I Slept with a Millipede!

This morning I woke up and turned the shower on (it takes a while for the hot water to come through), and then headed back to the bed to fold up the sheets on the bed, and put into a pile at the end of the bed.  When I pulled them off the bed to fold, there was a millipede crawling ON the bed at the foot of the bed.  With as slow as those things move, I know it was in the bed when I was...YUCK!  I'm just hoping it was never by the head of my bed, or on me or anything else!  I got my notebook and put it in front of the millipede for it to crawl on and then took it outside.  I'm not much for killing creatures anymore.

After showering, getting dressed and brushing my teeth, I sat down to do devotions as I do every morning, then I worked on finishing up the calculus lessons.  Today would be my last day of teaching, since tomorrow is their big test.  At 6am I headed to the medium boys house and once again Noah was not ready, so had to stay behind.  We waited at the medium boys house until it was time to head to breakfast and I ate, grabbed a bowl for Noah and then headed back to the room to finish up my plans for calculus.  When it was time to head to school, I brought Noah along with me to help take a few pictures of the class.  This is actually also a 'punishment' for him, because if he's at the school, he likes to play with the little children during their recess or P.E. class rather than sit in a math class all morning...but he did take some really nice pictures!

Derivative Rule for Quotients

The graduating class of 2017 learning calculus

Explaining how to use rules of derivatives

Ruth (in front) watching the process of using rules of derivatives

The class working towards learning calculus in a week and a half

The students asked if I could come back in the afternoon and teach as well.  I had absolutely nothing planned for the afternoon (in terms of calculus), so I said that if the principal okay-ed it, then they would have to come with questions, because I had nothing prepared.  The principal said that the students could have calculus class all day (WHO wants that???), so that became my plan for the afternoon.  During the 1/2 hour break from 10:00-10:30, Noah said that he wanted to head back to our room and spend the rest of the morning there, so I walked him back.  I began reorganizing and folding the blanket 'mess' in the armoire.  Noah and I found 2 cockroaches in there!  One of them I swept outside, but the other went onto another shelf that I hadn't cleaned yet.

When break was over, I cut my armoir cleaning short, and headed back to school to teach for the second 1.5 hours.  At lunch, I headed to the comedor and ate, and then grabbed Noah's bowl and took it to him.  I finished cleaning out the armoire prior to heading back to school for the afternoon and found 2 more cockroaches.  I went to get Nathaniel next door, who is about Noah's age and likes to kill cockroaches.  He told me that there were actually THREE in there.  Unfortunately he only killed one and the other two went into hiding, so we'll have to be on the look-out for it in the next few days.

When it was time to head back to class, I went and let the students know that I was there to answer questions.  They had a lot of homework to catch up on, so they asked as they hit problems that they needed help on.  At the end of class, they asked me where I lived; I told them Wisconsin, which of course they had never heard of...so since I had my laptop and internet modem along, I brought up a map of North America and showed them Honduras and the United States (so they could see the size difference), then zoomed in on the USA and showed them where Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia were (where most groups who come to Emmanuel are from) and then where Ohio is (the group that left today), and then where Wisconsin is.  Then I zoomed in on Wisconsin and showed them where Neenah was.  Then I realized that there's a street-view to Google Maps, so I plugged in my address and they were able to see our house!  It was an awesome picture taken last fall when our Autumn Blaze Maple tree was complete covered in its beautiful red leaves!  They students were awestruck by the tree, so I explained that each fall in Wisconsin the leaves change to red, orange or yellow before falling off.  They had never seen this before!

When school was over, I went back to the room to fold the laundry I had washed that day, and then we headed to supper at the comedor.  The medium boys were able to play soccer in the cancha (soccer field and playground) out in front of the school this evening, so we joined them down there before heading in for the night.

