No Mas Busito Por Favor!

Today I rode for 12 hours in what people call the "busito" aka baby bus. Our destination was Copan and it seemed like we would never get there... Let me tell ya now, there was no wiggle room and we only stopped for gas and food. With limited space, it was a long ride so we had to find ways to intertain ourselves. We talked about engagements, future plans, places to go in the states, past family vacations, and much more. We also played catch-a-phrase until people started to snooze. It was a great time to catch up on homework and blogging (hence the extra blog posts) and I will probably have a hard time sleeping because I feel liked I napped all day long!
We finally made it to Copan, settled into our awesome hotel, and went out on the town for dinner. It's funny being in a touristy town because almost 1/2 the people speak English. IT's almost culture shock all over again because now we have to be careful what we say in English and Spanish. Not much has happened tonight but I better get some ZZZZ so that I can enjoy exploring the ruins tomorrow.

Night Y'all!!!

My Ghost Buster Day

So today Claire and I worked on the ranch and we had no idea what was in store for us. We find Martín and he gives us the option to scoop poop or do some type of spraying thing (I got lost in the translating part lol). We of course choose the non-poop scooping option, but little did we know that he would give us our very own Ghost Buster machines!! These handy-dandy sprayers work by pumping with one hand and holding down the trigger with the other. What you can't really tell is that they are half way full and pretty heavy. Claire and I sprayed all around a pond next to the main barn and down the mountain side next to a road.  I did pretty good until I tried to get back up the mountain... let's just say I was clinging to a tree for a few seconds until I decided I would take the long way around lol. After lunch we decided that Marina (in the bodega) needed more help making food bags. We ended up making almost 200 food bags ranging from 40-60 lbs! It was fun, tiring but also rewarding because you could see the fruits of your labor.

1,2,3….600

Today Michael and I took inventory in at the CITD in Monjaras. Let’s just say that inventory is not my favorite job at the CITD; therefore, it seemed like I was counting butcher paper for hours on end. By lunchtime, Michael and I were ready for a break. Justo stated that there was a place in Monjaras that had “baleadas muy ricas” so we decided we couldn’t miss out on the awesome baleadas! Now, baleadas are a typical Honduran dish that has become a favorite of mine. This baleada had refried beans, shredded chicken, and butter sauce all in a flour tortilla and hit the spot. After lunch we went back to the school just as one of the groups arrived to hand out shoes and matching t-shirts. They had so many bags of crock-like shoes in different sizes so each child was able to leave the room with shoes perfectly fitting them. It was a great way to end the day because I loved seeing all of the smiling faces.

Update on the Medical Brigade: They were able to see over 30 people in the dentistry and overall saw 162 people. One of the 3 year-old children has shown up with a 105 fever for the 3^rd day in a row so Erin went with one of the group members to take the child to the hospital. Please pray for this child and the other one, who was taken to the hospital yesterday. The one with the infected foot is stable and the surgery went well, but we still do not know the long-term damage from the infection. 

Construct[ion]fully Using All My Energy

Today was my first time working on the construction site with a group and they blew me away. There were so many projects going on at once; it was structured chaos! We had people cutting wire, bending metal rods and twisting them all together to create handmade rebar. We had people working on the electrical wiring by balancing on 2 story ladders and support beams (thankfully no one went kersplat!). Others were mixing cement by hand and putting up the rebar or stacking bricks for the outside walls. Once people finished one job, they would join another group or take over someone else’s job so they could have water breaks. I could not believe how well everyone was working together and not complaining about the hard work or heat. They have truly been a blessing to work with. Towards the end of the workday, mostly everyone had finished the smaller jobs and went to work on leveling the floor. This involves shovelers, wheelbarrow pushers, and rakers (leveling all of the dirt being wheeled in).  Needless to say everyone was working hard and ended the day tired and sweaty.

Update on the Medical Brigade: The young boy with the infected foot was taken to the hospital today and will have surgery on it tonight. Please pray for his surgery, road for recovery, and the money the family will need to pay for the procedure.

