Aquí Estoy, Con Manos Alzadas Vengo...

As I pondered what to write for my last blog, I realized that life here at Emmanuel had been relatively uneventful for the past few weeks. All of the teams had left. The kids are in school almost all day. I almost had a routine going...

Then that afternoon, as I was opening the clinic, a little girl crashed a bike into a barbed wire fence at the bottom of the hill. I ran down the hill and pulled her back up to the clinic with me, dripping blood every step of the way. She ended up getting 4 stitches in her forehead later that night. 

The following day, a group of volunteers from Emmanuel rode the "chicken bus" (aka old American school bus) into Tegucigalpa. It wasn't quite as crazy as I expected it to be. I actually slept most of the way. My favorite part of the trip was the bread man that sold warm, sweet bread throughout the bus.

This week has been one of my most challenging weeks at Emmanuel so far. Bayron, a 13 year-old boy with special needs, was sick and needed to stay in the clinic for a few days. As the clinic volunteer, I've spent a lot of time in the clinic. I've slept there with 2 other kids, but this experience was by far the most tiring. Bayron requires so much more attention than those other kids. He wore a diaper while in the clinic and always managed to have a dirty diaper while I was there. One time he had 4 dirty diapers (all requiring showers, sheet changes, and clothing changes) within 3 hours! 2 volunteers had to be there with him all the time because he could be so difficult to manage. He has a constant runny nose, but hates when people wipe his nose (because the boys that take care of him wipe his nose too hard so it's very sore) so he hits their hands away. He doesn't like to take his medicine, and he doesn't really respond when you talk to him. He didn't want to eat and would sometimes take the food in his mouth and throw it on the ground.

After several exhausting (and frustrating) days with many hours spent in the clinic with Bayron, I was worn out. On the night of his 4th day in the clinic, I came in to find Bayron totally changed. He was smiling! He played with me and laughed! He even said a few totally incomprehensible words (although every now and then I could make out the words: hola, mango, and vaca (cow)). Those few, precious minutes made up for the entire week of really hard work.

From that point on I saw a dramatic improvement in Bayron. Besides smiling a little, talking, and playing, Bayron also ate more and even let me wipe his nose without jerking away! I learned so many things from Bayron and have a new appreciation for parents (and others) that care for children with special needs. 

Tomorrow I'm leaving to go to the beach in Costa Rica for a week. I'm only allowed 3 months in Honduras so since I have to renew my visa, what better place than the beach?! 

¡Nos vemos!

Raindrops on Roses...

My Favorite Things at Emmanuel:

• Waking up to the sounds of kids' voices (providing it's not before 6:30 AM)
• When the kids know my name
• Hugs (tons and tons of hugs)
• Spinning the kids in circles
• Cuddling with the toddlers
• Hearing little Memo yell my name as soon as he sees me
• Having Esperanza paint beautiful designs on my nails
• Cooking Bedstefar's Skaeg (Grandfather's Beard: a really yummy cake) with Helle (my Danish mar here)
• All of the adorable little boys
• Playing card games and drinking coffee with Katie and Gitte (my two roommates) and Jens, Helle, and Mikkel (the Danish family here)
• Watching the incredible sunsets over the mountains
• Trying to play soccer with the kids here (the toddlers can play better than I can... I think they're born with it)
• Singing songs in church
• Dance parties and movie nights with the big girls in the toddler house
• Sunday afternoons playing with the girls

The time is flying by so fast! I've been here for almost 2 months now, and I can't believe I only have a few months left. My activities are still changing daily, but I've moved up the ladder a few steps because I am now one of the elite Emmanuel community members with a walkie talkie. This definitely has its good and bad points because now they can find me wherever I am ;) And they also have my cell phone number so I get at least one early morning call a week... Despite this, I truly feel at home here with the kids and love them more and more each day. I am so thankful to be here :)

Third World Cream

My jobs at Emmanuel so far have included a lot of time in the clinic. The kids come after breakfast and again after dinner to get medicine. I've done everything from bandaging a cut to holding a little boy down while Karelia (the nurse) gave him stitches. At the beginning of last week, I started noticing some funny red bumps on my hands. They would come and go throughout the day and sometimes itched a little bit. Then I noticed that I had a lot of blisters all over my toes. Most of them were small, but there were a few big ones and they hurt! After several days of the rash and blisters worsening, I asked Karelia to have a look at it. The first time she looked at it, she thought it was an allergic reaction to my sunscreen, but after a few more days, she gave me a special cream to put on it... it's called Third World Cream! And the best part is that it was made in Gainesville! I had seen it in the clinic before and always wondered what kind of awful rash would require the use of that... now I know! Luckily the medicine is doing it's job and my little rash is somewhat disappearing. Thank you Third World Cream!

