May 19, 2014

Wow!  It's May.  It's hard to believe.  The days are long, but the months and weeks are short.  Last week, we celebrated mother's day here in the hogar.  All of the women were celebrated as mother figures for Mother's Day.  We were treated like queens with a day at the pool, manicures, a fancy dinner, and a fiesta of course.  The cards and hugs from the kids were heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time.

A Blanket Story

When I was in middle school, my cousin Madeline (shout out to Miss Madeline who is now a 1st grade teacher) made me one of those tie-fleece blankets.  It was a beautiful blanket of double-layered lime green, blue, and yellow fleece.  I loved it.  For years, I pulled it out of storage every winter, curled up in my bed, and thought of my cousin.  I speak in past tense because sadly the beautiful blanket met its end last night.

Three days ago began the season of winter here in Honduras.  It is also called the rainy season.  The rainy season occurs twice a year.  It brings a respite from the heat, lots of rain (duh), and a certain type of insect that clings to everything.  I was so excited when the the temperature dropped by twenty degrees (90 to 70), but I was quickly brought back to reality when I asked a Honduran how long winter lasts.  Her response: 15 days.  Yes, winter lasts an entire 15 days, and then we'll be back to the heat that we know all too well. :)

Anyhow, winter makes for beautiful days and cooler nights.  Blankets are necessary at night and so I have been using Madeline's blanket.  Last night, however, I had ¨turno,¨ which means I slept in the room with the kids.  I arrived at turno with my pillow and blanket.  It was a little chaotic, which is pretty normal in a room of twenty boys between the ages of 6-12.  All of the padrinos (workers directly in charge of the children) tried to settle the boys as much as possible, said goodnight and left.  

Suddenly, one of the littlest guys, Josecito, was at my side crying because he was cold.  He was sleeping in only a t-shirt and had no blanket.  We looked through his belongings for a blanket, but couldn't find one.  I tried to find more clothing for him, but failed again.  Josecito has a chronic bed-wetting problem, and it could have been that his bedding was being washed.  I don't really know.  After twenty minutes of searching for options, he was getting pretty upset because he was exhausted in addition to being cold.  I realized what I had to do.  I knew that I couldn't sleep with a double-layered fleece blanket while a child slept in the same cold room without any covers.  

I started to separate the layers of my beautiful blanket, untying the knots that Madeline had tied together ten years ago.  And yet another character enters this story: Jose, not to be confused with Josecito.  Jose is a new kid.  He has been here for three whole days.  Jose saw me untying the knots and plopped down on my bed to help me.  We worked together for about forty minutes to untie all those knots, (you sure tied those knots well, Madeline).  Our fingers were aching, but we persisted.  During the untying, Jose and I struck up a conversation.  He told me that he liked the hogar of Amigos ¨a little bit." The part that he didn't like was that his mom wasn't here.  He said he almost cried yesterday because he missed her so much, and then he asked so earnestly, ¨But she can come, right?  She can come visit me here?¨  I assured him that this was definitely possible.  In my head, I silently added "but she probably won't.¨  Wow, have I become so jaded?  When we finished untying the blanket, Jose gave me a hug and said, ¨Buenas Noches tia/ Good night aunt.¨  Before coming to Amigos, Jose was at the state-run home where all of the adults are called tio or tia (uncle or aunt).  Knowing that Jose was at the state-run home before Amigos further lowered the probability of a visit from his mother in my mind.  All of our kids are here for a reason.  I don't know Jose's background or his mother's story.  I can only hope that she will visit him one day.  In the meantime, we'll do our best to love him unconditionally and to help him learn and grow in a happy and safe place.  

And now, Josecito has half of my blanket and Jose has half of my heart.  I think that I want to give Jose the other half of my blanket when I leave Amigos (I actually do need to keep it for a while longer to keep myself warm at night- I'm not that saintly yet ;)).  There are so many different ways to look at this small incident in the course of so many other similar incidents.  You never know how far the small good that you do for somebody will travel.  I'm sure Madeline never imagined when she made the blanket for me that it would one day warm a small boy without parents in a foreign country.  Likewise, I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to be an ¨aunt" to a little boy missing his mom.

