Falling in Love

So Thursday was Casa Hogar. It's a lot less structured than Limon; additionally, they just want us to meet the community this first week, before we start our real jobs on Monday, so it's even less structured than normal :-)

In the morning, we hung out at the orphanage. The twins are Eli and Elias, the younger boy is Brian, and the 11 yo boy is Jorge. The younger girl Heidi was in school, but the older girl was home (her name is a little harder, so I still don't have it down yet) Xan got her camera out and they went clicker happy... then I got mine out and they went clicker happy with mine too. I think Xan had over 200 pics and I had 160 pictures. Most of them were useless, but some of them were great! :-) The Aunt (Tía) served us oranges, which were good! She cut them in half horizontally and then used a knife to cut the rind off. You just kinda suck the fruit out as much as you can. It's so interesting to see how different cultures approach simple things like that. Like, we just peel it and eat the slices, but she served them whole but made it so you didn't really have to eat anything except the juice and pulp if you didn't want to :-) I'm glad we can eat any fruit that's unnecessary to wash, like bananas and oranges. It makes for a more bearable summer :-P

Once the kids started eating lunch, we went to the office to eat our lunch. We just hung out and talked a bit about some of the things they learned wednesday when Taylor and I wasn't there. Apparently there's a big need for the women to become friends. A lot of the men work, so the women are left at home without anything to do, so they gossip and stuff, so Maura and Eli are hoping we can create some events that they can just attend to get to know each other better. For example, Xan is doing a fitness program with them every morning – they'll be exercising and learning how to honor God with their body, which is sweet. That was up Xan's alley for sure. Sarah's gonna help with handicrafts, and Taylor and April are going to do more administrative things. I don't know what Rachel and I are going to do, but I bet we'll figure it out :-)

After lunch, April thought it would be a good idea to introduce Taylor and me to the community, since we hadn't been there Wednesday when Maura took the team around. As we started walking around, this one woman, Alma [soul], ran across this field to us and gave us HUGE hugs. Sarah said later that they had met Alma Wednesday and heard her story. Apparently she's one of the residents who has HIV, and since her family found out, they disowned her, so now she lives in Casa Hogar. She calls us her family and is so loving and beautiful. I can't wait to get to know her better :-)

Arturo invited us to look at his chicken farm – it's a large hut with a tin fence in the middle and coops along the edges. He has feeders and places where they're gonna put water for the chickens. He had gotten a micro-loan from the church and was using it to start raising chickens. The coop can hold up to 600 chickens – he's got this whole plan of what he's going to do. He was so excited and proud – you could just tell it on his face.

Another woman talked with us for about half an hour – about all the things she's seen God do in her life, and it was just so cool to listen to. It was pretty hard to understand her, and April couldn't keep up translating, but from the bits I did get, you could tell this woman was on FIRE for God! I want to sit and talk with her too!!

After meeting all the people out and about, we went back to the office (it was sooo HOT! and the office had air conditioning) and talked with Maura and Eli more – I can tell that there's a place here for me, I'm just trying to figure out what it is. I was telling Sarah that I'm falling in love with the people at Casa Hogar and she's like “I knew you would!!”

We went straight to dinner, which was finally Honduran – a tortilla with refried beans, avocado, scrambled eggs, and cheese. However, I found out I'm not that fond of avocado, so I didn't eat much of that. After dinner, we went to a milkshake place and got to know each other better – I really feel like our team has meshed really well, considering the short amount of time we've been together. I love it! The milkshakes were fantastic! I had chocolate, but the coffee one tasted good too!

Thursday was the first day that didn't have rain. Every day so far it had rained in the evening and scattered throughout the night, I feel. It was actually clear enough to see the STARS!!! I was so stoked! I found the big dipper much lower than in OH and a bunch of stars in the South that I had never seen before. I suddenly wished I had dad's droid with the skies app on it :-)

Aaand that was Thursday.

Friday: Went to Casa Hogar – Peggy joined us this time! We started by meeting in the office where Peggy led a discussion/training session on evangelism. April and I were designated as the translators, and we practiced and prayed. I felt like I was gonna have a really difficult time of it, but I was willing to try!