Visit to Guaimaca

Once again this morning, Noah was not ready on time to head out the door when Alina and I needed to leave to go to our assigned houses, so he was locked in the room for the remainder of the morning.  The medium boys asked where he was, so I had to explain that it is expected that Noah make his bed, brush his teeth, wash his face (as a pre-teen he is starting to break out), and get dressed prior to leaving.  These are also expectations of the medium boys at their house, so they understood that these things were expected to get done.  I walked with the boys to the comedor where they had breakfast and then took Noah's breakfast back to him in the room and stayed there to finish preparing the calculus lesson that I had to teach this morning.  I was scheduled to teach from 8:30-10am and then from 10:30am-noon, so the class was getting 3 hours of instruction in calculus!  That's a lot of material to prepare.

School went well.  The students took lots of notes and asked questions.  When I was done teaching, I headed to the comedor and ate lunch, then took a bowl of lunch to Noah.  He had to eat quickly because Wednesdays are the days that volunteers are allowed to head in to town (Guaimaca) to go grocery shopping.  Bob sent us a list of items that he'd like to have available, so we had all 3 backpacks ready to go.  We walked into town with the Millers and hit the first grocery store which is located on the main square.  It was AFTER we got into town that I realized I had forgotten my camera, so I will try to remember to bring it when we go back into town next week.  We got most of our groceries here, but then headed to the other grocery store just 2-3 blocks away where we got a few more items.  On the way back to Emmanuel, we stopped at the bakery to get some cinnamon rolls, and then at the other bakery for Alina and Noah to get a frozen chocolate-covered banana.  At that bakery I bought 3 tres leches cakes for the birthdays coming up this weekend.  Finally, we stopped by to see Glenda to see if she had any carrots.  Both the Miller family and I had been looking for carrots and she only had two (but they were huge), so we each bought one.

We took a while trying to get 2 family's worth of groceries into the refrigerator and freezer.  I'm glad that there is currently no one in the 3rd hotel room, because groceries for 3 families in that refrigerator might be a stretch.  Alina headed to the baby house and the Millers headed to their assignments.  The boys were mowing the lawn outside our rooms, and quite a bit of grass got kicked up into the rooms and on the porch, so Noah and I swept them out and off.  

Church began at 4pm and two ladies from the Ohio team talked to the children and staff.  After the service, Luis David was waiting outside by David's all-terrain vehicle.  He double-checked to see if Bob was coming on Saturday, and when I said "yes", he said he was happy that Bob was coming on his birthday.  This really caught me off guard because I didn't know it was his birthday (I really have to put it into my calendar!).  He asked me how in the WORLD after 10 years did I still not know when his birthday was?  I said, "I don't know, but it's a good thing that I got THREE tres leches cakes then!"  (Two were already spoken for, but the 3rd was going to be a treat for Alina and Noah...guess the use was meant for someone else).

We had heard earlier this week that the team was going to challenge the orphanage staff to a game of basketball at 6pm.  Alina was very excited about this, so after church she and Noah came home and got changed right away.  At 6pm, we headed down to the gymnasium, but the lights were out and nobody was there.  I sent Noah up to the team house to ask about the game, and when he came back he said that the Ohio team had decided not to play since it was their last night at Emmanuel.  Alina and Noah were a bit bummed out.  They quickly went through as much of the obstacle course alongside the gym as they could without ropes before we headed back to our room.  We played Phase 10 together, then read a chapter in our books before heading to bed.

Boss Baby

This morning shortly after I woke up at 3:30am, I could hear the sound of people mowing the lawn in the background.  We found out later that the mowing was taking place at the medium boys house and the power toddler house.  At 6am when I got to the medium boys house, I found them hard at work mowing and raking and cleaning up the grass clippings.  I had headed to the medium boys house alone today because Noah has been sleeping in more and more each morning, and was not yet ready to go today.  Rather than get upset and trying hurry him up, last night I wrote him a list of what he HAD to have done prior to heading to the medium boys house (very similar to what the medium boys have to do prior to 6am) and said that if it wasn't done, he would get locked inside our room until I came back.  Well, it wasn't done, which was probably for the better because Noah likes to wear shorts (complains when I tell him to put his jeans on) and with all of the grass-cutting, I'm sure that the mosquitoes were out in full force.  I already have 42 bites from just 1 day of not wearing DEET and just from my knees down!

