last weekend in honduras

it's been such a good last few days here :-) a really great note to end on.

the kids have all been begging me not to leave and writing me notes everyday about how much they will miss me- which is super sweet. and the boys ask me to leave them chocolate when i go haha. i'm gonna have tons of stuff to leave behind, but i don't mind coming back with a little lighter luggage. i also spent practically all afternoon today making cards for the kids at the ihnfa. took forever but i think they will like them. i have to send them a package with pictures too when i'm back cause they are soooo obsessed and always asking me to leave them some. espeically the ones of pablo and me.

i'm also excited cause i've used all the presents that everyone has sent me in packages to put together a scavenger hunt for the kids!!! it started out as wanting to do an easter egg hunt for the kids but since there are no plastic eggs here that wasn't going to work too well. so instead i bought tissue paper (purchased by the sheet here haha) and am wrapping up litte presents that way. i'll finish tomorrow and hopefully hide them before the kids get there. there should be enough for 4 per kid and i'm going to try to take pics. i broke out the colored bubbles on friday that mom had sent me a while ago- and the kids went crazy!!! oh man, they were all fighitng for them and putting the colors all over their faces and arms haha. i got a bunch of pictures.

the hogar has been having some trouble with money right now. They've been pretty broke and cut it down to 2 meals a day for the kids here. God provides in mysterious ways though! Last week I talked to my mom to ask the church to raise some money for the kids at the hogar to go on a trip to the beach since they never get to leave the hogar to do fun stuff like taht. well the money all came in so fast- already $475!!! which is just a little over what was needed for the beach. But obviously God had other plans for the money and now the timing is perfect and they can use it to buy food for the kids. He has such crazy ways of working things out sometimes doesn't He? We're also using some of the money to buy clothes and school supplies for the IHNFA kids which i'm so glad for. We're taking them shopping tomorrow for the clothes, which should be an adventure to say the least haha. Jessica and I went and bought the school supplies today.

So that in addition to the scavenger hunt should make these next couple days just fly by. I will be in the good ole US of A THIS week! No puedo creerlo!

Picture updates from Semana Santa

Me, Nolvia and Emily eating our delicious American food. We seriously ate like royalty the entire time at Emily's!! We cooked so many big meals it was crazy, but oh so delicious :-) We wanted to make special K loaf but they didn't have any cottage cheese- we checked all 4 grocery stores too!

Just beginning our all night ordeal! This was the pattern we followed for the first carpet- it is painstaking work! I think this was around 3 am....

Our finished products :-) Our group made all three! The first one is a catholic symbol they have all over the place down here, idk what the one in the middle is, and the top one is the sign of a pope who died but is now being made into a saint i think.

These are the scary KKK looking guys in the procession. They are carrying a float with a statue of Jesus bearing the cross. And you can see how they walk right over the carpets, ruining them.

This carpet was my favorite! It was really thick, and like 3D looking!! So beautiful :-)

Other than that it's just back to the same old same old at the Hogar. Only the atmosphere here is much better!! A lot less drama than when I left which I am immensely grateful for! I think these last few days will go by no problem. All the kids know I'm leaving next week and they're all begging me to stay or take them with me to the States. One girl even wrote me this really sweet letter saying that she'll always remember me and that's it's really hard to say goodbye and I have a special place in her heart :-( I hope there aren't too many tears next week. it's going to be tough saying bye to all my kids!

Comayagua with Emily :-)

Oh I can't even tell you all how happy I am right now here in Comayagua with Emily :-). I'm so so glad we were finally able to work out a time to visit! She's been an SM here since August, and I knew her from Union, but not too well- just who she is. She's really good friends with Pablo's sister, Mari, though so I've heard plenty of good things about her and we've been trying to find a weekend to work out for visiting for a while!

She has her own apartment here where she lives with 3 other SMs, and it's really, really nice! It's even nice for American standards, so I was very surprised when I saw it. They cook all their own food as well and have not just one, but 4 grocery stores here to choose from!!! We don't even have one in Santa Barbara haha. We haven't eaten rice or beans once either- just been making all kinds of yummy american food like lasagne, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob!!! *Very happy contented sigh. I think I definitely could've managed here no problem!