Please keep our little guys in your prayers.  It's not easy for them.

March 6, 2014

It’s been so long since I updated my blog.  The kids are still amazing, but I haven’t felt inspired to write because my life has become somewhat normal after six months.  I have to keep reminding myself to look for the extraordinary that exists in all of the simple events of a day.  Just like life in the United States, God is here and working in and through it all.  A couple weeks ago, all of the Honduran workers had a training while the kids were at school.  There was an emergency poopy pants call in the preschool classroom.  I volunteered to do the duty because I was in a planning period.  As I walked with the little tyke back to his room, I marveled at the flexibility and richness of my life here.  What’s a school day without a diaper change in the middle of a planning period?

The hot thing here lately is bracelet-making- strings, beads, rubber bands, etc.  The other volunteers and I have the materials so the kids are constantly making dates with us to make bracelets.  I have a waiting list of about 12 kids.  Though the constant questioning of whose turn it is wears on me sometimes, it’s fun and good one-on-one time.  Speech therapy is going well too.  My most needful “client” is a little girl who almost nobody can understand.  We’re working on crucial words like baño (bathroom).  She mastered that one.  When she sees me from across the hogar, she likes to yell out, “Miss Emma!  BAÑO!”

Like I said, life has become kind of normal, and sometimes I forget the pasts of our kids until something happens or something is said that reminds me of the reality of their situations.  During one of my bracelet dates with a little guy, he casually told me that he didn’t like beer.  His dad had poured beer down his little throat while he was sleeping, but he thought it was nasty and bitter.  How can people do these things?  

This past Sunday was Visitor’s Day at Amigos.  Family, friends, past teachers, and past caregivers arrived to spend the day with the kids.  It was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.  I watched families greet each other with genuine love, hugs, and tears.  I watched other kids mope all around all day if their families were not able to come due to distance, death, abuse, or other factors.  The day was organized so that all of the kids would have “special visitors,” but some of the older kids definitely understood the difference between visitors and family.  When the day ended, the families left.  They left.  They left their kids again.  It could be due to economic reasons or difficult family situations.  Who am I to judge?  There are valid reasons to give up a child, but it doesn’t change the pain, the hurt, the abandonment.  I overheard conversations later amongst the younger boys along the lines of, “My dad is going to come back for me, and I’m never coming back here.”  The truth is no matter how good life is here, it can never replace a loving family.

Later at Mass the same day, the reading was from Isaiah (how fitting), and since then these words have been reverberating through my head…

My favorite part of Visitor’s Day was Delilah.*  Delilah is my student and a very resilient 11-year-old girl who is showing a lot of promise with English.  Though she has two siblings here, Delilah’s family from outside wasn’t able to come on Visitor’s Day.  The kids without visitors were given a small amount of cash to buy food items.  Delilah bought herself a 3-liter soda, cups, several packets of peanuts, and chewing gum.  She called her sister, another volunteer, and me over from across the field and set up a little picnic in the back of one of the pick-up trucks.  She said that she wanted to share her food with her “family.”  We sat together and indulged in the little snacks until they were gone.  It was such a privilege for me to share this time with her and to witness her generosity.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child

And have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

“Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;

Your walls are continually before Me.

Isaiah 49:15-16

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

*Name changed for privacy

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!  This blog post is over due!  It's been sitting as a draft for two weeks, and I've finally decided to post it.  

