My First Monday at Emmanuel 2015

Alina's and my view each time we walk out of our room

This morning began like most of the others, with my cafecito and devotions, then heading to the Toddler House to cut vegetables, serve breakfast, wash dishes and head over to the chosa.  There was a light sprinkle this morning, so we didn't head out to the playground to play, but spent all morning in the chosa.  Karla got out some wooden puzzles and we needed to sort through them to find out which ones had all of their pieces and which ones were missing pieces.  The kids absolutely loved the puzzles!

While we were in the chosa, Kim stopped by to have three children color a picture for their sponsors.  Kim is Elisabeth's mom (Elisabeth was a staff member here for a few years, in charge of the little girls' house and worked with sponsors).  While the 3 girls colored, we chatted quite a bit about Emmanuel, the work here, Elisabeth's current trek through Panama and the rest of Central and South America, and just life in general.  It was nice to have that time to chat with her while the girls were busy coloring pictures for their sponsors.

We went straight from the chosa to lunch, then put the kids down for a nap and did dishes.  Alina and I headed to the school while the children were napping to watch the children line up for their classes, then back to our room for a very quick break.

When we got back to the Toddler House, we took the children out to the playground.  It's the rainy season now, but that means it rains off and on between the hot, strong sun.  If it rained this morning, it will be dry by the afternoon.  We let the kids play on the playground until the moms came home from school and then headed in for supper.  Again, I did dishes after supper and when I finished, Karla gave me a nail clippers and asked me to cut all of the children's nails.  I began with the small boys and then headed to the big boys room, and then the big girls.  The only room I didn't get to was the small girls, since by that time the children were moving once again to the chosa.

Karla explained to me that Monday nights are 'Mom nights'.  This means that all of the toddlers whose moms are there (teen moms) get to spend between 45 minutes and an hour with just their mom, while all of the other children are together elsewhere.  The teen moms are generally responsible for a room of children, so their own child(ren) usually doesn't get any more attention than a child whose mom is outside of Emmanuel.  I stayed behind and watched the moms interact with their kids, which was really nice.  I chatted with a mom, Rosa, about how she came to Emmanuel while her daughter colored (which her mom says is her daughter's favorite activity).  What a story!

When all of the children were brought back together, Alina & I headed to the Big Girls' yard once again.  Michell was out waiting for us and while Alina played with Michell, I chatted with Lucy who may have the opportunity to go to Denmark in 3 weeks to participate in a youth program.  She is very nervous about her English and was asking about tips on how to speak and read it better and faster.  I said the big thing is for her to open up her mind and shuffle aside the teenage fear of speaking in front of others.  She knows the rest, I'm confident of that.  When it was time for her and Michell to go inside, Alina and I headed back to our room for the night.  Alina must be in another growth spurt because I had purchased enough groceries for 3 weeks while shopping last week, and it appears we're going to run out with her eating habits at the end of each day!!!

La Cucaracha

I woke up around 1am this morning with my heart racing due to a very bad dream (something about a roller coaster type ride, but worse).  Since I was up I decided to go to the bathroom before trying to settle myself down.  When I came out of the bathroom and headed back to the bed...that's when I saw it, a cockroach, crawl out from between the mattress and the box-spring at the foot of the bed and run along the crack until it crawled back between the two at the head of the bed.  And that my friends was the determining factor that made me decide to go use the upper bunk bed for the rest of the night.  My heart, which had settled down from the bathroom break, was once again racing, and it took me quite a while longer to settle it down in order to fall asleep.

So I woke up around 5am to once again have my cafecito and my devotional time before getting ready for church.  Church doesn't start until 8:15, but I don't want to fall out of the pattern of being able to get up early.  As it is, Honduras is 1 hour behind Wisconsin time, meaning 8am in Honduras is 9am in Wisconsin.  When Alina & I arrived at church, we headed up to the very front row to sit next to Michell.  Alina commented that this was the first time ever sitting in the first row here at Emmanuel.  I let her know that she'd better pay attention or Papi (David, the founder of the orphanage) might tease her like he did another girl during Wednesday night's service...about tuning out because she's thinking about her boyfriend.  A man from the Alabama team that is here gave the sermon, which was unusually short, but effective.  He gave a sermon last year about a horse saddle and the different parts to the saddle and compared that to our relationship with God.