I do realize though that I have definitely been a lot more exposed to the culture by living with the kids at the hogar and have learned a lot more Spanish as well. They all teach at a bilingual school here where they are required to just speak to the kids in English. So I have been trying to look at the positives of the differences between our different situations. Emily is so sweet though and it has just been so great to have some good girl time!!! We have stayed up so late talking every night and spent all day today talking too instead of taking a nap! and it's been awesome :-)

Yesterday was the big day that they all celebrate our "easter" here, not much happens tomorrow. So we helped out in some very interesting Honduran tradition- making carpets!!! They are not your typical carpets- these ones are made out of sawdust that is dyed all different colors- and some have rocks, egg shells, sea shells, leaves, whatever! they line a bunch of streets around the town center and look beautiful! All the awesome colors, and tons and tons of people! The crazy part was that that they start around midnight and work the whole night into the following morning! ours didn't start til about 2 am cause it was raining so we had to wait it out for it to stop. But there were spot lights set up and we stayed up all night long doing it. it was actually way more time consuming and harder than i thought it would be. just because they are very particular about it being "perfect". They had a huge paper print out with the design that they taped to the street and then we put the sawdust in the different areas, kinda like a paint by number. And little color that gets in the wrong area needs to be removed. Some people had fancy stencils they used and just filled in, but we did all of ours by hand! we were sooo sooo exhausted by the time we finished around 8:30am. But I got tons of pics! and it turned out great!!!!

we were also starving by then so we came home and cooked breakfast- pancakes!!! then we went back out afterwards to see the procession that goes through the streets and walks across the carpets ruining them! they are very shortlived but the hondurans say that is part of the sacrifice: that you make something beautiful for Jesus that is all for Him and they are exhausted by the time the procession comes but that again, it is part of their sacrifice.

the procession itself was pretty boring and was led by a bunch of guys in KKK looking outfits. so that was kinda freaky. but the whole experience was a lot of fun! and now back to the hogar tomorrow....

Semana Santa begins

Well despite the rough beginning to this past weekend, it actually turned out to be really nice!

Saturday night I got invited to go watch a movie with all the older boys at one of the teachers' houses. It was only the boys who were invited, but i've gotten to know the teacher's husband who is the handyman here at the hogar and he's the one who invited them all. plus marcos, one of the kids here at the hogar, and i have become friends so he told me come along! we ended up watching inception in spanish (i brought it down here with me) and i'm not sure how much they liked it since it's so confusing. but it was fun to be hanging out together at someone's house. they all bought soda to drink, but they know i don't like soda so they even got a juice box just for me :-)

then on sunday we saw chepito off. The trip took basically all day since his house is about 2 hours from the hogar and we drove around doing stuff aftwerwards. It was really strange to me to see him back with his family- his mom, aunt and siblings were all there. he's lived at the hogar for 15 years, but now he's going back to live with his family. seems so strange to me. that and saying goodbye was not a big deal at all- it was just like we were saying goodbye for the afternoon and would see him the next day! nothing long or drawn out, no tears, just a quick hug to me, one to nelson and a general "adios" to al the kids. done.

after that we went to san pedro, to the airport, cause it's always a huge deal whenever a plane flys by. all the kids run out to stare at it, cause none ever pass by santa barbara. so we stayed at the airport for a few mins to watch one of the planes take off and they thought it was really cool. after that we ate mangoes in the park and then went out to eat baleadas!!!! yum!!!! it's the ultimate traditional honduran food that i'm really going to miss back in the states so i hope i can figure out how to make it. maybe i'll get nolvia to teach me.

because we got the ok for nolvia to come to comayagua with me so the plan is to leave on weds!! and we'll be there til sunday. it's supposed to be a big cultural center for all kinds of semana santa celebrations so that is cool. i totally forgot about easter happening on sunday- and i'll be spending it on a bus ride back to the hogar! so nothing exciting for me this year.

today was fun too- a bunch of the kids went to the plaza in gualjoco (the smaller town where the hogar acutally is) and played games outside. so i went with them and had tons of fun! they called it a social, and they have a social every sat night but i've never gone before. i'm not sure if it's the same, but if so, i've been really missing out! haha. anyway i wasn't nearly as bored as i thoguht i would be and that's good. looks like this week may not be quite so slow after all.

IT'S SOOOO HOT!!!!!!!!!!

Ah Oscarito :-) I'm gonna miss this guy. He knows how to count to "ten" in English, well sort of, and he's so proud of it haha. I got it on video the other day. He's the littlest one at the ihnfa, 3 years old. and he LOVES me.

My typical breakfast here that i've grown to love.  fried platanos, frijoles (beans), and avocado. yum!

I forgot to pu this pic up before- it was the plan of mine and Rachel's adventure!! Even though a lot of it ended up changing around haha.

Anyway it has been a rough week here with lots of drama that I will have to just fill everyone in on in person later- but prayers would really be appreciated for me to survive the last 2 1/2 weeks!

It is sooo hot here! currently 95 in my room. and i hate feeling so sticky and sweaty all the time. it's gross feeling it drip down my legs which is exactly what is happening as i sit here typing this haha. This week is Semana Santa which means vacation for everyone from school and the IHNFA is closed. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to be doing, I think I'll go to Comayagua (about 2 hours away) and visit a friend who is there. And one of the kids from the hogar may come with me which would be super fun too. and tomorrow Chepito, one of the older boys here is leaving for good. His aunt found a job for him so he will be moving there. The good news is that Nelson told him he can choose who he wants to invite to go along with him tomorrow to see him off. And he picked some of his friends from the hogar, and ME!!! It was really sweet, so of course I'm going :-)

That's about it for now. We'll see how this next week goes, cause i'm not too sure what to do with the IHNFA being closed. Hopefully i'm not too bored and it goes by quickly :-)

Pictures from Nicaragua!