After that, we went to the orphanage and hung with the kids again. They weren't as rowdy as the day before (maybe because it was so hot because it had still not rained. I'm thinking high 90s and super humid here people). They were watching plaza sesame. Brian found the games on my electronic dictionary and played hangman basically the whole time we were there. Eli and Elias played with Rachel's camera, and Sarah and I sat on the couch with Jorge and tickled him, teased him about the girl he likes at school, taught him a few English words, and introduced him to Herbert, Sarah's “only friend” and orange, bedazzled gnome. It was so fun! Don't tell the kids, but I think Jorge's my favorite. He reminds me of another kid I know, but I'm not sure who... I'll think of it eventually :-)

After lunch, Taylor set up his slackline so the kids could play with it. There will be Facebook pictures at some point. Basically you tie the slackline between two trees (or in this case, a tree and a truck) and tight-rope walk across. Taylor and Xan showed how to do it, and even some of the men working there tried it – it was SO funny to watch! They hung onto Xan's hand and wobbled there for a second with this huge grin on their face before they lost their balance and stepped off. The kids had an easier time because they're lighter and little monkeys anyways :-)

At 2, all of us (except Taylor, who stayed behind with the slacklining kids) went evangelizing. April translated at the first house, and I realized I wouldn't be able to do it – it wasn't so hard to translate the English into Spanish, but it was so difficult to understand what the mom was saying in Spanish – the exact opposite problem I thought I was going to have before I got here. So April just translated.

We went to three houses in like an hour and a half, and got to hear three women's stories. The first two were strong Christians, and the third was a new church-goer, but it didn't seem like she really understand the gospel. It was so great though to sit around and encourage the women and talk to them and get to connect with them on a deeper level. I cannot wait to do it again! I just wish I could understand the people here better so I could give April a break :-( Apparently they use a lot of slang and shorten words and stuff. Meh!

Dinner was at the cook's house (I really need to find out her name!) and she had made small soft taco shells, refried beans (black beans this time), eggs, cheese, plantains, and spam or ham. It was delicious!! We ate outside on her patio. She has a dog that looks like a cocker spaniel – way nicer looking than the scarier dogs here – most dogs you shouldn't pet because they're not really tame... I did pet her dog though. I could feel every rib. All the dogs here are a lot scrawnier than US dogs, for sure. Sometime I'll do a random post on the animal life here...

Casa Hogar was having a teen meeting, so we decided to go to that – I rode in the back of the truck again. It was so fun, especially since the sun was setting and it was finally threatening rain. Aka there was a lot of lightning. With the mountains, lightning, lightning bugs, and honduran people, it made for a great ride. I really wanted to film some of it, but I needed both hands to hold on for dear life! Haha.

Before the meeting could start, it started pouring (finally!!!) so we ran into two of the houses to wait it out/hang out. A bunch of the littler kids were there, and they stole my camera and took a ton of pictures again. Brian really wanted my dictionary, but I didn't want to get it out because I have limited batteries and it was wet out :-)

Have I said yet how much I love the Honduran people? I hardly know any of them, but I love them all!

When the rain let up, we left. We ate ice cream in the apartment and relaxed a little. Got to skype Rachel F which made me super happy!!!!

Saturday: I slept in late and took my good ol' time getting ready. Journaled a bit, relaxed... the group went to Wendy's for lunch – I got a Frostie!! And apparently, pretty much everything is in combos, so you can't just buy chicken nuggets. Unfortunately. So other people ate my fries :-)

Blogged and listened to music all afternoon. Started POURING at 4. aaaand the bedroom has a leak. Yay!

Dinner at 5: I forget what they were called, but it's basically fried tortilla (really crispy!) with shredded chicken. We could put this sweet salsa/marinara sauce or guac sauce on it. After dinner, we got to talk to a lot of the kids who had been at the Hispanic version of Awana: Oasna. I met Carolina, (12 yo who is really sweet and super easy to understand (plus for me!). Her brother on the other hand uses more slang and has a heavier accent...

CHURCH was SO GOOD!!! We sang a few songs at the beginning WITH WORDS so I could actually sing along :-) Then there was a short skit about Mary and Martha and a short sermon on the importance of sitting at the feet of Jesus every day – definitely something I needed to hear here! Haha. The sermon was in Spanish, but a lot of our team got head sets that had English from a translator in the back, which was really nice :-) I didn't get one, but I was able to get the gist of the sermon from a combination of understanding a portion of his Spanish, Elsa's notes, and kinda hearing Elsa's headset. It was really good. Then we sang about 6 more songs. So much worship! It was fantastic!

Chatted with a bunch of the church members afterwards – they made us stand up during announcements, so we were kinda famous after the service (because you know, we don't already stand out as a herd of gringos :-P )

Got to skype with the fam and hang out a bit before bed. Sweetness no? 

Once again with the novels.