Sunday Service (from left to right): Yensi, Michell and Alina

After church, Alina & I quickly went home and changed and then headed to the tienda for a bite to eat, then headed to the big girls yard until they had to get ready for lunch.  While they were eating, we went back to our room to do some cleaning.  We washed a load of laundry and then folded the numerous blankets that had been washed and just left in our room when we arrived.  The closet is now full of sheets, blankets, pillow cases, towels and wash cloths.  As I was folding a towel, a cockroach dropped down from between its creases and ran onto Alina's bed.  We had already put all of the suitcases on her bed because we were going to look for the OTHER cockroach and didn't want it constantly running underneath stuff.  Now it appeared we had 2 cockroaches that we needed to find and scoot out of our room.  So I started to move the suitcases off of the bed and it appeared the cockroach disappeared.  The last place I saw it go was underneath Alina's suitcase, so I lifted her suitcase up from off of the floor and set it down a little more harshly...yep, a cockroach fell out of the creases (and this is why we keep our suitcases zipped shut at all times).  It ran under the big couch.  I got the broom and told Alina to lift the couch.  We were more grossed out than flittery, fluttery and screaming.  It was a pretty calm 'grossed-out'.  She moved the couch, but we didn't see anything.  We spent quite a bit of time going back and forth between moving the couch, the love seat and the chair and trying to find it, but we didn't.  Then we headed to the bed.  We lifted the mattress, but no cockroach...so our hunt was a failure this time around.  Perhaps later.  I'll keep you posted on that.

In all of the commotion of searching for the cockroaches, when it was time to go to the Medium Girls' yard, I left the key in the room an locked the door (ugh).  So while Alina went to chat and play with the medium girls, I had to find a way to get into our room so we could get the keys.  When there's a problem here, there's a lot of running around.  I view it as 'exercise' opportunities!  Andi sent me to Katja who sent me to Heidy...but it all turned out well and we got back into the room.

Alina brought the big girls some paletas.  These are mango suckers that are coated in a hot chili pepper.  I've been bringing the girls these paletas since I started coming to Emmanuel 8 years ago.  They absolutely love them and ask me for them every time. Due to the quantity we bring down, our bags (Bob's especially) tend to get checked by the airlines now.

Alina and some of the Big Girls

When the girls had to go in for the night, Alina and I headed back to our room and I made us some guacamole.  We followed that up with a cinnamon roll (since guacamole doesn't really fill the stomach).  We met 2 volunteers that moved into Zue and Elizabeth's house, named Sara and Morgan.  Sara is taller than I am (nice!) and is really into basketball.  I let her know that she needs to take Alina down to the gymnasium when she gets the girls down there...and also that Alina brought 3 basketballs down here to play with.  Alina seemed to be very excited at the chance to play basketball.

This evening's healthy food: Guacamole

To wrap up the night, we called home.  We chatted with Bob and Kaylyn, but found the the boys were already in bed.  There was lots to talk about and lots of happenings to be filled in on both sides, so we went over our 'allotted minutes', meaning what should've been a 1/2 hour $1.50 phone call (that's the package deal we ordered) turned into using a lot more money since the call lasted 37 minutes...as anything over 30 minutes gets charged at a LOT higher rate.

Mangoes!

This morning began very tranquil with a cafecito (coffee) to drink while doing my devotions.  When Alina was up and ready, we headed to the Toddler House and went through the normal morning routine, cutting up vegetables for lunch, serving breakfast, washing dishes, taking the children to the chosa and then to the playground.

After a while at the playground, Karla decided we'd take the toddler on a walk.  We went up behind the Toddler House, and the big girls noticed a mango tree with some ripe mangoes.  They asked Karla permission to get the mangoes and the next thing I saw was a BUNCH of mangoes (around 20+ of them) falling to the ground from the tree.  Alina was with them as they all brought mangoes back in their shirts...pulling up the front of their shirts like one big pocket.  They distributed a mango to each of the older girls (including Alina & me) and one girl took the rest back.  We ripped them open with our teeth, into chunks and gave them to the toddlers as we walked.  Okay, yes, I realize that to many Americans that may seem a little on the gross side, but the children are used to that.

We also made a stop at the soccer field, and the children raced from one soccer goal post across the field to the other.  Alina raced with the big girls and the toddlers, and won every time she joined the race.  Then we made our way around the orphanage and back to the Toddler House.  When we got back, lunch wasn't ready yet, so they started up the Willy Wonka movie again.  Alina was really hoping that they'd begin the movie where they had left off yesterday...but they didn't, they started it from the beginning.