Here's Rachel and I at the top of the volcano, ready to go boarding down!!! We had to wear these huge suits and goggles cause the rock pieces flew up at you as you went by- and it's the only protection if you fall off too! the speed record was 87 kph. i didn't go nearly that fast though.

This photo looks so nice doesn't it? Haha, but right there i am SOOO incredibly grumpy. This was after the longest night ever- we tried to take the fery off the island of ometepe 3 times before actually catching it, then we were too late to get a bus from rivas to san juan del sur so we had to pay a ton for a taxi. then we got into san juan del sur too late to find a hostel- they were all full. so we ended up paying to sleep on 2 couches in the lobby of the big party hostel where people were already drunk at 6 pm and they were constantly walking in and out all night. the music was blasting, lights were on and it was so loud we hardly got any sleep. we decided to get up at 430 to catch the 5 am bus out of there, only we missed the bus! and the next one wasn't til 7 am! rachel refused to go back to the awful hostel so we went and slept on the beach for the time instead haha. And that is the story of this photo.

This was on the bus back from the costa rica border- another insane, unplanned for adventure. i had to cross into there to get a new visa but it cost about $15 to do the border crossing so rachel sat on the nicaragua side to wait for me. Only we didn't know that i had to stay in costa rica for 3 hours!!! i tried to see if they would let me go back sooner, but nope. so i had to sit in the stupid office on the costa rica side for hours while rachel sat on the ground in nicargaua for hours haha. she had told me she wouldn't move and she didn't! she said lots of people kept asking her why she was sitting in the sun and she just told them "I LIKE THE SUN!" some guys asked her if she wanted a boyfriend, one man proposed, by the end of 3 hours everyone knew her and name and kept asking where her friend was haha. but here we are with our trits ice cream that we were told by other backpackers you can't miss!it's basically like and ice cream cookie sandwhich and it was definitely good! the lady i bought them from in costa rica was really nice and let me bring them back and store them in the freezer for a few extra hours when i found out i was going ot have to stay.

Ah i loved this place :-) it was in maderas, and you can see our hostel was right on the beach. it was only us and 2 other ladies staying there and it was so beautiful! i tried to learn to surf, but it was a lot harder than expected haha. rachel is a great teacher, but the waves were not good at all. i ended up with bloody and black and blue hips and knees and rachel got stung by a jellyfish so we decided to leave after that.

we went to masaya from maderas to look for hammocks! and met 2 other gringos along the way who ended up being from mass!!!!!!!!! so crazy! they decided to come with us to masaya and this was the local transportation we had to get to our hostel. poor horse that pulled all of us plus our backpacks and the guys' surfboards!

this was at the beach in leon where i got super sunburnt in record time haha. i'm about to get drenched here so i just thought this pic was cool :-)

well that's about it for now. I want to try to do some kind of easter egg hunt for the kids this week since i have tons of candy and i thin it would be fun. they don't sell plastic eggs down here, so tomorrow i'm gonna try to figure out what to buy instead. only 3 more weeks! i'm afraid they're going to go by really slow but we'll see.....

Hitchiking adventures and miracles

Well I'm am officially back safe and sound! The trip was so crazy, but also so much fun and I have tons of pictures to show from it. I'll try to upload some at some point if the internet will cooperate.

Yesterday was sad saying bye to Rachel :-( We got up at 3:30 am for our buses, hers to costa rica and mine to honduras. Good news though is that she's going to come visit mass whenshe's in the states! So she should be there the end of May when I am home as well for Kerri's grad and birthday party. Then she'll drive out to Nebraska with Pablo and Mari and I afterwards too. I can't wait!

My bus was about 8 hours from Nicaragua to Tegucigalpa where I then needed another 5 hour bus to get back to Santa Barbara. Well I walked around a while and asked about 20 people for directions to the second bus station. Finally found it after a very frustrating amount of time, only to discover that something was wrong with the bus and it wasn't running for the afternoon! And it's the ONLY bus to santa barbara! I did some quick math and called a friend of mine who lived in teguc for a while to see if i should take a bus to san pedro and then from there to santa barbara instead. but turned out it was too late and i wouldn't be able to make the last bus there either. I really did not want to stay in the city overnight by myself and was standing there not sure what to do- but God is so good!

A man walked up wearing the company shirt for the bus i was supposed to take. I recognized him cause he's been there when I've used the bus in the past. He asked if I was going to santa barbara and told me to go on this other bus with him. It was going to Pito Solo and then he said I could ride with him from there back to S.B. sounded good to me so off i went! we got off at pito solo, some guy came by in a truck and we hopped in the back with one other man who ended up being a doctor in S.B. The bus guy got off about halfway through and i thanked him and said bye. Then the doctor and I rode the rest of hte way and I found out he actually works with my friend Carolina's parents! He knows her family and everything. He was super nice and even drove me to the hogar from the center of S.B. I was so thankful and just kept praying so many times- God is so good and watched over me so that everything worked out.

