Day 1

Day One in Honduras

I personally am staying in Mission Honduras. We got a 6 am wake up call to a breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and fried plantains (like bananas), which were awesome. The boys have been talking about scorpions NON STOP since it was announced that one was found a few days ago.

We all arrived at the school around 8:30. One of the things we're trying to do while we're here is teach the kids some workshops, so today we started by introducing the Rhythm Workshop by going to each room and playing different beats on whatever we could find in the classroom. The kids seem real excited about us coming back to teach them to be a "wonderful rhythm band."

We were going to have a rehersal today in the school's courtyard - one of our performance spaces - but the bell rang and children spilled out into the yard and became entranced with our sparkly and noisy props so we just played with them instead. It was chaotic and amazing. The children are beautiful. They are so excited to see us - we're like celebrities here! Each cast member had a crowd of kids around them and we showed off thecircus skills that we learned for the show.

We aquired a bit of a leech - an adorable curly haired bright eyed one. This little girl named Cyntia came up to me when i was playing clap games with some of the little girls at recess. She pulled me down and wispered in my ear. I didnt know what she said so i thought something was wrong, but one of our translators (3 really cool young guys from Comeyagua) said she said she wanted to play too. I dont think she actually went to the school, becasue she wasn't in uniform and she hung around us all day. She participated when we introduced the workshops to the older kids. I had her on my hip for half of them and the other half she just joined in and started her own rhythm. Luke introduced her to the Bop It and she took to it quite quickly and got really good at it!

The little girls are quite taken with the blue eyed boys. Chris and Dustin both had some rather obvious admirers. Dustin's hair is quite the topic of conversation. We try to say words they know and we know in each other's languages and "verde" is one of them.

After the kids went back to class - we started one of our service projects. The school yard has lots of old rocks and bricks and such so we moved them over to a wall so we can later fix up the yard. We found an agricultural center that is going to donate the topsoil and banana, mango and lemon trees for the children to learn to take care of and eat from! It was a huge blessing to find. It was a huge undertaking though. We're pretty tuckered out and have dust in our lungs but its for the best.

On a more housekeeping, "hey mom and dad we're ok" note - We're ok. We have plenty of water and are eating WONDERFUL food. The mosquitos are pretty non existant so we're probably fine on malaria. Ms. A is rather adament about the sunscreen thing, so we're doing pretty good - although some of us are a tad burnt already. But overall - we're fine. Tired but fine.