We served the kids lunch when it was ready and then washed dishes and headed back to our room for a break.  Alina served herself up a cinnamon roll (and she didn't care to go to the bakery for bread items earlier in the week), and then she laid down for a nap.  It was a pretty hot day with a strong sun, so the nap was well deserved.  When it was time to head back to the toddler house, we served them supper, washed dishes, gave baths and I chatted with Zelenes for a bit while she calmed down the boys in her room by giving them a picture to color.  Little Jeremias said that he was coloring a picture just for me!

Of course on our way back, we stopped at the Big Girls yard and chatted with Michell again  Michell and Alina tried kicking the soccer ball back and forth for a bit, but it was extremely flat.  Alina asked to run back to our room to grab the pump and came back with the pump and a new soccer ball.  She tried to pump up all of the balls in the yard, but most of them must have had holes in them because they would not pump up.  She gave Michell the soccer ball she brought along with and they played for quite a bit before it was time to turn in for the night.

Alina and Michell (with her new soccer ball) trying to pump up a basketball in the yard that they're using for a soccer ball.

Zelenes gets Shoes!

On Friday mornings, all the children (except the babies & toddlers) get together in front of Vero Castro's girls' house to do big circle.  They sing praise songs and then have a devotional time.  It is really neat to see so many children together praising God.  Because we are assigned to the Toddler House, we didn't get to go.  But the circle was out front as Alina & I passed by to head to the Toddler House.  We gave lots of hugs to children that we've gotten to know over the years on the way.

Big Circle (this is a borrowed picture, not mine)

When we arrived to the Toddler House, Karla asked me if I could watch the toddlers in the 'sala' (living/family room) while she did a circle devotion with the teenagers of the houses.  Alina & I headed into the 'sala' armed with 2 Dr. Seuss books & another book about posadas which I read to the children.  The Dr. Seuss books were already in Spanish, but the posada book was in English, so I had to translate it to Spanish.  By the time I was done reading the 3 books, the teen devotions were finished, so we could get the children ready for breakfast (rice & milk).  After breakfast, the routine is doing the dishes and heading over to the 'chosa' (multi-purpose room) for a while.  Generally after being/playing in the chosa for a while, the children either get to go to the playground or on a walk.  This time we headed to the playground because kids were grouped together and separated to get their photos taken for their sponsors.  These photos will become part of a Christmas card for their sponsors.  The girls looked SO CUTE in their dresses and with their hair done up really nice.

After pictures, we took the kiddos in for lunch and then sent them back to the 'sala' for their nap.  Alina & I approached a teen mom named Zelenes (her picture is one of the last that I posted in last year's blog), whose tennis shoes were one big rip back by the heel...the shoe wasn't even connected to the sole.  We brought 5 pairs of size 8 running shoes (donated by Alina's friend Amelia) and let Zelenes pick out a pair for herself.  She picked the purple running shoes with bright green shoe strings.  I would've taken a picture, but she is a very shy person who prefers not to have her picture taken.  She was very excited to have them and we saw her in those shoes that very afternoon when we came back from break.  We also left the mini-1 soccer ball for the toddlers that Alina's friend Paola had donated.  With gifts like that for younger kids, it's best to give them to the one in charge(so the kids don't fight over it), so we left the ball with Karla and are hoping to get a picture of the kids playing with the ball sometime soon.

After our lunch break we returned to the Toddler House to get the kids supper and then to give them showers.  On the way back to our room for the evening, we realized that Michell was once again given permission to stay out later & chat with us if we wanted to do so...so, that's what we did.  Alina played for quite a bit with Lilian who likes to pinch Alina's cheeks and make them very red for some odd reason.  They ran around quite a bit.  When the evening came to an end, we said our goodbyes and then headed back to our room.

The Toddler House "Pets"

This morning we headed to the toddler house to chop vegetables, serve breakfast, do dishes and then I hung laundry with Vilma.  When morning chores were done, Alina & I headed to the school to ask Karen about teaching reading.  Karen & her husband Mike are staff members here.  I believe she said she's visited a few times and in December they decided to move here for an undetermined amount of time.  She initially said they came from Georgia, but in talking to her more, we found out that her daughter lives in Little Chute and Mike worked for Neenah Foundry for 30 years before they moved to Georgia.  Small world!!!