The bad part of the day was that Fea is now gone :-( i'm not sure what happened to her, but I got back and she was no longer on my backpack. She travelled all over the world with me for the past 2 years and she's dearly missed. I cried :-(

Now I'm off to the IHNFA. Good news is that the teachers are finally off strike! So last week the kids all had classes!!!! Yay! My morning are going to be a bit more boring now without the kids but oh well, i'm glad they're back in school. more adventure updates later. Love you guys!! 3 weeks!!!!

pastel de chocolate en la isla de ometepe

our day today was kinda non eventful. we got up at 530 this morning and after lots of buses, taxis, and a ferry we made it here by 1230. everything on this island is really far away to do though so we just wandered around lost for the afternoon haha. we tried to follow directions to the beach that was supposed to be 15 mins away but after an hour of walking we figured we had gone too far. we were also out of water by that time so when we did finally find the beach we didn´t want to stay- we had a new mission: find more water!! took probably another half hour at least of walking around to many different pulperias before we found one with water. and then we walked all the way back to the beach again. the beach wasn´t even that nice, very small shore area that was dirty, the water smelled like bad fish, and the local kids threw mangoes at us the whole time. and they hurt! so we only stayed about 10 mins there haha.

i talked to some american who has been living in nicaragua for 5 years and he told us where to get the best pizza so we did that. and one guy (Michel) we had met at the hostel yesterday told us we HAD to go to this place that sells the best chocolate cake in the whole world. we did that first thing and let me tell you he wasn´t lying!!! it was literally the best chocolate cake i´ve ever had! apparently this guy has tried to buy the recipe before though and the american guy that runs the cafe won´t sell it. darn.

our hostel tonight is not as nice as the other one, the beds are a lot harder and a little more run down. but it´s only 3.75 a night! and super super hippie. this super old couple runs it and the old man has the longest dreads ever!!! his wife is still super hippie looking even with her long gray hair in braids too haha. apparently it´s the hostel that most of the young crowd goes to cause we were wandering around looking for it and some guy was like you want the hostel central? so he showed us how to get there.

not sure yet the plan of what we´re gonna do tomorrow. we´ll try to meet people at the hostel tonight and see what they suggest. the people are all pretty friendly. except there´s a random duck that lives there that wanders around biting peoples´legs and a deer as well that just walks around. haha funny things the stuff you see down here.

volcano boarding!

volcano boarding today was pretty sweet! took about 5 hours total to first drive out there in a super bumpy truck, and that was super fun, then hike up the volcano with the board and gear, then look around and board down and drive back. they gave us orange jump suits, but it wasn´t too hot so that was good. we were at the volcan cerro negro, which has a record for the most eruptions in the world. it´s still active too, we touched the gravel and it was hot. i got so scared going down once we were at thetop cause it was really steep!!!!! but once we were actuallygoing down it wasn´t too bad at all, you could control whether you wanted to go faster or slower or whatever. only took like 2 mins to board down it and about an hour to hike up haha. but it was cool to do, i´m glad we stayed an extra day for it.

tomorrow morning we´re heading out to the island of ometepe. it´s supposed to be super gorgeous, in the middle of a lake with 2 volcanoes on it. we may hike the volcano but we´ve been told it´s a pretty intense 8 hour hike and the view at the top isn´t that great. there´s supposed to be some cool waterfalls and springs though so we´ll probably at least check out those. hopèfully i´ll have internet tomorrow night but i´m not sure.

yesterday surfing was really disappointing' we didn´t get to go! the waves weren´t good so we just hung out at the beach instead, but that got boring after a while cause the riptide was super strong so you couldn´t really just chill in the water. and it was super hot too! so after a coupel hours we headed back. funny since it took 2 hours on the bus to get there that morning haha. but only 45 mins to get back which was nice! we went to the movies last night and saw secretariat for like $2. it was better than i thought it would be and it was in english with spanish subtitles.

we´ve met so many cool people on this trip! today we hung out with a guy from england a guy from canada. that had randomly met in mexico in february and have been travelling together ever since. they´re really funny so that was cool. we´ve been hanging out with a girl from holland as well, so many cool people at the hostel! yesterday some guy from holland came to the beach withus so it was fun talking to him. he´s like a 30something year old graphic designer who was just taking a 3 week vacation. so not thehippy backpacker type like the others we´ve met haha. everyoneis really nice.

gosh it´s just sooo hot here all the time. i´m getting tired of the sun. it´s crazy though to think you guys are still cold up in the states. is there snow at all? or is spring finallywarming things up there? well that´s all for now, my internet time is almost up and we´ve gotta go find some food for dinner. early morning tomorrow to get to the island. hope all is well! one month from today i will be travelling back home!!! can´t wait!!!!

