August 27, 2013, 27-8-13

Hello friends.  I found out last week that my main job here is to be a teacher of “educatodos bilingue.”  This is a class of nine kids who have shown great potential to learn in the past, but haven’t been given many opportunities.  They all really want to learn English.  There’s not really a curriculum so wish me luck!  We begin on Thursday.  I have a Honduran co-teacher who knows a lot of useful information that I don’t, like how to laminate posters by hand.  We spent the majority of two days cleaning and setting up the classroom.  I had to relearn how to set-up a classroom with minimal supplies and without being able to run the nearest Walmart.  Tomorrow, we’ll be planning our lessons.

I’ve started to settle in a little more, and the kids are continually the best part of this place.  I love hanging out with them, though my conversational skills are still limited.   Weekends here are like summer camp.  This past weekend, we played ultimate frisbee, capture the flag, kickball, soccer, and card games.  On Sunday, we had a couples dance competition.  One of my favorite kids (a tiny little guy about 7-years-old) claimed me for his partner as soon as it was announced.  It was great.  In the evenings, we watched movies.  One night the sound for the movie (Astroboy) didn’t work.  There was something faulty with the dubbing I think. The kids sat on hard wooden benches in the cafeteria and watched it for an hour without sound.  It’s a different world here.

A couple nights ago we got to have the oldest “kids” over to the volunteer house for dinner.  They all grew up here, and they’re all really cool.  The oldest is twenty-five, and he’s in charge of the agricultural department now, and the youngest is twenty and is still studying in high school.  We asked them for advice for our year here at Amigos, and they told us to respect the kids and the kids will respect us.  After dinner, we played games, including the card game, Pig or Spoons.  It was a pretty fierce competition and entertained all of us for about an hour.

Sorry, there aren’t pictures yet!  They’re coming!

August 16, 2013, 16-8-13

Hola!  I’m here!  It’s difficult to write an update because I’m in such a different place now than I was a week ago, both physically and mentally.  Copan was a vacation, but Amigos is amazing.  In all honesty, the first few days were very overwhelming.  The language barrier is still so tough, and there has been a ton of adjustment in such a short amount of time, but every day it’s getting better.  Today, I worked in agriculture, which was awesome.  I got to try about ten fruits that I’d never heard of before and chew on sugar cane fresh from the field.  I weeded part of the garden, tried to use a * (hoe), got a tour of the entire grounds, and chatted with the workers during our snack break of pepsi and chips.  All of the workers in agro are former or current children of Amigos.  

Later I got to hang out with the little girls for a while and they were kind enough to braid my hair.  And then the bell rang to summon all of us to the front gate and... Amigos welcomed three new children today!  It brought tears to my eyes to watch the entire Amigos family welcome these children home.  One of the new little guys is just so excited that there are pants and shoes here.  

Even though I can’t speak too much with the kids, I am able to see their excitement, openess, and resilience.  Already, a few of them have stolen my heart.  The entire hogar is simply beautiful.  The kids live in dormitories divided by gender and age.  There is an entire Honduran staff that cares for the children along with a good number of gringo volunteers and workers.  The whole thing is a really smooth operation, though there are so many needs still.  

Currently, I’m in the midst of orientation, which lasts until next Friday.  Sometime next week I’ll have a semi-official job here at the hogar.  Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and emails.  I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to send individual emails or phone calls.  My internet access is kind of limited right now, but I’m hoping to have more access in the future.  

One final thought.  As I alluded to above, the first few days were pretty tough for me here.  Sharing a house with ten semi-strangers, not speaking the language, meeting over one hundred new people, seeing the intense needs of the hogar... it’s just a lot to process.  So of course I did what most people from stable families do, I called home and cried on the phone to my mom.  She listened and gave me exactly the words of encouragement I needed to hear.  The juxtapostion of it really hit me after I hung up though.  Here I am falling back on the support system that I’ve had for my entire life, and these kids don’t have that.   They arrive at Amigos de Jesus after surviving incredibly traumatic events usually with nothing more but the clothes on their backs.  They have to adjust to this strange place without a familiar face or voice anywhere.  What strength!  I’m not sure how to resolve or justify this juxtaposition in my own mind, except to realize that I am SO fortunate.  We live in a broken world, and life just isn’t fair.

August 5, 2013/ 5-8-13

This is my final week of Spanish classes in Copan, and I’m so excited to be heading back to Amigos de Jesus soon!  I leave Saturday, and there is supposed to be some sort of singing competition/festival with the kids and staff when we arrive back at the hogar (home).  It sounds like a great welcome.

Last weekend, I visited an inactive volcano in Guatemala.  The other volunteers and I went with an awesome Honduran family with lots of random relatives packed into an “autobus” or 13-passenger van.  The hike was tough, but the views made it worthwhile, and there was a beautiful lake in the crater of the volcano.

Ipala Lake Inside the Crater

The water was cold, but it felt great!

This weekend I went kayaking in the Rio de Copan.  Very beautiful and a whole different perspective of the culture.  Men and boys were fishing, and women and girls were washing clothing against the rocks of the river.  All of the people were wearing little clothing, and stared pretty incredulously at the gringas in the the mini plastic boats who were disturbing their laundry/fishing waters.

Later, we visited a pretty awesome bird park.  The second photo is more indicative of my feelings with those three aves on my person.

The bird on the left was so pretty

And as if that wasn’t enough for one weekend, I was invited along with a group of people to dinner at a finca (small farm) about a mile outside of town.  This finca is owned by a retired couple who formerly lived in Canada and decided they wanted a change of pace.  They have open air structures, including an outdoor kitchen, many lemon trees, two horses, four dogs, chickens, three Honduran workers, and all the time in the world.  It was fascinating to observe their life and imagine what it would be like to drink fresh-squeezed lemonade all of time and interact very little with the outside world.

Gigantic lemon from the finca

Next time you hear from me, I’ll be at the hogar of Amigos de Jesus- God Willing!