The boys worked hard in their yard right up until it was time to leave for breakfast.  Alina took the camera with her today.  After breakfast, I took Noah's cereal bowl up to the kitchen to put in the refrigerator for him to eat later.  Since he was now ready, I let him walk with me to the medium boys house to pick them up and walk them to school.  I dropped them off at school and then headed back to our room, where Noah ate his cereal while I finished preparing today's calculus lesson.  I heard that the high school was spending the first hours of the morning taking their national English test.  At 10:15am we had to head to the school so that I could teach calculus.  Today's lesson was on area under the curve.  I had an hour and a half to teach.  We didn't get quite as far as I wanted because the students struggle with fractions (not much different than high school students in the States), but we did get through 2 lengthy examples.  I headed to lunch with the students and Noah was nowhere to be found, so once again I had to take his bowl of food back to our room.  He had spent the time that I was teaching out on the soccer field at the school, and even when the kids went in for lunch, he played there alone.

At lunch, Milton gave me the movies I had ordered on Friday.  SO exciting!  They were able to get me 9 out of the 10 movies I asked for!  I can't wait to share these with the medium boys and having movie nights with them from now until we leave.

After Noah finished eating, we headed to the yards to be with the special needs children.  I began working on the answer key to this year's calculus test (that the students will be taking on Friday) and have already found 2 errors!  After school, we walked the medium boys home to the chosa (big gazebo out front of their house).  We waited for supper to come while some of the team members stopped by to give gifts to some of the boys.  Some other boys were being disciplined for bad behavior in school...but most of us just sat and waited.

All day the children had been asking me about having chicken for supper.  When we walked to the dining hall, we found that they were serving FRIED chicken!  This is a real special treat for the kids as they only receive this when a team comes and pays for the children to eat like this!  Typical supper is just rice and beans.  Tonight they had tortillas and fried chicken in addition to the rice and beans.  I began eating, and Luis David came over by me and said, "I need to talk to you."  I told him to start chatting, and he stood there for a few seconds, as if he preferred to talk in private.  I moved over a bit, creating a space on the bench and patted my hands on the bench and said, "Sit down here and talk to me."  So he did, and he began to cry as he told me what was going on in his life at that moment.  I gave my plate of fried chicken to Moncho (who's in charge of the medium boys) to give away to some boys that wanted seconds, and put my full focus on Luis David.  Although I don't want to share details, he is going through a pretty rough patch right now.  I have only seen this boy cry once before in the 10 years I've been down here, and that was many years ago when he was very young.  Please pray for him to be able to overcome the difficulties he's going through.

After supper was over, we made a quick stop back at our room (long enough for the medium boys to shower) and then we took the movies to their house to watch a movie for the night.  They chose Boss Baby and we thoroughly enjoyed it before heading home.  Alina was waiting for us back at our room.  She had been locked out all day, but spent just about ALL of the day with the babies (which has been usual for her).  We rarely see her except for early morning, perhaps sometimes at lunch, and then in the evening.

Lydia's Birthday

This morning Noah and I headed to the medium boys house while Alina headed to the baby house.  We were with them until it was time to walk to breakfast.  After breakfast they walked back to the house and watched TV until it was time to head to school (morning chores got done quickly today).  They were watching a movie about a soccer player that went to Europe to try out and play for a professional soccer team.  I'm not sure the name of the movie, and some parts were 'fast-forwarded' through (perhaps PG-13?), but the boys seemed to like it.

When we dropped the boys off at school, I saw Nikoll and Alejandra.  They ran up to me and gave me a hug.  While I was chatting with them, many of the medium boys ran out, celebrating, saying that they had no school today...so we took them to the yard to play all morning (since I had the day off from teaching calculus, too).  We headed to lunch at 11:50 and then back to the yard for the afternoon to play some more.  Even though I tried to stay in the shade all day, by the end of the day I looked like a reverse raccoon - from my sunglasses and the suntan I've been getting.