The holidays were definitely a unique experience for me this year.  Christmas was fun, but very busy. Christmas festivities began a week before Christmas Eve with Posada.  Posada is a tradition of going to a house or building to sing a song of Mary and Joseph asking for shelter.  The song goes back and forth between people inside the building and those without until finally all are welcomed in to eat a snack.  We did this every night for a week with different groups hosting.  It was fun.  On the 23rd of December, some people stayed up until 5 in the morning to make tamales for the 24th.  Yours truly did not help with this.  I fizzled out at midnight after helping organize presents and stockings (paper bags full of candy).  Christmas in Honduras is celebrated on December 24th with tamales in the morning, presents of new clothes, and a fiesta with dancing until midnight.  It was a long day, but it was fun.  The kids were SO excited about their new clothes.  Look how cute/handsome they looked!

Nothing out of the ordinary happened here on the 25th.  It was a little sad for me and the other volunteers.  Our gringo hearts were longing for our families, cold weather, fires in fire places, Christmas food, etc.  We got through the homesickness attack though just in time to celebrate the New Year.  On the 30th, some people again stayed up until 5 in the morning to make tamales.  I helped until 2 this time.  Making tamales is a very meticulous process… I had no idea.  Gathering leaves, cutting the leaves, drying the leaves, washing the leaves, making the dough, boiling the dough, cutting up/cooking/preparing the chicken and other fillings, putting the dough in the leaves, putting in the filling, folding the leaves, boiling, and finally: tamales.  I’m not sure if the finished product is worth the effort in my opinion, but I respect that they’re an important tradition in Honduras and that they’re essential to the holidays here.  The New Year’s Eve celebration began with the tamale breakfast and eneded with a fiesta until 1:00 AM… lots of dancing these days!  

The festivities wrapped up on January 6th, Three Kings Day, which is the day when the kids got “fun” presents, i.e. not clothes.  This was a really cool day and probably my favorite celebration.  It began with a special dinner and then a prayer service.  During the prayer service, the kids chose a “gift” such as love or friendship to present to baby Jesus.  Then we all headed out to climb the steep hill leading up to the white cross.  The path was illuminated with torches and at the the top of the hill, we encountered a live manger scene, which included the Holy Family and the three kings.  The 4-year-old little guy in my arms gasped, “Que bonito/how beautiful!”  The three kings called the kids up one-by-one to present their written gifts and receive their gifts.  There were baby dolls, barbies, remote control cars, dinosaurs, soccer shoes, backpacks, and marbles just to name a few things.  The preschoolers were my favorite to watch.  They were a little confused by the three strange men in king costumes, but the magic was in their eyes just like the magic of little ones who receive gifts from Santa.

And now… I’m back in the States, the land of hot showers, liquid handsoap, and cold temperatures! I’ve been here for just about two weeks, and it has been so good to see my family and friends.  Though it's really tough to say goodbye again, I feel refreshed and prepared to return to the Amigos family in Honduras.

Family and Friends,

THANK YOU!  For Thanksgiving this year, I am especially thanking God for your financial and moral support and prayers.  I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your support.  I am so grateful for this opportunity.   Also, don’t worry about me today.  Yes, I will definitely miss the usual Thanksgiving with my family (with extra emphasis on family), but the gringos here are going to celebrate with a meal too.  Also, we’re in the midst of a month-long soccer tournament, which is a good distraction from homesickness.  I scored two goals in my team’s game last week!  :)  Though, ahem, I was playing with younger children and other women.  

A few weeks ago, I had an awesome experience, and I wanted to share the story with all of you.  A group of our Amigos de Jesus kids had the opportunity to partake in a service trip.  This service trip was organized by Joanna, one of the volunteers, and I was lucky enough to be invited along.  The trip was centered around sharing a day with people of another hogar, El Buen Samaritano, which is especially for adults and children with severe disabilities who have nowhere else to live.