Popping Pills

Today I worked in the office with Claire and Kelsey. We spent the entire morning counting pills and then packing them up in lockers and plastic tubs so they will be ready for the Medical Brigade tomorrow. It was fun to see Claire take charge and organize the never-ending bags of pills. I can tell that she will be a great pharmacist some day! The big group came in right before dinner and we were all excited and a little bit nervous. It was our first time to show people where their cabins are and make sure they have everything they need. Most of us had never been to the group cabins so we explored a little bit, found the cabins that we needed to know and then sat on the porch and waited for the group to arrive. The first group had been here before and did not need much help at all but the second bus needed much more help since most of that group had never been to Honduras. I still don’t know how all of those trucks were able to park up in the parking lot and still have room for the charter busses to turn around! Those charter busses are sooooo big that they almost hit the roof of the Tienda with their side mirrors!

The Face of the Facts

What I have learned so far is that numbers don’t do the math justice. I can hear fact after fact of malnourished or starving children, but I didn’t fully grasp what the numbers meant. This week it hit me hard. It is hard to ignore the facts when doing the surveys and hearing how the parent you are interviewing has had children actually die from malnutrition. The nutrition program here at ML was started because one child died from hunger. Mind blowing how so many children are being impacted today from one child dying. Today I actually got to help with the nutrition program today. Lexi (the nurse in charge) weighed, measured, diagnosed, and prescribed medicine to 55 children in 4 different towns. Now Lexi is a hard worker, that’s for sure. All of those 55 faces were precious, happy children. I can’t really express how hard it is when the facts began to have faces. 

Feliz Cumple

Today was Mary Kyle’s birthday and we were able to surprise her with many different things. First, Mary Kyle and I were suppose to work on the ranch, but Martin did not have any work for us, so we went to the office (packing pills and taking it easy). That night we surprised her by blindfolding her and  taking her out to eat at one of our favorite local restaurants, Garomar. Everyone got some baleadas or flautas, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed each other's company. Then we blindfolded her and went over to Meredith and Mallory's house to eat some cake and ice cream. She even got to hit a piñata with candy spraying everywhere. 

Free Falling Saturday

**Steven is ready for PIZZA & BBALL**

It felt like I fell of the face of the planet today because I slept soooooo much. I ended up sleeping 27 out of 34 hours, but I did wake up for lunch and dinner. Dinner was fun because we all went to Pizza Hut in Choluteca. The food was good and we also got to watch the Heat vs. Celtics (feeling very much like home). All of the guys were beyond syked to be able to watch the game. After a couple of failed attempts, I even got to skype my parents for a few minutes, which was definitely the highlight of my night!

Survey Smervey

Today I worked on the surveys for Las Pitas. This involves Justo driving us to Choluteca and then Javier, a preacher in Las Pitas, driving us up the bumpiest road in my opinion. The 4-wheel drive even has some trouble in spots where there are more rocks than dirt on the road. After a good battering, Claire and I were off to survey people. The questions were mostly written out in Spanish except for one section, so you would think that everything should go easy-peasy… Well for some reason, I kept getting numbers and letters confused. I also struggled on the one question that was not written in English. It got to where the the Hondurans were listening to me ask and then would look straight at Yelson (the preacher helping us out) for a translation of my poor Spanish. It was crazy hard and I wanted to quit so many times, but Claire kept encouraging me and Yelson never gave up on me so I kept going. We ended up completing 6 surveys by the time Yelson took us back so that Javier could drive us back down. We ended our excursion with a trip to Windy’s and got us a frosty, a great way to end a hard day for sure!

Typical Day In San Marcos

Today I went to the CITD in San Marcos and got to shadow a Pre-K teacher.  She taught about David and Goliath, the vowls in Spanish, and they learned how to write the letter O.  The second half of the day I attempted to shadow another teacher, but I couldn’t understand a word of what she said. After about and hour, she asked me to leave and go cut the alphabet (by hand) out of butcher paper. By the time W came around I was just a little bit brain dead and ended up with this letter:

R-E-S-T Needed

Today was a restful office day and boy did I need it. I was sooooo sore from all the poop scooping yesterday!!! I counted some beans, gathered food bags together and counted adult vitamin pills for future medical brigades. Since I don't have much to talk about, here are some things that I see every day.