Leon, Nicaragua!

 just a quick update to let you know i made it here to leon, nicaragua safe and sound!!!! our hostel tonight is soooo cool! it´s a big dorm style set up so we´re sharing bathrooms showers and the room with lotsof otherpeople. but it has lots of bright colors, hammocks to lay around in, a pòol table and tons of gringos around. I´ll take lots of pics. we´re actually gonna be here 2 nights now cuase the volcano boarding isn´t offered on sundays. so tomorrow we´ll go to the beach and rachel will teach me to surf! then monday morning do some souvenir shopping and volcano boarding in the afternoon. tuesday morning we´ll head to our next stop.

internet doesnt work at the hostel so we´re using an internet cafe next door right now. we met a cool candian girl who´s staying at the hostel so we´re hanging out with her and gonna go to dinner with her and her friends after. we also met two guys from seattle who invited us to dinner with them but we passed. they´ve been biking for 7 months and started from seattle going all the way to panama!!! they´ve got one month left and then they´re flying home.

everyone we go we also see signs wanting volunteers for a week or 2!! i wish i had just done that, travelled around place to place volunteering. how fun! getting to see tons of stuff and helping at the same time.
well i dont have tons of time on here but just wanted to let you know i´m doing great. so many bus rides today (4 buses and 1 taxi!) it´s sooo hot here i´m sweating all the time so the beach tomorrow should be nice.

everything here is really cheap! our hostel last night was 5 bucks and tonight is 6. and i think it cost about 12 bucks total for all the buses to get here. only nicaragua charges another 12 for entering the country so that was our most expensive thing so far. haven´t eaten a whole lot yet, bought a coconut for lunch today that was really good. and tomorrow night is pizza night at the hostel which should be nice. we met some older guy staying there who is gonna come to the beach with us tomorrow cause rachel´s gonna teach him to surf. otherwise he´ll have to hire and instructor, so this way maybe he´ll just pay for our boards for us and it´ll all work out good.


i´m having so much fun!!!

Quick Update

Just a quick thing here to say that I'm leaving for Nicaragua with Rachel tomorrow! I'm super excited to be getting away from here for a few days. We will be gone til April 10th and stopping Costa Rica real quick at some point as well. Lots of fun things in store, and I will be safe and careful. Mom has my itinerary for the places I'll be at. And I will hopefully have internet along the way as well. I'm not sure I'll have time to update my blog so if not I'll have lots to say in a week from now!!!!! It will be sad saying bye to Rachel at the end, but she's gonna try to come visit me in Mass while she's in the States, so that would be sweet!

Love you guys! Kelly

Border Run

This weekend was fun again! Not much excitement on Friday or Saturday besides it being like a million degrees. I literally walked into my room and was like ahhh this feels so much cooler- only to see it was 82 in there! Funny how I don't mind not having hot showers all the time as much now. Did i mention the shower excitement we had a few weeks ago? If so please skip past this point, but if not read on. Our shower actually exploded. Not really sure what happened but Jessica came running out one morning and the bathroom was full of smoke. The shower haed had completely melted and was facing the wall and water was spraying everywhere. We couldn't touch it to turn the water off cause the thing was super hot- in fact the guy that came to fix it got a bad burn on his arm. Anyway it's all good now, but that was quite exciting when it happened.

Back to this weekend though: Rachel and I tagged along with the last American group to visit while I'm here. From walla walla college in washington, and they were pretty nice. We travelled to Copan with them which took 4 hours (would've been at least 6 by bus on our own) where there are famous ancient Mayan Ruins. We never actually saw the ruins though haha- i'd like to still at some point so maybe I'll make it back there. But instead the group was all going zipling and paid for us to go along as well! I've learned first hand how much a lifesaver visiting mission groups are for student missionaries. They have been so great for socializing and hanging out and they always pay and take care of me as well. This ziplining was way better than the other one i did too!!!! It had 14 lines, the longest of which was 4 meters. And they went a lot farther and faster than the other one, plus the views were way better. I LOVED IT!

Afterwards we went into town and had some delicious american pizza! It's actually at the same place the last group told me to go to if i ever make it there haha. I ordered a pizza to bring back with me to the hogar as well so i may eat that tomorrow night. bad news is i'm sick AGAIN. the last awful cold lasted 3 weeks and i just got over that 2 weeks ago! so i hope this will be gone much faster, i have the meds ready for me now. but it's hard not sleeping at night cause i'm up coughing so much. then i'm super tired in the morning trying to be with the kids. the teachers are still on strike! so say a prayer that i get better soon or am at least able to sleep at night please.