We set off early on a Saturday morning for the drive to San Pedro.  We were a little squished in the pick-up truck, but the atmosphere was jovial.  Our group was comprised of two of our young men, two of our teenagers, one of our school age boys, and two of our school-age girls.  When we arrived at El Buen Samaritano, we were greeted by staff into their beautiful facility.  They brought us to an open cement court surrounded by foliage, and they began to bring out the adults who live at the home.  Almost all of them appeared to have severe handicaps as most of them were in wheelchairs and were unable to speak.  When our kids saw the severe condition of the adults, they jumped right in to help.  They began pushing the adults around the courtyard, and the faces of the adults just lit up with these gigantic grins.  We also had brought art supplies with us, and some of the adults enjoyed watercolor painting.  I watched our university boy patiently guide the hand of one particular adult from water to paint to paper over and over again until the painting was finished.  Another one of the adults was extremely talented and used his feet to create his own work of art.  We also had brought face paint, and pretty soon the majority of the people had some sort of facial embellishment.  After an hour or so, we ended our “play time” with a game of bingo.  

Next came lunch.  We went inside the home, and we were all handed a bowl or bottle of food and directed to a person to feed.  Personally, I was slightly uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure what I was doing.  Some of the people were sitting in wheelchairs, and some were laying in beds.  There was also a lot of coughing and other eating-related sounds that were a bit unnerving.  But then I looked around and saw our kids giving food to these people, and it brought tears to my eyes.  They didn’t hesitate at all, and they completed the task with such care and willingness.  I was so amazed by them and so proud of them.

Though we interacted mainly with the adults, there were also a good number of children at the hogar.  Somewhere in the course of the day I noticed most of the group of our kids standing by a bed inside the home.  I walked up to join the group and saw that there was a baby in the bed.  His head was swollen two times the size that it should have been.  I know that I had a pained expression on my face because our little Amigos boy looked up at me and simply said, “Que bonito, How beautiful.”  I could only respond with a strained “Si” as one of our kids once again moved me to tears.

After lunch wrapped up, we said goodbye and loaded up into our truck.  We did a little bit of reflecting before we headed home.  Our kids reflected positively about the experience.  They expressed gratefulness for our health and also that we had gotten to help others that day.  On the way home, the beautiful Honduran mountains were bathed in sunlight, and the littlest guy of our group fell asleep on me.  I felt so at peace.

The day, like the people of El Buen Samaritano, simply was bonito.  It was a beautiful day, and we have beautiful kids.

Two of our kids having fun with face paint after our visit

Thank you for making it possible for me to have experiences like this.

October 29th, 2013/29-10-13

Hola!  Another update from life at Amigos.  Things are going well.  We just wrapped-up testing week at the school and a 3-day weekend.  The 3-day weekend was fun.  On Sunday, four of us volunteers cooked lunch for the whole hogar, (130 people).  It was a bit nerve-wracking as we were afraid we were going to run out of food or not have everything ready at the right time.  We made spaghetti, and it turned out great!  Most everyone liked it and was satisfied.  Yesterday, we spent the day at the nearby river.  The river itself is a little rough.  It’s about 2 feet deep at its deepest parts, and it’s kind of dirty as farmers use it for their cows and some trucks use it as a shortcut.  Nevertheless, we had a good time.  The kids loved it, and some stayed longer than the six hours allotted for the activity.  We played in the water, practiced floating, looked for pretty rocks, had water fights, played with clay, and ate a picnic lunch.  

Weekends… as promised

Weekends are definitely refreshing after the school week.  Breakfast on Saturday begins at 8:00 and consists of pancakes and hot chocolate.  Yum!  We (the volunteers) then have two hours to do chores around our own house.  This time is crucial since houses in Honduras are not sealed to the outside.  Tons of insects and dirt accumulate inside a house in the space of a week.  Around 10:00, we head back out to partake in whatever is going on outside.  There is a planning meeting every week to plan the weekend activities, which have a good variety.  We’ve gone once or twice to the local water park.  One weekend we had an entire-day long competition with every person at the hogar participating.  The competition involved teams eating together, doing chores together, creating songs/dances/skits, and playing games.  My team, “The Indestructibles,” won. Another weekend was centered around bicycle races, and of course there’s always several soccer games and movies every weekend.  