**My bed where I sleep every night in the girl's cabin**

**Our simple but needed kitchen in the girl's cabin**

Knocked #18 Off

So today I completed one of my life long dreams... I MILKED A COW!!!!!! Yes, this morning I woke up by 5:15 AM to be able to milk a cow. If you know me at all, I hate waking up in the morning especially THAT early! The rest of the day I spent with Kelsey poop scooping. Let me tell ya, that is hard work! I'm so glad I was with Kelsey though because we spent the whole day laughing and encouraging each other. We also accidently befriended a brother and sister from the Refuge (Mission Lazarus' home for kids abused, neglected, or orphaned). I can't wait to see Jesus and Marsela later in the summer.

** I forgot to take pictures, so I guess I will have to go milk the cows again ;)

CITD not seed

Went to Limon today and got to hang out with Ema! The first part of the day we took inventory of their books and the second part of the day we played with the kids during their lunch break. It was so much fun being able to hang out with the kids, playing new games and giving many hugs. Can't wait to go back to that CITD school!!!

Week 1 Was So Fun

**The Water Purification System in the San Marcos CITD**

The first week went by so fast, but I can already tell God is moving things here at Mission Lazarus. We visited several schools, churches, medical centers, the office and the bodega. I didn't realize how big Mission Lazarus was or how many outreaches they have in each ministry. I'm excited to work with the elementary/vocational schools and work with the groups that come through. Not gonna lie, the medical outreaches make me a little nervous. I am not very medically inclined, but they did teach me how to take someone's blood pressure and pulse. Seeing how most people are going on to some type of medical school, I think there will be plenty of help elsewhere.

Sunday Interventions

Today we tried to go to church in Jayacan but it didn’t work out so we held our own church service. I really enjoyed hearing other intern’s thoughts and new scriptures that they had read this week. I knew that I was surrounded by a good group of people, but today made that very apparent. We ended our special service by lifting each other up in prayer. I definitely needed this and I’m so glad our plans ended up changing. Must have been a God thing :)

Going Local or Loco?

So Friday night/ Saturday morning we participated in what they call “going local.” We were dropped off on the top of Las Pitas and separated into pairs. Ali and I ended up with young girl named Anna and her two precious little boys and daughter. She gave us just a glimpse of a typical life in the mountains here in Honduras. She had no running water or electricity in her house. Her toilet was plastic and sitting on top of some thick tree branches over a deep hole with bushes and a sheet for privacy. Her kitchen had an adobe fire pit where all the food was cooked and 2 tables, one for prepping food and the other for holding her water. The closest water source was a 15-minute walk down hill from her house so she has to carry water every day up hill, sometimes making the trip 2-3 times a day. All of the food that she has fits in a big metal mesh bowl that hangs from the ceiling of her kitchen. If you can’t tell yet, Anna’s lifestyle is very different than anything I have ever seen or experienced. Here is a simple breakdown of what we did with her:

1:00ish We arrive, break up into groups, meet our families and put our stuff up in their houses.

2:00ish By this time they realize that Ali and I don’t know much Spanish. So all the neighbors come over to stare at us

3:00ish We decide to visit Anna’s mom but end up playing with all the local kids at the soccer field on the way to her mom’s house. It ended up being a place where all of the interns (except for 2 of the guys) were taken so it was fun seeing everyone and meeting their “adopted” families.

4:00ish We go back because it is starting to be dinnertime here. We end up learning how to make corn tortillas and have fun rolling out the dough and flipping them with our fingers or the knife because there is no spatula. For dinner Anna made spaghetti, added some beans, and gave us some tortillas. We also meet a guy who I call “The Cowboy.” I actually forgot his name but boy was he a character. He was making all of us laugh and ended up singing and reciting love poems to us. He also invited us to his house to watch the novella (soap opera) later that night.

