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.