Last weekend was neat as I got to spend a few hours on Saturday morning at the local cemetery with two older boys.  We cleaned up Oscarito’s grave and planted some flowers around it.  Oscarito passed away before I arrived, but I feel his presence here.  The kids pray for his soul daily.  Here’s a blogpost my director wrote about him and his amazing life: http://amigosdejesusblog.blogspot.com/2013_06_01_archive.html

Sundays are another good food day as we have cornflakes and granola with hot or cold milk for breakfast.  After breakfast, we load up into pickup trucks for Mass (as long as the river isn’t too high to cross).  On average, we probably fit about 10 people inside the cab of the truck and about 15 in the bed.  If I’m in the bed of the truck, I prefer to stand and hang onto the metal casing.  Sometimes I’m not sure how some of the teenagers stay in as the roads are really rough.  Mass is very hot and long with the homily taking up most of the time.  Even so, I am so grateful to be able to access Mass and the Eucharist.  After Mass, we load back up into the trucks or sometimes some of us walk back to the hogar.  For the afternoon, it’s usually more games, futbol, and just hanging out.  Our prayer circle is earlier so the kids get a good night’s sleep to start the school week.

Other things

This summer a speech pathologist visited Amigos and identified kids that have speech impairments.  She couldn’t stay longer than a month, however, and these kids still need therapy.  Therefore, I’m starting speech therapy with them.  I don’t really know what I’m doing so prayers are appreciated!  I have materials and a list of kids and some Spanish skills and enthusiasm and… we’ll see what happens!

In October, I had two “turnos.”  There is one adult who sleeps in the kids’ dormitories every night, and this job rotates between workers and volunteers.  Turno begins around 8:15 PM and ends at 5:15 AM.   I was nervous about it beforehand, but it’s not a big deal at all, and I’m really glad that I now know this side of the kids’ lives.  It made me think a lot.  There’s about 18 younger boys who sleep in a big room.  Some of them keep all of their material belongings in or under their beds.  During my turnos, I said goodnight to them, but it’s hard to think about how it’s a different person every night that watches over them.  I brought a book to read, and the nearest boy playfully grabbed it from me, and we practiced some reading for a few minutes.  It made me think of the innumerable nights my parents read to/with me.

October really flew by.   I bought my plane ticket for my vacation in January, which doesn’t seem far away at all.  As always, thank you for your love and prayers!  

September 24th, 2013

This blog post is overdue!  I have so many things in head that have happened recently.  Here’s kind of a basic overview of how things are going right now.  You can skip to headings below to read more about individual topics.  :)  Things are going well.  I’m really busy, but I’m happy.  I like teaching, but it is pretty difficult.  I’m finding myself constantly redesigning lessons right in the middle of classes as I see that what is and what’s not working.  I think that my Spanish has gotten a little better just out of necessity in the classroom… stop! sit down! hands to yourself!  I love my students, but most of them are angsty preteens that are just on the verge of being too cool to learn English.  Definitely still trying to win some of them over.

Vacation!

I just got back two days ago from my first vacation.  It was wonderful.  The other volunteers and I took a couple buses to get to Tela, a coastal town.  It was wonderful to eat in restaurants and cafes and sit on the beach.  The water was really clear, and there very few people there.   We only had one full day there, but it was worth it… cold drinks, good company, a beautiful Mass, and pizza.  I really missed the kids, and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Dia del Nino (Kid’s Day)

A couple weeks ago we celebrated Dia Del Nino. The festivities began with a fiesta during the weekend.  Everyone dressed up and got “guapo” for the event.  The fiesta was in our cafeteria and was pretty legitimate complete with a disco ball, Honduran pop music, classic rock (Rock Around the Clock), and Gangnam Style.  Needless to say, we were all sweating profusely the entire time.  The night ended with a present for each kid, which was a new shirt, unless you were lucky enough to be a preschooler and get a giant stuffed animal.  Later that week, we celebrated again at the school with a carnival of sorts.  Everyone got the day off of school, and all of the teachers planned and ran games.  After games, there were pinatas and cake.  