5:00ish Ali decides that she wants to climb the tree outside so we watch her climb this humongous tree. She made it up and then took some real cool pictures (hopefully I’ll post some on here or facebook).  After spending some time up there, she climbs down and Anna starts to do some kind of hoeing chore. Ali quickly asks to help out and does like 10 rows and I do about 2 lol

6:00ish it begins to get dark and we start to head down to the cowboy’s house. It ends up that Reid and Steven were staying with the cowboy so they show us around and take us to the beautiful view behind the house. We come back and awkwardly stand around as all of the Hondurans stare at us and talk to themselves until 7:00.

7:00-8:00 We watched El Passión de something or another. It was hilarious because none of us know what we were watching but I can tell you they weren’t kidding about the passion. Everyone was over dramatizing everything and we couldn’t help but laughing at some parts.

8:15 We have said our goodbyes and walked back to Anna’s house in the pitch dark. I’m surprised that I didn’t fall. We went straight to bed in our hammocks and attempted to sleep until 3:00

3:00 Anna gets up and starts prepping the kitchen for breakfast. She first makes coffee out of a tin can and gives it to us. I actually liked it because it was very sweet, but I wasn’t able to enjoy it for a while because we were back to making tortillas. Her daughter gets up and grabs a chicken in one hand, a machete in another hand and walks out the door. That was when we learned what we were having our roommate for breakfast (the chicken actually slept in the room we did haha). The daughter comes in after a while with a dead chicken and sticks in a bowl to drain. After the tortillas are done, Anna sticks a pot on full of water and we wait for it to boil. Next she sticks the chicken (feathers and all) for a minute or two and then takes the chicken to the table to pluck the feathers off. Ali helped her more with this part, but I did pluck a couple of feathers off.  Then she pulled off the tallions and then she started to chop the bird up into pieces with the machete. I’m trying not to gag, but then she goes and starts pulling out all the chicken guts. The worst was when she cut open the stomach, dumped everything out, and added it to the good parts pile. I had to look away after that for a few minutes. Once the good and bad parts were divided, she washed the good parts off and then puts them in water to boil. Later she adds some tomato paste, vegetable oil, chicken broth cubes, and noodles.

5:00ish This was when the food was ready so we got our plates and had some type of chicken spaghetti soup for breakfast with corn tortillas. The younger boys were starting to wake up so Anna got them up gave them some food too.

6:00ish Cowboy comes up to visit and brings his horse with him. Both Ali and I get to ride his horse for a few minutes and then he gallops of to work. After that, we gather up our stuff and pack our hammocks.

7:00ish Anna starts to make mud to fix her adobe oven (I forgot to mention that Ali broke part of her oven when she was leaning on it sometime that morning). It was really cool how she was able to fix her oven with just a little bit of water and mud. After fixing the oven and washing off, Anna starts gathering clothes and towels. She then takes off the boys clothes, grabs the water bucket, gives us some liter jugs and starts the 15 minute walk to where she gets her water.

8:00ish When get to the waterfront, she takes a bath and washes her clothes. Then we all get to washing the cloths by using rocks and a tubular bar of soap. Never washed clothes by hand before, but it takes quite a bit. I felt bad because the little boy’s shirt was falling apart, yet I had to rub it against a rock to get it clean. I’m guessing that the whole process took about 30minutes because Anna is really fast at washing clothes by hand. We then started the 15 minute walk back but I think it took longer to get back up the hill. Here I was sucking in air just carrying a liter water jug thing and she is probably carrying a 10-liter igloo thing ON HER HEAD, with the clean cloths in her hands.

9:00ish is when probably we got back and literally sat in silence for a while, then Anna made some snacks and then it was time to go back to the top of the mountain.

I have a new found respect for the Hondurans who live in Las Pitas and I am soooo glad that I was able to experience this first hand. I will always treasure this memory in my heart.