Tuesday, February 23, 2010

February 16, 2010

I’ve been trying to open up my blogs that I made for Christmas time, but they don’t work anymore. So I’ll give you a short summary. One of the volunteers had their parents visiting and their church donated new clothes for all the kids here at the Hogar. The night before Christmas Eve, we stayed up wrapping the clothes up for the kids. It was a really fun night. We were all super excited to give the presents to the kids. Christmas Eve came and Maria Jose and Txus took the kids into the cafeteria to play some “games.” They weren’t supposed to get Christmas presents this year, but thanks to Hannah’s church, they were able to. While Maria Jose and Txus were distracting them, we were loading all of their gifts into a wheelbarrow and we put on our costumes. Hannah dressed as an elf and the rest of us were reindeer. The second we walked into the cafeteria, everyone broke out in cheers. Some kids jumped out of their seats and ran to meet us. That was the best Christmas I’ve had. Seeing those kids react like that was such an amazing feeling. I felt like a mother. All I wanted to do was see them open their presents and watch them jump with excitement when they saw their new shirt or their new cleats. I didn’t need or want anything else. It was great. After that, the kids went outside and lit some firecrackers. It was fun watching, but , I decided to go to bed before I collapsed. The next day, it was great. No one had to wake up early and we didn’t have to make the kids do any chores. The kids still woke up early and woke me up, but it wasn’t as loud as it normally was. Breakfast was on the kitchen counter and we could eat whenever we felt like it. The kids played soccer for a lot of the day and I relaxed. It was a very very very good day.

February 3, 2010

The other day, Tarynn and I arrived at the Infa and found that Yesmin was crying. I asked what was going on, but Yesmin refused to fit words between her sobs and the other kids hadn’t been able to tell me either. Finally Isabel explained that last night, she was bit by a bug and her arm was swelling. Isabel wrote me a note for the doctor and I rushed her over to the clinic. Her sister had caught the bug and she put it in a jar. I was so scared for Yesmin because her arm looked so swollen and there was a dark spot where the bug bit her. We sat in the waiting room for a while and I was uncomfortable until Yesmin finally started relaxing. After some time, she said that it was feeling better… but her arm was still extremely swollen and it still hurt a little. Do you remember the doctor that cut off whatever it was that Laura had in her thumb? Do you remember how sketchy he was? Well, the same one ended up looking at Yesmin’s arm. It made me nervous, but I’m not sure if he helps the kids for free, so I prayed for the best. We went into his office and he was eating a doughnut. He asked her some questions and then he took medicine, put some bottled water in it and mixed it around. Then he took another bottle of medicine and poured the first bottle into the second. He spilled some on the desk and some on the chair and just wiped it off with his doughnut napkin. Then he put some of the medicine in a spoon and gave it to Yesmin. After she took it, he stuffed the spoon into a box of medicne and gave it to her. He said after she takes the medicine for a month, she has to go to the hospital to take a test (does he seem sketchy to anyone else too? … thankfully she seemed to be doing better the rest of the day). She wanted to see her mom afterwards and so I took her to the restaurant that her mom worked at. Her mom gave me a guava drink and because I was ready to start cooking on my skin, I accepted. When I was heading back to the Infa, I saw two brothers, Christian and Hector, who used to go to the Infa. They’re definitely kids that need to go and so I asked them to come with me to the Infa. After bribing them with my drink and chocolate that my family gave me to pass out, Hector agreed to come. Christian, on the other hand, said that he did not want to go and ran the other way down some street. Hector said that one of the other boys told them they weren’t aloud to go back to the Infa. That made me angry, but I figured I could deal with it later. At least Hector is coming now. Sometimes we’ve heard that volunteers have resorted to bribing the kids to come and I’m not against the idea at all. They need to come and I’ve got the chocolate to encourage that to happen.

February 2, 2009

I know, I know. It’s been a long time. I have an excuse . My computer decided to give up on this whole Honduras thing. It proved to be more out of shape than I am and refuses to turn it’s screen on. And because I’d rather not spend the money to be on the internet for long periods of time, I just neglected my blog altogether… but good news! My parents have come to visit me and my dad is letting me use his laptop while I’m here so my period of neglect is over and I’ll be typing more novels for you to read… at least I’ll try to.

This past month has been a little problematic. Tarynn and I have been having issues at the Infa and we‘ve both been stressed. I don’t want to go into all the details but after we’ve had a few meetings, we’re hoping things will get better. I just want to ask that you keep us and the Infa in your prayers.

On to the happier things.

My parents are here!! This means many things. This means that I’m going to gain half of my body weight in these two weeks because of all the wonderful goodies they’ve brought. This also means that I’m actually taking a vacation! Horray! I’m going off with my family for 6 days to different places here on Honduras. While I’m bubbling with happiness, I also feel guilty for leaving Tarynn and the kids for so long. I’ve signed up for this, and I just feel like vacations are unnecessary. Also, I’m nervous how this is going to affect me when they leave. I’m scared that homesickness may come hunt me down, but I guess I can’t worry about it now.

I want you all to know that I’ve been working on my drawing skills, although instead of getting better, it‘s slowly gotten worse. Everyday, the kids beg us to let them color (thanks to a friend of Tarynn’s we have a little crate full of colors). I used to cherish coloring time, but recently things have changed. When coloring was peaceful, the kids would draw house after house after house with their interesting color combinations. The orange and purple house is a crowd favorite and there‘s always a blue dog or rainbow colored cat thrown into the mix to make the picture complete. Then when the Christmas season came, coloring time was changed forever. In an ignorant attempt to broaden their horizons, I decided that I would draw them Christmas trees to color. I did not realize that that was the end of my peaceful color time. The kids began to ask for different pictures. At first, this was great and I thought it would be fun, but you know how many of us are, we tend to steer towards what we’re used to. They went back to drawing the same things over and over again, but this time they weren’t drawing it… I was. I drew countless Christmas trees and Santas for them to color and instead of getting better every time, they‘ve slowly gotten worse. Thankfully the kids don’t notice and they look at their Christmas tree that has a hint of resemblance to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and they smile as if they had never seen anything so beautiful. I’m very thankful for that. The Christmas season lasted a lot longer than it should have and I was drawing Christmas trees and Santas way past Christmas. I figured that I’d try to change things up again. Currently, I’m drawing princes on horses fighting dragons for the boys and Cinderella and her carriage for the girls. Cinderella has quickly found her way to being my least favorite Disney character ever. Thankfully the girls still love her with her crooked face and deformed carriage.