My trip to Tegucigalpa last week turned out to be quite the adventure. It was sprinkling a little bit in the morning as we headed to the city, but there was no traffic so we made it there in an hour. We passed tons of banana trees, cows, people on bicycles, and drove over several mountains. Once there, we toured the best art museum in Honduras, shopped for souvenirs, went to several churches, and ate a typical Honduran meal. It was great! However, the rain continued to get harder throughout the day so by the time we left at 4, it was pouring. To add to that, there was quite a bit of traffic so it took 2.5 hours to get back to Emmanuel. Gitte, my Danish roommate, and I sat in the back of the truck, wrapped up in plastic bags and rain coats, huddled together to keep warm. After that experience, I must say that riding in the back of a truck through a country is one of the best ways to experience life there. On a different note, I've also learned where all of the old school buses from the U.S. go... to Central America where they become public transportation known as "chicken buses," either for the fact that they crowd people on them like chickens or because they actually carry chickens along with the people. We even passed one that said DeKalb County!

Life at Emmanuel is never the same from day to day. We currently have a mission team here from Chattanooga, TN so I've been working a lot with them in the dental office, assisting the dentist, helping with files, calming the kids down, and even translating a little! The team brought some amazing cooks along with them so we've had some great food! It's a nice change from the ramen noodles, beans, and rice. And the team will be here for 3 weeks!

Whether it be through listening to the children sing songs of praise to God, watching a child's face light up as he/she gets to pick out a toy after having his/her teeth cleaned in the dental clinic, or watching the sunset over the mountains, while I am here, I am constantly reminded of God's greatness and love.

A Typical Day at Emmanuel?

One of the biggest things that I've learned so far during my time at Emmanuel is that I'm not entirely in control of my day. Most often when I try to make plans, something comes up to alter them entirely. It's taken a little bit of getting used to since I like to make my To Do List for the day and stick to it. I see now why a former volunteer told me that the biggest thing I can do to prepare is just to be flexible.

There is a big team of 100 people (including the director of the board, who happens to be a dentist) coming on Friday. They have been preparing for them here for months, fixing things up and so on. We've also been doing quite a bit of prepping since I've been here too. This week, Katie (from Tennessee), Gitte (my Danish roommate), and I were asked to drop everything and paint a wooden playground train that someone from the team donated. The sun has been scorching hot for the past week so this was not really our choice of projects, but we finished it, thank goodness! We've also been putting together some photo directories of the kids for the clinic and volunteers, preparing the dental clinic, and cutting hair (I'm going to become quite the beautician). There's no telling what project we'll undertake next ;)

If there is such a thing as a typical day here, it usually begins around 6:45 AM (6:15 AM on Fridays) with Circle Time where the kids gather in several small (or one big on Friday) circles to sing praise songs and have a devotion. Afterwards, I eat breakfast at the volunteer house and then go to the clinic where I clean and bandage cuts and give out medicine with the nurse, Karelia. After that, it's time to take the toddlers on a walk, usually to the farm where we pet horses and cows. They're so cute, but they're definitely a handful! 

Next it's time to play! My favorite kids to play with are the middle and small boys (5-12, but they all look extremely small for their ages because they didn't receive proper nutrition as babies) and the middle and small girls. The boys are much more chill than the girls and fight less (surprisingly). One of my favorite boys is Ronald. He's actually 13, but so young in looks and actions.

Around 11:45 AM I eat lunch (usually with the middle boys or the small girls... the toddler house supposedly has the best food, but I'm taking a break from it after the last time when they kept putting their beans and who knows what else into my bowl). Lunch is usually ramen noodles with vegetables (corn, green beans, and carrots) or rice and veggies, especially cabbage and corn. Sometimes we get lucky and find a piece of chicken ;)

After lunch, if we don't have any projects, I play some more. Sometimes I join the older girls in the kitchen to help make tortillas, which is a fun (and delicious) job! Dinner is around 3:30 PM (because the kids go to sleep around 6 or 7) and is usually some combination of beans and either rice or tortillas. After that, it's clinic time again, and then off to the volunteer house to play games, watch movies, read, etc. With the early mornings and all of the activity, I find myself going to sleep earlier and earlier :)

Tomorrow me and my roomies will be taking a short trip to Tegucigalpa (the capital) for a little sightseeing because Gitte has to buy an extra month on her visa. We're going with a staff family here and will be riding in the back of their pick-up truck, which is totally illegal and also totally done everywhere anyway... you've got to love Honduran laws ;)

P.S. The water problem is solved and we have plenty of water once again. Thank you for your prayers :)

Chacos Tan

The moment I set foot outside, I hear little voices shouting, "Kaley! Venga (Come)!" I run over to the yard full of about 60-80 little girls, grab dozens of little hands, give out dozens of hugs, and promise to come back to play later. Such is the start of a typical day at Orphanage Emmanuel.