Since the older boys/teenagers weren’t too thrilled about the carnival/pinatas, they got their own treat for Dia Del Nino.  The principal of the school invited all of them to hang out at his house that night to watch the Honduras Panama soccer game.  I got to go too, and it was a pretty cool experience.  Side note here, the principal of the school, Osman, is amazing.  He’s 23 (younger than me!), and he owns a modest house in the neighboring village where he lives with his wife and baby girl.  He works so hard, really cares about all of the kids, and is leading a team of teachers that don’t all speak the same language.  Anyhow, back to the story, Osman dragged out his plasma screen tv onto his little front stoop, and fashioned some homemade benches from cinder blocks and random scraps of wood.   About thirty of us crowded around the tv for two hours, and I loved watching the emotion of the game.  When Honduras scored, there were back slaps and cheers that lasted for several minutes.  The sad part was that the game ended in a tie after Honduras had been leading.  The teenagers still had a good time though.

The teachers/volunteers put in a lot of work before the festivities

Doesn't he look fancy for the fiesta?

Fiesta!

The little one in the middle is our youngest kid here

These two goofballs are my students

Pinata with circle of safety

Day-to-Day Life

During the week, the kids get up at 5:00 to get dressed and do chores before breakfast, but I get up around 6:00 to get ready for school, which begins at 7:15.  Sometimes I go to breakfast in the comedor, but more often than not I hide in the house to enjoy cornflakes.  Typical Honduran breakfasts consist of beans, tortillas, cheese, and maybe eggs.  My digestive system is just not ready for that before 7:00… or at least not yet.  During the school day, I teach four to five 45-minute classes.  We have a thirty-minute snack break in the morning, which is always some type of fresh fruit.  Lunch lasts about 30-40 minutes.  The food served in the comedor is usually pretty good and we have a nice variety: beans and tortillas of course, chicken fried rice, spaghetti, chop suey, balleadas, baked chicken, etc.  Every once in a while we’ll get a day where every meal seems to be based around beans, but those are rare.  No one needs to worry about me withering away here, I’m well-fed!  School ends at 2:15.  The kids head back to the hogar where they do more chores and their homework.  

Usually I do some planning or grading after school, and then head home for a little break before evening activities/dinner.  A large portion of that “break” is also spent doing laundry.  Laundry is a losing battle here.  It’s done one article of clothing at a time by hand in a basin type thing called a pila.  I kind of like using the pila.  It’s relaxing; it just takes so much time.  After the whole cleaning process, the clothes are hung to “dry.”  It’s the rainy season right now, and the climate is so humid that you’re lucky if your clothes dry before they get rained on or get that musty smell that’s just horrible and need to be washed again.  Anyhow, usually I head back out to the main hang-out areas in the hogar an hour or so before dinner, which is at 5:30.  After dinner, everybody just kind of hangs out in the main area of the hogar for about two hours.  We end the day with prayer circle, which is pretty beautiul.  We hold hands and people take turns saying intentions aloud.  We end with an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and “Buenas Noches”  hugs for everyone.

There are some variables within the week.  Twice a week my community (the other volunteers and I) have community time with dinner, conversation, and prayer in English.  Once a week, I spend two hours with the teenagers during an afternoon homework session time.  On Thursdays, we have a holy hour with some type of religious activity/service after dinner.  So far, I’ve found time for about one run a week, which consists of me running laps around the soccer field after the kids are in bed.  Weekends are a little bit different, but I think that you’re a hero if you’ve made it this far in my musings so I’ll save your eyes and my thoughts for a different post.