Most random part was after pizza when we had 45 mins to wander around til the bus came. Rachel and I didn't want to buy anything cause it was all expensive shop stuff- the local markets are so much cheaper. So instead we decided to grab a taxi and head to guatemala! The taxi cost like $8, and it was a little 3 wheeled one that just had like a covered part in the back over a bench that we sat on. It was cool :-) The 10 mins the guy told us it would be were actually about 20, so he parked near the border, we literally jumped out and ran across to guatemala. Got our passports stamped (the guy was laughing cause we were so out of breath and he asked where we were going. I told him we were only staying for 5 mins to take a picture) and took a pic by the guatemala sign. Then we ran back across the border and jumped into the taxi to head back into town. so it was quite random, but it was a fun way to spend the last few mins haha. and i have a guatemala stamp in my passport now!

internet is being too slow for pictures :-(

Well it's been a while since I updated this! I had to read through my last post and remember where i left off.

The past week has been quite eventful for me actually. Bethany, the American girl that was visiting, was super, super nice! We hung out for the weekend and on Sunday we went to her friend's house in town for lunch. She had met this family when she was here before and kept in touch with them. They have lived in the States a bit so their English is really good and when they found out I was living here they told me to call them up any time I want to go over for dinner, or to spend the night or whatever. They took my number too and said they'll let me know sometime if they go travelling on the weekend to San Pedro or something. Super nice!

On Sabbath we also went with all the kids to some old abandoned castle thing. It looked nothing like a castle, just an old run down building on a hill. But it was still fun to do something and there was no one there at all. The story is that an old president of Honduras lived there and it was good cause he could see all around for when people tried to attack- they even had tunnels running down into Santa Barbara. But then his daughter got tuberculosis (?) so they burned the whole place down to stop the spread of the disease and everyone left. People still don't go visit cause they don't want to get sick.

Then Rachel came on Tuesday!!!!!! It has been such an answer to prayer to have her here, someone to hang out with and talk to :-) I think she's going to stay all next week as well which will be great. This weekend we're gonna try to see if we can tag along with a group of Americans that are staying about a half hour away- they're going to Copan where there are a bunch of amazing Mayan Ruins. Rachel has been there already but she's up for going again. So I really hope it works out cause it's twice as long to get there by bus than if we can go with the group.

Rachel is one crazy Australian that's for sure! She's 18 and has been travelling central america since nov- and will keep it up til november this year as well! she started off with her brother but now has been on her own for the past couple months and has no plan at all for where she goes next or what she does. Crazy! But she is flying to the states to tour canada and the U.S. later in April so maybe she'll stop by in nebraska for a bit too :-)

This week we also went to a friend's house here in Gualjoco- I met her a couple weeks ago, she's my age, and just finished college so she's searching for a job and not doing anything right now! She only lives like a minute's drive from the Hogar so she was like we should hang out! come over anytime for dinner and we can watch movies or whatever! So we went to Carolina's house on weds night and it was sooo nice! She ordered pizza for us and it kinda felt like being back in teh states again :-) she just got back from 4 months in the states so her english is good and her house is beautiful- both her parents are doctors.

other than that, i had the most depressing discovery 2 nights ago. I've been counting each week as it went by and was like woo hoo only 5 weeks left!!! But then found out that somewhere I had gotten off by a week and it's actually 6 weeks that i have left. UGH. I'm trying to see if i can get a week away to go travelling with Rachel a little but i'm not sure yet if that will work. I'm at the point of not thinking I can last 6 more weeks here. I'm super tempted to leave early and just go volunteer in Choluteca with maranatha again. but i don't want to completely give up yet. so i really hope they give me the time off. i've been praying about it like crazy, but i just can't shake this awful depression. so we'll see what happens. again, i'm just so glad rachel is here right now and that she's willing to spend some time here even though it's not exactlyt he most thrilling place to be.

that's about all for now. happy sabbath everyone! i can't wait to see you guys.

Just some random pictures and things

Here's me actually assisting in the vaginal hysterectomy. I was very up close and personal with it you can see.

Haha my ears look funny hear but i wasn't allowed to touch my head to fix my mask or hair thing at all.

I LOVE this picture! Look at Vanessa's face!! She is glaring at me hardcore while I'm trying to give her my mean face back since I'm telling her to wait her turn and she wont listen. She is the worst girl for me at the IHNFA, she just has such an attitude of I don't have to listen to you. This was while I was passing out the poppers to the kids that my mom sent- which they loved btw!!!

Orlin and I again. Gosh this kid is such a sweetie and always asks to take pics with me. He likes to count how many pics I have of him on my computer. This was on the bus on the way to church.

Other than that I don't have too much excitement to put here. The kids have loved the Americans doing a VBS program this week for them- they sing songs with the guitar, and of course get so excited to do crafts and color. Today was the last day for it though so tomorrow will be back to normal. The teachers here are still on strike so the kids haven't had any school this week. We'll see if they have any next week- I was told one time there was an entire year that went by without any school for the kids.