Karen has a handful of students who are not able to read at all.  I decided that she should send those students my way and we'd work through the alphabet and beginning sounds over the next couple of weeks, rather than have them sit and listen to others read right now when they are not even recognizing the sounds letters make.  Alina & I were busy with students all morning, and since school lets out for lunch after the toddlers have already eaten their lunches, we had to head to the tienda to eat.  Hamburgers were on the menu today!

After our lunch break, we headed back to the room because Alina wanted to pump up all of the balls that she had received at her birthday party from her friends for donations to the children down here.  We opened the donations suitcase and as she pumped up the soccer balls, Alina did end up breaking one needed, but we were thankful for the extra packs of needles that Amelia & my dad had sent.  I laid out the shoes and other items on the open lower bunk bed.  When it came to pumping up the basketballs, I took over since Alina's arm was quite tired by that point.

As we were heading back to the Toddler House for the afternoon, I noticed movement in the Toddler yard...in looking closer, I saw a big iguana.  I really wanted a picture, but every step I took to get closer to it, the iguana would start to run.  Then I saw more movement, and more!  There were FOUR iguanas in the play yard!  I got a couple of pictures, but you'll have to look closely to see them.

Iguana on the cement in front of the lower right corner of the green wall

Iguana in the grass below the center of the purple wall

While at the toddler house, we played with the children, fed them supper, did dishes, gave the kiddos their night-time showers and then Alina played with a few on the trampoline.  As I was finishing up, Karla came over to ask me if I could take one of the babies from the Baby House to the clinic.  He fell in the bathroom and cut his chin open & most likely needed a couple of stitches.  I was brought over to the baby house and introduced to little Osman, who seemed very calm.  The entire walk to the clinic was a walk of calmness and cuddles, but when he laid down on the clinic table...it was another story.  I had to hold his body down while Carelia held his head up so that LaShawn could stitch his chin.  Man to young children have a lot of strength when a needle is coming at them!  But I figure that any kids who were in the near vicinity of the clinic and heard little Osman's screams will most likely decide that they don't need to go to the clinic any time soon.

After bringing Osman back to his house, I headed to the big girls house to spend some time with Michell.  Little by little, she is coming out of her shell & chatting with me.  This once 'mysterious' little girl who would just stare at me and watch everything I did with minimal talking is surprising me more & more each year!  I met her first when she was 8 years old.  She's now 14.  What a blessing she is!

When Michell had to get inside her house for the night, I headed to Karen & Mike's house because Karen had mentioned a book that she had for beginning readers called 'Nacho'.  I'll be looking through this book over the weekend to see how I can incorporate it into what I am doing with the children in reading on Tuesday & Thursday mornings.

Guaimaca

We were told that we were supposed to be at the Toddler House by 6:30 to start preparing the vegetables for lunch.  When we got there, the vegetables had already been started.  I'll have to look back at last year, but I'm pretty sure that we arrived around 6am last year.  Perhaps we'll have to start getting there earlier.  We finished cutting up the carrots and pataste and then got the girls some breakfast...rice & milk.

Pataste

After breakfast, we went over to the chosa (I'll get a picture of this on a different day) so that the kids could watch a movie for a little bit before taking them on a walk around the orphanage.  I believe that the walk is to get them tired out for their afternoon nap, but I definitely got super-tired too.  They went off of the pathways and up & down huge hills...WHEW, what a workout!

When we got back it was time to serve lunch and put the toddlers down for a nap.  Three volunteers met up with Alina & me, and a few young adults from Emmanuel to head into town.  I needed to buy groceries for the next 3 weeks, for when we're not eating with the kids (mainly on Sundays) and also needed to buy laundry detergent and coffee, and the famous solid dish soap that I always bring home to do our dishes with.  We got some delicious homemade bread from the 'My Little Bakery' shop, including cinnamon rolls, banana bread and a vanilla-raisin bread.  When we got back to our room, we got all of the groceries put away into the kitchen and then headed back to the Toddler House where we served supper (they had tortillas tonight!) and gave quick showers so that we could get to Wednesday night church.  David led the service.  We walked Michell back to her house after the service and then headed back to our room.

Solid dish soap that we typically buy to take home for the year

Alina snacked on a guayaba while we sat on the front steps of the building, feeling right at home with this beautiful place.  When she went to throw the guava away, Luis David passed by with the other boys on a tractor and he shouted 'hola Alina' to her.  He's one of Papi's (David's) workers this year, which really is an honor to be working for the founder of the orphanage.  The guys waved a few more times as the tractor ran past us doing errands all around Emmanuel.

