And here we are: Choluteca, Honduras

After getting sent off by my wonderful h2o family Sunday night and having Elsa spend the night (!!!), my journey to Honduras started. The flights were pretty awesome – I got window seats both times and they were right next to the wing too, which was perfect for me :-P We met Sarah and Peggy in the layover in Atlanta – the plane was running late, so we got time to hang out and catch up before kinda separating again on the plane. From the window, it was me, Elsa, and another guy who was actually from Tegucigalpa. Elsa doesn't know much Spanish, and this man didn't know any English, so I had a bit of practice translating. I wasn't very good because he kept mumbling (therefore I didn't catch his name), but it was fun to talk a bit about where we were from, where we were going, etc.

Then we landed in HONDURAS! Made it through security and got our luggage with no problems :-) (yay!), met our group fairly quickly (another yay!) and loaded up the 15-passenger van and the truck. We ate at a “hip” Honduran restaurant (that I can't remember the name of, of course) where we got burritos. Went to a Honduran version of a BJ's to get a tarp, went some other place to get rope, then we piled ALLL the luggage in the truck so that nobody would have to ride in the back the three hours down to Choluteca (that wouldn't have worked very well :-P). It was cramped, but a lot of fun. There were two Hondurans riding down with us – Francisco and Chris. Francisco was telling Xan and I all about the poverty and problems in Honduras, which was fascinating from a conflict management major standpoint :-) He made sure to tell us the point of why he told us all of it was so that we could rejoice in the “little” things happening in Choluteca – aka we could see what an impact the church was making. Chris told us a lot about Honduran culture and stuff. His English was good – especially when I learned that he had only been learning for a year!! Ridiculous! He has an accent, but his grammar and vocab is crazy good! A few times he has asked for the word, but not often...

Made it to Choluteca late at night – Nope, actually it was only 6:30 here, but it seemed later because the sun had set – we're so close to the equator that we get 12 hours of sunlight all the time. That's something I have to get used too... oh, and it was lightning-ing in the distance, and it was very cloudy :-P Had dinner at the church (lasagna, salad and bread with melted cheese) and got to know each other a little more. Finally made it to the apartments – Us three Kent girls (me, Sarah, Elsa) and Peggy are sharing an apartment. We moved all the beds into the room with the air conditioner (Venice [there's only channels of space for walking]) and all the wardrobes and stuff into the other bedroom (Spare Oom).

But it was freezing at like 3 in the morning. Finally we shut it off, but it took a while to warm up a bit. We figured out today it was set on the lowest setting, so we're turning it up tonight!

Day 2: We ate breakfast at the church since we hadn't gotten to the store yet. We had cereal and milk and some kind of Honduran breakfast thing – I wish I had gotten a picture. It was basically a tortilla with ham and cheese wrapped inside, grilled, with ketchup on top. It was delicioso! There were kids having gym in the courtyard, and they were adorable. Yup. Probably 5-6 years old... After breakfast and a quick rundown with Ed about the general program, we got to hang out with the kids and explore the church grounds a little. I gave Elsa and Sarah a Spanish lesson :-)

Some people came to tell us more about the different sites available to work at. It was fun for me because they spoke in Spanish and then Francisco translated – I want to be able to translate eventually!! Afterwards, we got to talk to each speaker individually, if we're interested. I still didn't know what I wanted to do – there were too many choices! Here's the list:

Casa Hogar Vida: Orphanage (help play with kids, etc.)*; Handicrafts business*; HIV/AIDS support groups**; small groups, 180 degrees [highschool/college groups]**

Limon Development Center: Malnutrition clinic (helping the kids with cleanliness, food, spiritual needs, family support, and some thing else I can't remember), afterschool programs*, English class, Computer class*

The stars are the ones I'm interested in :-)

After lunch (fried chicken, fries, cole slaw, bread), we took a tour of the places. It was cool to see everything for realz instead of just hearing about it!

I got to meet an adorable Honduran girl, Cielos [heaven/skies]. She's eight going on nine, and is fascinated with cameras. She probably took over 100 pictures on my camera – she only stopped when the battery died :-) It was fun though because I could talk to her in Spanish, and I could understand her! It was encouraging after not really being able to understand the adults (apparently, they have more slang/stronger accents here – other places it's easier to understand).

We went shopping (we'll provide our own brekkers and lunches after today), had dinner (pizza), and we're now hanging out in our apartment. It's rained quite a bit, but I'm glad we weren't in the back of the truck when it poured right before dinner! Hah... a couple of the girls got SOAKED.

Well... Tomorrow, I'm going to the Limon place, helping with the older kids because apparently they're understaffed in that department. Hopefully it'll be awesome! :-) I'll be making home visits with the HIV/AID support group later this week!

Congrats getting through the first post! Any questions?? Thanks for all your prayers!!!!