I think Rachel, a girl I met in Choluteca, may be coming to visit me next week and stay for a little while which would be great! And right now there's a German group here who will be here for 2 weeks. And an American girl just arrived today too- I guess she was an SM in Comayagua (about 3 hours away) a couple years ago and came to the hogar on weekends to visit. She's here til Sunday and I think she may come to the IHNFA with me tomorrow. She seems really nice!

The American group is going to Copan tomorrow to see the Mayan ruins that are supposed to be amazing! I really wanted to go with them!!!! But I have to be at the IHNFA so I can't. It's about 3 hours away though so my mission is now to find someone who will go with me on a Sunday sometime before I leave here.

I can't believe I'm now down to just 6 weeks left here! I was dreading March thinking it was going to go by sooo slowly but it's already half way over now. I'm really getting excited to come back home but gosh I'm gonna miss these kids so much!! I love them to death it's going to be hard to leave them.

Zip Line!

There's a group visiting now from Indiana Academy and today then went to visit a waterfall a couple hours away. I asked if I could tag along and I ended up going zip lining!! I was super scared at first but they paid for me to go so I couldn't really chicken out- and it ended up being super fun!!! It was not scary at all and I wish I could've gone more :-)

Some of my favorites :-) Waldina, Leyla, Oscarito and Paola. These are the ones who were living on their own for a month but couldn't come live here at the hogar. Oscarito is the one that pooped all over the place too haha. I love these kids so much!!

I don't have much time for other updates but this week the americans are coming to help out at the IHNFA so we'll see how that goes! Should be fun :-)

Surgery!

My birthday dinner- reheated leftover pizza hut pizza and freshly squeezed orange juice :-)

Yesterday had quite a bit of excitement for me down here. I woke up to the sound of a waterfall in the bathroom and Jessica came racing out the door. Our shower had like exploded in there while she was using it! Not really sure what happened exactly, but the shower head had completely melted and was facing the wall of the shower, water was going everywhere, and there was smoke pouring out of the thing. We called the handyman here to look at it and he came over right away. I needed to brush my teeth and he was like here you can use the bathroom but I was like no it’s ok. He was trying to insist on it til I reluctantly told him that our sink was actually clogged and not working either haha. Oops. The shower then broke again last night doing the same thing as the morning. So we had a cold shower this morning and we’ll see if they can figure out what to do by tonight.

                I also spent yesterday morning with the surgical group from North Carolina who are here visiting. Dr. Williams comes down twice a year, apparently for years now- both his daughters spent a year here as SMs. So I went to the clinic with them and watched a hysterectomy take place first hand!! I know I know most of you who know me are probably like how in the world did that go for you? Haha. I’m not exactly the medical type. But I figured I should take advantage of these kinds of opportunities since they may not happen again. It was pretty crazy, I didn’t pass out or puke or anything cause thankfully there was a lot less blood than I was expecting. They just sliced her open and took out the ovaries and uterus and I was just like woah.

 Today I actually “scrubbed in” and assisted with the surgery- a vaginal hysterectomy.  I lasted about half way through holding the clamps in place to keep the layers of skin back- and then the queasiness set in and I was done haha. No fainting, but I couldn’t take anymore. They all told me not to give up on a career in medicince cause everyone faints once. But I don’t think I’m cut out for it J. The group is only here til tomorrow I think and then tomorrow the group of students from Indiana arrives. So yay for lots of people to hang out with!!

                Last funny story. I was talking to Pablo last night sitting outside and I heard a door rattling hard core down the hallway. At night they lock all the kids doors from the outside so they can’t get out and get into trouble at night, but this one sounded like it was coming from Vicki’s room. Vicki is this super old lady who lives here and is practically deaf. All the kids like joking around and yelling her name super loud when she’s around cause she doesn’t hear anything. Well she was trying to get out of her room! I told Jessica and we went over there and opened it and were like what do you need? She was like I couldn’t get the door open! She’s old and crazy so she was just rambling about this and that. We said goodnight and left and last I saw she was just standing in her doorway waiting for Maria something to come and stay with her. Not really sure what time she finally decided to go to bed haha.

Birthday Cake!!!

With my little David again :-) Gosh this kid loves me so much and i love him too! Jessica told me the other day that before I came he never spoke to anyone. He doesn't talk much now, but at least he'll say a few basic words so I'm happy! I made a little bit of a difference here after all. I'm gonna miss him a lot when I leave

Olvin is such a cutie, he's at the hogar with me. He's been begging for me to take a picture with him for a while so here it is from tonight. he fell asleep on me during vespers, it was cute :-)

Yesterday was Mitchel (a girl from the IHNFA's birthday) and today is Mauricio's birthday, a staff at the hogar and tomorrow is mine. So they made chocolate cake tonight for after dinner and it was sooo delicious!!! Still no internet but at least I can now hook up my computer to a cable and it will work that way. Happy Sabbath everyone!

