flash drive that he had lost this morning but didn't know where he lost it, so was retracing his steps throughout the morning.  The flash drive had quite a few movies on it for the small girls house, so it's not something he really wanted to lose.  I headed down to the tienda to grab my burrito, but left the 2nd one there for Noah to pick up when he got hungry.  Instead of eating the burrito there, I came back to the house to eat it while working through lessons.  I prepped all morning.

My chicken burrito next to all of the materials I was working on

   During recess, I headed down to the school to chat with Profe Dayana and Profe Jorge and let them know that I was available all afternoon and after supper for any students who wanted help, but the students would have to let me know they needed help and they would have to tell me what house they lived in as well as what grade they were in, so I knew exactly what I needed to bring where.  After talking to them, I walked over to the elementary school side to find Raleigh to let him know the same.  Raleigh asked if I could make myself available after lunch for the 10th and 11th grade to work with them in the school...I said sure.

   Lunch consisted of rice, veggies and 2 tortillas.  After lunch, I gathered up my materials from the house and headed down to the school to work with the 10th and 11th graders who needed some review before the retake test.  I asked them what they wanted to review and they said the entire trimester.  So I had to let them know that going through the entire trimester in 2 hours for 2 separate grades was impossible.  They needed to think of what was on their exam and what type of questions/material they struggled with, and then find it in the book and show me.  So they spent a bit of time and the 11th grade settled on factorials, permutations and combinations (which is a rather tough subject).  The 10th grade settled on trigonometry and a little bit of vectors.  We worked the entire 2 hours and the 3 students from each grade took lots of notes.  We arranged to work at the same time tomorrow as well.

   I went to put my items away and saw the small girls with Elsa in the yard next to the Girls Volunteer House, so stopped by to check in whether there were any bigger girls from her house that needed to retake the test and whether they wanted to review.  She said "no" but wanted to chat with me for a bit.  So we chatted and then I headed up to put my books and materials away, and grabbed some water flavor packets for Elsa and a chili-coated Mexican sucker for her and each big girl in charge of the small girls.  We all headed to supper and had rice, beans and a tortilla and then I headed back to the house for the night.  The power did come back on just before going to bed.

A Day of Cleaning

    After getting ready for the morning, I headed to the Comedor to walk the toddlers back to their house (where they wait for school in the sala with a movie).  Outside their house was a strange bug that I took a picture of...the girls seemed to be really scared of it and said it bites hard!  I am not quite sure what it is, but thought it was quite the interesting creature, worthy of a picture.

   Today's movie was Spirit, and honestly that is a movie I have never seen before in its entirety.  Unfortunately for me, we were only there for 40 minutes, so that is what I got to see of the movie...the first 40 minutes.  We headed to school and Brithany and Sara took my hand all the way to school, chatting with me along the way.  Last year Sara really didn't talk too much, but this year she is cuter than ever, using her words to the best of her ability.

   When the elementary school kids get to school, they have to line up just like the high school kids do.  This morning, they sand the national anthem, then another song (not sure what it was), then recited a passage (again, not sure what it was...a pledge of some sort?) before they were able to get called to their classrooms.  When the courtyard cleared of all of the children because they were finally in their classrooms, I headed back to the Girls Volunteer House.  Anna and Olivia had been up most of the night packing, til the wee hours of the morning, yet another demonstration to of how different humans can be as I typically prefer packing the day before and only keeping out the essentials that I will need the next morning to get ready for the day.  They were out and about saying their goodbyes throughout the morning, and Noah was walking around with the girls and John.  Luis (the "Uber" driver) was waiting up by our house to pick up all 3 volunteers to take them back to the airport, so after the goodbyes, away they went.  And thus began my morning of cleaning.

   I washed the last of Anna and Olivia's breakfast dishes, then swept and mopped the bathroom, long hall, dining room, living room, and kitchen area.  Because of all of the arm motions involved, my Fitbit said I had 10,000 steps by lunch time!  I don't think I had that many "steps" however I did work up quite the sweat this morning because there was a LOT of area to cover in this house.  Around 11am, I headed to the Tienda, but saw Graciela sitting outside the old big girls Comedor (when each house had their own Comedor), her girls were making tortillas.  We sat for about a half an hour chatting and the girls brought me a tortilla filled with beans, eggs and cream (almost like a sour cream).  It was delicious.  Then I headed to the Comedor to eat, where we were served beans, potatoes and a tortilla.  

   After lunch I spent an hour with the small girls in the yard and gave Nora a plastic gun that blows bubbles to use with them (I bought 3 from the Dollar Tree back home), but then got back to cleaning the house, scrubbing down all 3 sinks in the bathroom, finishing up the laundry (bedding) that Anna and Olivia had thrown in the washer, folding it and putting it away, and wiping down the kitchen table and cupboards.  It made for a long day, but it was so well worth it to have a house that actually FELT clean.  With open windows and doors all day, stuff gets tracked in and along with the dust, it accumulates.  So it's nice to be able to spend one day a week doing a deeper clean.