Noah and Chino in the yard this afternoon

At 4pm, we headed to supper, and from there I headed home.  Generally the boys head to their house to shower, and I don't believe that my help is needed for that since they are 10-12 years old.  From about 4:30-6pm I spent with Michell, just sitting and chatting.  She let me know that she would not be around tomorrow because she had a doctor's appointment in the capital city of Honduras, Tegucigalpa.

At 6pm, Alina, Noah and I headed to the team house.  Staff and volunteers had been invited to eat there again.  What I didn't realize was that it was Lydia's birthday.  We all sang happy birthday to her before praying and then eating.  She replied with, "This is the LAST time you celebrate my birthday!!!"...jokingly, of course.  After supper we were invited to do a devotional study on Ephesians.  The team breaks up into smaller groups of 5-7 to discuss verses from the bible.  It was a fun, educational time and a time of sharing our stories.  When the bible study was finished, we headed home to bed and fell asleep almost instantly because it was later then normal for us!

Sunday at Emmanuel

This morning we got to sleep in a big.  On Sundays the volunteers have off of their daily assignments, so we slept in a little more than normal before getting up and getting ready for church.  I will still up a bit early (5:00am), but it's much later than my normal 3:30am wake-up time.  Alina and Noah woke up and we all headed down to church.  A man from the Ohio team led the sermon today and talked about how we will not find safety, security and significance in physical things (family, husbands/wives, girlfriends/boyfriends, friends, jobs, house, car, etc).  We only find these things in God.

Zelenes had come back this weekend on a short break, which was pretty exciting.  She had graduated last year (VERY smart in math) and was now in school in order to become a police officer.  She was leaving shortly after church was over, but had asked me yesterday for my phone number so I tracked her down before she left to get it to her.

We headed back to our kitchen and made pancakes for breakfast.  When I bought the box of mix last week I bought vegetable oil thinking that I would be making them in one of the big frying pans, but when we arrived to the orphanage I found that the kitchen had a fairly new griddle, which made making pancakes SO much easier!  Noah took a couple of pancakes (with syrup) down to Michell, who was playing soccer just below us, and she said she really liked them.  After cleaning up the kitchen and changing out of our Sunday clothes, we headed down to the cancha (soccer field) to watch the girls play with the team.  Noah played soccer while Alina and I watched.  Noah said that it was the 'Americans vs the Hondurans'.

We walked the big girls to lunch and then rested a bit in the tienda where I bought Noah and Alina a Gatorade and Alina also got some cheesy popcorn.  We waved at the boys as they walked by to go to lunch.  After lunch, Noah got to ride on the tractor trailer and go collect garbage with Luis David (a boy I've known for the 10 years I've been here).  Luis David works for Papi (David, the founder of Emmanuel).  It's nice that this is Noah's 2nd year here and he is getting more used to how things work.  Noah helped to collect all of the garbage cans around Emmanuel in the trailer, take them to where they were to be dumped, dumped them and returned the empty garbage cans.  Then he asked permission to go to the medium boys house where he got to watch a movie with them.

Noah collecting garbage around Emmanuel

While Noah was away between lunch and supper, we hung out with Michell some more and just enjoyed the afternoon.  It was overcast and breezy, so perfect weather for us Wisconsinites, although the Honduran girls were a bit cold.  At supper, I noticed that Nikol and Alejandra were wearing the dresses that we bought for them.  When they saw me, the quick jumped up from their supper table and came running to give me a hug and said thank you!  In the comedor there are now 3 TVs where they sometimes play a movie while the children eat.  It is just such a relaxing environment down here.

After supper we walked with the little girls until we got to our room (which is on the way to their house), and then Alina and Noah played a few games together (Phase 10, Connect 4, etc) and played a few card games with the Miller children who are in the room next door to us, before we went in for the night.  As usual, we each read a chapter in our books to settle down for the night before turning the lights off and heading to bed.  With all of the sun and all of the work that we do down here, it is VERY easy to fall asleep by 8pm.