Before heading to bed, I checked the USB modem I had purchased in town.  When I got on to Facebook, I saw that my Doris was online and we chatted a bit before I realized that I was just exhausted from all of the travel yesterday and all of the work today.  I believe we were sleeping by about 7:30pm.

Honduras 2015

I thought this day would never come.  After 7 years of heading to Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras, I have been SO excited to get down there for year #8!  Alina and I finished packing yesterday and Bob & I headed out together last night for some sushi while Alina waited up for us, anxiously awaiting left-overs to be brought home.  We got up around 3:30am this morning so that we could be out the door by 4:30, in order to catch our 5:56am flight to Atlanta.  Before leaving, I headed to the younger kiddos bedrooms to give them a small kiss on the cheek (although I had given them kisses & hugs last night while they were still awake).

Bob brought me & Alina to the Appleton airport and helped us rearrange our checked luggage - guess that our home scale is about 1/2 to an entire pound off.  When it was time to head through security, we said our goodbyes (can't wait for Bob to join us in a couple of weeks) and then headed in to catch our plane.  Alina & I stopped for a coffee and then we shared a lemon poppy-seed muffin before our flight.  The last time I had flown out of Appleton, we had went right over our house, but this flight took us over the north side of Lake Winnebago, so Alina got to see all of Doty Island and it made much more of an impact on why it's called an "island" than just seeing it on a map.

Yep, still sleepy as we wait for our plane in Appleton

In Atlanta, we didn't have much time at all to catch the next flight to Tegucigalpa, so we made one bathroom stop and then grabbed food to eat on the plane.  The flight to Tegucigalpa was just over 3 hours.  Each of the seats of the plane had a small TV to watch shows/movies, play games, listen to music, etc.  I chose to watch a movie called 'Run All Night' and Alina watched the SpongeBob movie and then began to watch TinkerBell.  When we arrived in Honduras, we exchanged our dollars to Lempiras and I purchased a cheap phone so that I could call back home when we arrived to the orphanage to let the family know we were okay.  With phones down here, calls to the USA are only about 5 cents per minute - which is why I prefer to get a $20 phone here and then call the US, rather than use my own cell phone and pay quite a few dollars per minute.  We were picked up at the airport by Norman (can't wait to take the bus system again...much more reasonable & cultural) who took us out to the orphanage.

When we came into the orphanage, we met with Andi (the volunteer coordinator) and Katja (long-time friend) who let us know that we'd once again be staying in 'Hotel #3' and working in the Toddler House mornings & nights, and I would be teaching reading in the school during the day.  As we pulled our luggage out of Norman's van, we heard Invisible (my nickname for Pamela who I've known for the past 8 years...you'll hear more about her later) shouting, "Gloria! Gloria!", which is what they call me since they cannot pronounce Lori or LoriAnn.  We put our luggage in our room and headed down to say 'Hi' & visit for a 1/2 hour until school let out.

Invisible let me know that there have been many changes since we've been here last year.  Two staff members who were friends of mine (Elizabeth & Zue) have now left.  Elizabeth will be studying in Europe after a trek through Central & South America, and Zue is getting married!  I also found out that about an hour before I arrived, Doris left.  Doris was like a daughter to me, I had many blog postings about her through the years.  She left her cell phone number with the big girls around the yards so that they could get the number to me when I came.  I did call her later on in the evening and left a message.

After chatting in the special needs yard with Invisible, we headed to the school.  There we saw Elvia, Michell, Karol, Yensi, Coco and others...again, many of these girls were in past posts through the years.  They've grown so much over the past 8 years I've known them.  We chatted quite a bit while we were walking them back to their yard.  I had a nice chat with Elvia, who is in charge of one of the big girls' houses.  She let me know that she too is thinking of leaving to study some more.

Our final stop was at the Toddler House where we said 'hello' to Zelenes and the rest of the crew.  We let them know that we'd be starting there tomorrow morning!

Hotel #3 - my bed in the background

Alina's bed

When we got back to our room, we called Doris and then Bob.  We are pretty much set to get all of the donations of sporting equipment out throughout our stay here...and will try to get pictures as we do so.

Alina's Birthday Donations...Ready to Go!

Welcome to Honduras 2015!