Our Living Room/Kitchen

My Room shared with my friend/fellow volunteer Emily

One Final Story

Last week, the volunteers were in charge of the holy hour for the week.  We based our theme around forgiveness, and planned a mini-skit of the prodigal son.  We were going to watch the complimentary Veggie Tales episode, but of course the power and internet went out an hour before the holy hour started.  We brainstormed to come up with another activity.  We decided to do an activity to show a relationship between two people represented by a string.  During the activity, the string would be cut with scissors to show an offense/sin, and then it would be tied back together to show forgiveness.  To kill more time, we decided that we wanted all of the kids to do the activity at the same time… all 92 of them.  Yep.  It was raining cats and dogs outside, and the kids were wound up.  I was the one giving directions (in Spanish) on the microphone during the activity.  It was utter chaos.  Kids were refusing to do it or had no idea what they were doing, and nobody was listening.  Finally, I pointed at a pair of kids who were holding a string between them and seemed to be doing the right thing, and said, “This is a good example right here.”  I failed to notice that at least one and possibly both of the kids had the string in their mouths.  Next thing we knew, everyone around the room started putting the strings in their mouths or looking at me or the other volunteers with very puzzled expressions.  I tried to say “not in your mouth,” but I think it got lost in translation.  Somehow we muddled through the rest of the activity, and I think the message of the activity got across to maybe about half of those present.  During the quiet reflection time that followed the activity, I just kept laughing quietly, and the whole thing still makes me smile now.  Things may not be perfect or easy here, but they are pretty entertaining and interesting all of the time.

September 7, 2013/ 7-9-13

Well I am now an experienced bilingual teacher as I have an entire week under my belt.  The week of school definitely had its ups and downs, but overall it was good.  It’s a tricky balance of figuring out how much instruction to give in English and how much to give in broken Spanish.  Almost all of the kids know very little to no English.  The feedback I got after the first day was that nobody understood what was going on.  I know it’s just going to take time.  Luckily, the kids really want to learn, though they have some hurdles to overcome.  They have severe gaps in their educational backgrounds, and they don’t seem to be accustomed to high expectations.  My Honduran co-teacher is really helpful.  She is only 19 and is studying education at a university on the weekends.  Everyday she walks about a mile to school and then walks back after school with other teachers.  She lives in the nearby town where we all go to Mass on Sundays if it doesn’t rain too much on Saturday.  We have to walk or drive across a river to get to the town, and if the river is too big, we’re stuck so we have a prayer service on the grounds.

Last weekend, there was a soccer tournament in the nearest town.  It was pretty serious business.  There were even official Amigos de Jesus jerseys.  Both of our teams of the younger boys and the teenage boys were victorious so it was a good day.  After dinner last night, I played soccer with several of the little boys ranging from about 6 to 9-year-olds.  Yes, that is the level of my soccer skills.  Plus, these little guys are really good already!  Like I said, it's really serious here. First of all, I had to ask them if I could play.  They gracefully agreed, and then proceeded to yell a bunch of complicated rules at me in Spanish.  This wasn’t just an ordinary game of soccer.  It took me about 10 minutes to figure it all out, but I eventually got it.  They were so cute and mighty running up and down the field in their bare feet.  I see bright futures for them in their futbol endeavors here.

One of the awesome things I get to do this year is have a caseload of kids with whom I check in periodically.  I began that process today with an 11-year-old boy who is quiet and kind of hangs out on the fringes.  I taught him how to play Crazy 8s and Go Fish.  He learned quickly, and we played for a good hour.  It was really cool for me to spend some time one-on-one with a kid, and I think he really enjoyed the individual attention too.  With ninety-plus kids here, just about everything is shared.  Sometimes its hard for me to figure out how to share time, attention, and activities with everybody so I really enjoyed my time with him.

The other volunteers here are doing amazing things in different roles.  Click on this link to read an amazing story written by one of the other volunteers about one of our newest kids: http://www.amigosdejesusblog.blogspot.com/