Alina with Nikol (pink flowered dress) and Alejandra (navy dress) and Genesis

With the Medium Boys ALL Day

Noah and I headed to the medium boys house at 6am while Alina headed to the baby house, as usual.  Today is Saturday so there is no school for the children.  We will be with them all day.  We hung out as they got ready for the morning and then walked with them down to the comedor (dining hall) to have breakfast.  Noah is having a hard time finishing breakfast, especially, on time.  He's not used to having arroz con leche (rice with milk) and doesn't care for it too terribly much either.  Hopefully by the end of the month-long stay, he'll be better...as it's an acquired taste.

After breakfast, we headed to the yard out front of the school.  We were here all morning.  I got quite a sunburn even though I was in the shade the entire time.  The medium boys (especially Eduardo and Brayan) spent more time this morning pulling more grays out of my hair and then braiding it.  Ouch, ouch, and ouch!  We chatted, and I also did a few homework problems in front of them, but had to put the calculus away when it became to difficult to concentrate with all of the noise going on in the background from the other boys playing soccer.  Noah played soccer with the boys the entire time.

My braid from the medium boys

When it was time for lunch, we headed to the comedor again.  Then after lunch we headed back to the medium boys house for the afternoon where they played even more.  They played soccer and basketball and then invited me to bump the volleyball back and forth with them.  They have a volleyball, but I think they use that ball more for playing soccer and basketball than using it for playing volleyball.

After supper we visited with Michell for about an hour before heading to the team house.  We were invited to the team house to have supper with the team.  They had fried tilapia, rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, chips, watermelon, and a very yummy bread dessert.  After the dinner, we headed home, each read a chapter in our books and almost fell immediately to sleep.

No Photos :-(

This morning we got a little bit of a break because since it's Friday, there is 'Big Circle' right outside our room.  Big Circle, which happens on Fridays only, is where all of the children come together to do morning devotions.  Because they are gathering together here, it generally doesn't start until 6:30am rather than 6am that we need to be out the door every other day.  Unfortunately, although I had my camera on me almost all day, I completely forgot to take pictures because it was the first chance I've had to see ALL of the children since last year...so I walked around the circle and said 'good morning' and hugged many of the kids I had not yet seen.  A man from the Ohio group gave the devotions for big circle today.  He talked about the Bible's reference to the importance of the different parts of the body and compared it to the importance of each player on a soccer team in order to be successful, and then to the importance of each of the talents that are needed to keep Orphanage Emmanuel running well.  From Big Circle, the children head to the comedor (dining hall) to have breakfast.  After breakfast I went to my room to get my calculus because I was supposed to teach all morning (from 8:30am-noon).

While I was introducing integrals to the students this morning, Noah was able to stay behind in the yards and play with the medium boys.  I found out that he also got to ride around with Salomon (Moncho), who is in charge of the medium boys and do some errands here and there.  Moncho told me that Noah behaved well...no complaints.  I think Noah just likes riding on a gator.

After lunch, I walked into town with Milton to see if we could get a handful of movies for the medium boys, so that we could have movie nights similar to what we did with them last year.  I had a list of 10 movies, so the man said that it would take 24 hours to get them to me.  I'm guessing we'll need to walk into town again tomorrow.  I sure am getting my steps in!

During the afternoon, I was in the yards with the medium boys.  I stayed up in the pavilion with the special needs boys while the other played on the swings or played soccer.  When school was out, we headed back to the medium boys house to do the ensenanza (afternoon devotions).  Chino (one of the older boys in charge) led ensenanza and talked about proper behavior and how the boys were supposed to treat each other, in a way that is respectful to God.  We headed to supper, and ended the night with the breaking of a pinata that the Ohio group had brought over for the boys.  Again, I was wishing I had my camera at this point, but I guess earlier in the day I had taken it out of my bag.  Hoping to make a point of making sure that the camera is with me at all times!