Most disgusting day of my life

Wow. I think today was officially the most disgusting day of my life. Oscaritos was in the way while some of the kids were trying to clean today so I was making him move and when he stood up a whole ton of brown stuff poured down his legs. He had pooped his pants and it was dyherrea as usual. I had to take the clothes off with my bare hands and made him stay in the shower for a long time. And then I had to clean all the clothes by hand as well!!!!!! There was nothing I could do about it and let’s just say I was very, very grossed out. I have never wished for a washing machine more in my life. I washed my hands with soap and water a million times afterwards and used tons of hand sanitizer but it felt like I was never going to be clean again!

On that note, the kids that I wrote about last night- turns out they won’t be living here with us afterall. Nelson went to the lawyer/D.A. today with their dad to get the papers signed and they said the kids need to stay with the dad. I’m not really sure why. That’s pretty disappointing to me, but at least they will still be coming to the IHNFA each day.

I forgot to tell this story but one night while I was helping at the VBS in Choluteca 2 of the staff wanted to give away stickers to the kids. They were doing ok at first passing them to them as they left, but soon word got out and they were MOBBED.  I mean tons of kids pushing and shoving and pulling on them. When I saw I walked over and was like do you want some help? Haha they were yes please! So I started yelling at the all the kids telling them to make a line and wait and stuff. It worked and things went much smoother- I felt like I was back at the IHNFA, right at home haha! And when I turned everyone was like yeah we can tell you work with kids down here J

So it’s super hot here in Santa Barbara now too. At least in Choluteca I had a nice air conditioned room to go back to at night and escape the heat- yesterday my room here was 91 degrees. The fan works now thank goodness, but it’s still not super comfortable. And it’s supposed to get hotter too. Yikes

Re cap of the last week and my return to the Hogar

So I made it back safe and sound and now finally have time for an update here! The internet still isn’t working at the Hogar so I’m writing this on my new laptop and then going to save it onto a flash drive and put it up later tonight when I borrow one of the computers here. We left a message with the computer guy today so hopefully he will call back soon and then come look at it- I really hope it’s fixed by the end of the week so I can have skype and stuff for the weekend.

It was so so sad saying goodbye to everyone yesterday L I did not want to come back and was feeling really depressed at the thought of being all alone again. I met so many new people during the mission trip that I was leaving behind more friends than I had originally planned on- they were all so nice, giving me lots of stuff to take back and money to help with things while I’m down here as well. Bob, the leader of the group, and the local pastor here now want me to go teach at the pastor’s school down here for a year! But I kindly turned that offer down.

I shared my story a bit about my time here in Honduras for dinner one night and talked about how hard it has been for me. I told them how Tori (my college roommate) had sent down a stack of letters for me to open on different days and how Pablo had been so good with emailing me every single day with lots of encouragement. At the end I shared a Bible verse that Tori had sent me from 2^nd Corinthians 4:16-18. I suggest you all look it up, but it talks about not giving up since this time on earth is only temporary. At the end I went to sit back down and Bob’s wife stopped me telling she had 2 pieces of advice: I thought they were going to be about how to live down here but instead she said first, keep that girlfriend of your’s close to heart always and second, marry that boy! I told her I plan to do both J

I came back with some great presents including movies I had bought for the kids, tons of pb and j, Spanish Bibles and asthma meds for little Oscarlitos who has super bad asthma. That’s nowhere near everything, but that’s at least a start haha. God is good because as soon as I got back the kids at the Hogar all ran to me with hugs and wanted to see the presents of course. And I then found out that we have 4 kids from the IHNFA now living here at the Hogar- Oscarito and his 3 sisters!!!! One of the girls has been wanting a Spanish Bible so that worked out great and now Oscarito is living here so we can make sure he gets enough meds when he needs it. I’m so happy to have them all living here cause they were some of my favorite kids from the IHNFA but I’m disappointed I won’t be seeing them all day anymore. I asked them today about why they were here now and they said their mom had taken off to San Pedro and they don’t know why. Their dad left them too and is now with another woman- this woman has her own kids and doesn’t like these little ones so they have been on their own for a month!!! I couldn’t believe it, the oldest girl is only 10 years old. She said they haven´t had any food besides what they were getting at the IHNFA.

This morning their dad came to the IHNFA to work things out for them to live at the Hogar permanently and the kids are so excited. I went with them this afternoon to their house to get all their stuff.  It was so sad seeing it- everything was a mess, someone had broken in and stolen their mattresses so they had nowhere to sleep. They had no bathroom and when Oscarito had to poop they just took him outside and pulled his pants off while he squatted and out came tons of dyherrea. We gathered up their clothes and books and left- I don’t know what will happen to their house at all cause there’s a bunch of random things still there.

Well that’s a big update for today, sorry everyone. No worries if you don’t get through it all. I have a little over 8 weeks left now! I hope I can make it. The time in Choluteca was so wonderful, I am so so happy I was able to go and stay for so long. And now I just need to keep positive here at the Hogar. I love you all and miss you as always.