   With the entire house mostly clean, I headed to supper and had some good chats with Oscar.  He had asked for more lemonade packets that I had brought down, so I took him another container.  When in town last weekend, I had bought most of the ingredients to make the kitchen crew guacamole, but unfortunately I wasn't able to find avocados or cilantro.  So at supper, I let Noah know that if he made a casual run into town this week (because it seems he goes more than the "average" volunteer, due to working in the wood shop with maestro and needed unplanned for items), he should try to look for those 2 things.  I am hoping to get a huge batch made within my next 2 weeks here for the kitchen crew because I know they look forward to that each year.  And it is my way to say thank you for the meals that they have prepared me.

   Yep, I said it...2 weeks left.  It hit me today that 2 weeks from today will be my last full day here.  I really want to be able to fully appreciate that and take in everything with an open heart because since 2008, this trip has been filling my bucket and I am hoping that continues at least as many years into the future.

S'mores with the Small Girls

    This morning when we went to church, Dunia was giving the message.  She has such a passion for the Lord and this showed as soon as she began her message in prayer.  Noah sat next to me, as did Nora.  I tend to sit in the very last row since I am so tall and I don't want anyone who might be behind me to not be able to see due to my height.

   After church, Nora and I went back to the Girls Volunteer House to do just a little bit of cleaning, sweeping and taking the garbage out.  Sundays are our "free days" and typically volunteers use it to do a full cleaning of their house, however since Anna and Olivia are leaving tomorrow morning and would be packing quite a bit today, I wasn't sure that cleaning today would be a good idea because with all the movement and packing, it may get easily dirty throughout the day...so I will take care of cleaning little by little throughout the week.

   I filled my water bottle with water and added and acai/blueberry as well as a strawberry/kiwi water packet to the water bottle and made my way down to the Comedor.  Some of the little boys asked what I had in the water bottle today, since I bring down an array of different flavors to help me stay a bit more hydrated (I am not a fan of room temperature plain water), and I let them know what this afternoon's flavor was.  A few asked if they could try it, so when they were done with the water that was already in their cups, I poured each of them a little bit to try.  They all loved it.  I went home with none left, but that's alright because I brought down enough packets to last me for the trip and then some.

   Nora and I made out way back to the Volunteer House and we chatted for a bit.  She wanted to take Jonathan to the store.  Jonathan is a special boy of Sarah's, who was a long term volunteer here with Morgan until just before COVID hit.  We decided to wait an hour or two, to let Anna and Olivia celebrate a birthday at the store with some of the small girls and Noah.  Since Norah and I will be here a few more weeks (and she stays even longer than I do), we were okay with using Sunday mainly for rest.  When we finally did walk down to the store, I accidentally passed by the Grandecitas House and forgot to check in on Genesis to see if I could take her to the store.  She had been asking all week and I said perhaps on Sunday.  By the time I got to the store, Nora reminded me about Genesis and thankfully Karen (the one who is in charge of the Grandecitas) was at the store.  So I asked her and it just seemed like perhaps next Sunday might be better, due to behaviors.  Karen was celebrating her little brother, Jeremias, birthday.  They had a huge chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Karen's daughter were dressed up really nice...most likely still from church.  They were all really happy to be spending time together.  Nora went to get Jonathan and bought him a water and pack of cookies, which they call bread.  He was enjoying himself the entire time he was in the store.

   I headed to the Comedor and helped Oscar set up plates and put the table cloths over the plates to cover the food from flies and keep it warm for longer.  Tonight's menu consisted of beans, rice, a cream to mix in and a tortilla.  After supper, I walked up to the Volunteer House to change because Noah had a special night planned for the small girls.

   Since Noah couldn't do s'mores with the small girls last night due to rain, he was waiting for me on the other side of the gymnasium to get the events started.  The small girls were up in their house taking baths, and he had a table set out and went to get the supplies that he had purchased over the weekend.  Raleigh was going to start the fire, and was in the gym with his medium boys, but came out to tell Noah that Noah could do it.  So I told the girls to gather the dry leaves, dry pine needles, and small pine sticks and little by little we got that fire going.  Noah had bought 3 super long metal rods a while back and cut them down in the wood shop and attached wooden handles to them.  Maestro and Pandi helped him round the edges of the handles and whatnot, and together they made 21 very long roasting sticks to be used for quite a while after tonight!  Noah gave a hat to the birthday girl and then they started roasting their marshmallows with Anna, Olivia and Noah helping them to build the s'mores when they took their "burnt" marshmallows back to the table of supplies.  I just kept the fire going.  It was a good night for all.

Noah giving the birthday girl her hat, said her eyes had to be closed

   It was going to be a long night for Anna and Olivia since they hadn't yet started packing and they will leave early tomorrow morning.  They came back to the house from the Small Girls House well after Nora and I went to sleep, and I woke once to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and they were still up packing, with suitcase zippers opening and closing quite a bit.