By my third day here, I could already see the beginning of a Chacos (sandal) tan line. Now, more than a week has passed and my feet look somewhat like a checkerboard. That just goes sto show how warm and sunny my days have been here.

I arrived on Friday, January 16th, minus one of my suitcases, which was thankfully returned to me four days later, just in time to prevent me from having to go clothes shopping in a tiny town in a third-world country. The ride to Emmanuel was a bit crazy to say the least. There are pretty much no rules when it comes to driving here. Pass when there's nothing coming. Go as fast as you want to. And the most important, blow your horn continuously at anything that threatens to get in your way. The roads were curvy, hilly, and seemed to have been paved back in the Middle Ages, but that is still a vast improvement over the dirt roads that we came to later.

Orphanage Emmanuel is in the small town of Guiamaca, Honduras, which is surrounded by mountains (as is the airport in Tegucigalpa, which has one of the shortest runways I've ever seen... be warned that the landing is a bit abrupt). It is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The volunteer house that I share with three other young women is on a small hill, and if we time it right, we can watch the sun set behind the mountains, with Emmanuel's church steeple in the foreground.

So far my jobs here have included taking toddlers for walks to see the caballos (horses), which turned out to be quite sad when they realized we weren't actually riding the horses, translating (somewhat poorly) for doctors in the clinic, delivering letters and packages to the kids, giving hugs, and of course, lots of playing! When the kids start back to school in mid-February, I'll have more defined jobs, including working in the clinic and assisting in the dental clinic. For now though, my focus is on getting to know the over 400 kids that live here.

My Spanish is improving daily (thank goodness). I learned how to make tortillas, which despite what the teenage girls teaching me said, was very difficult at first. I did finally get the hang of it! I have journeyed into our little town (in groups and also in the back of a truck) for grocery shopping (even though I eat most meals with the kids) and even a little souvenir shopping. My favorite purchase so far is a handmade hammock! I've been to a third-world hospital (not for myself) to take a little boy to get a cast put on his broken leg. Surprisingly it wasn't too bad. I did learn that my clinic job entails me driving kids to the hospital, which, with the lack of road rules in Honduras, should be very interesting ;)

From the moment I drove the gates of Emmanuel, I felt the peaceful feeling that exists here constantly, even amidst the shouts of children playing. God has already been working on me and teaching me more about Himself through this incredible place. I am still so amazed that He has brought me here and blessed me with this opportunity.

¿Estoy Lista? (Am I ready?)

As I try to finish packing and cram 6 months worth of clothes into one suitcase, I try to picture what the next few months of my life will entail...

On Friday, I'll be leaving for Orphanage Emmanuel in Guaimaca, Honduras and not returning until June. Orphanage Emmanuel started in 1989, with 5 kids and no electricity or running water. Now they have over 400 kids, a farm with fields, livestock, a greenhouse, a medical clinic, a dental clinic, schools, 6 kitchens that serve about 1,400 meals a day, a church, a volunteer house (where I'll be staying), male, female, and toddler dormitories, and more that I will see soon!

Unlike Japan and Italy, they recommend quite a few vaccinations and other precautions before going. Luckily I've already had my Hepatitis A and B shots, but I will be going today to get an updated Tetanus shot, as well as the Typhoid vaccination. I also gave in to taking preventative malaria medication after hearing that a friend from PC contracted malaria while studying in Ghana. My original plan was just to wear lots of bug spray, but I think I'd still be paranoid every time I saw a mosquito.

I'm so excited that God has led me to Emmanuel, and I'm even more excited to just be serving God and others while I'm there. I learned a lot in Japan about really appreciating life, from the food that comes from the earth, as well as the relationships that we form, worshiping with others, and spreading love. I've come to see, even more than I did before, what a privileged life I lead in the U.S. and to be thankful for everything that God has blessed me with. I know that Honduras will be full of many lessons, trials, and memories, and I'm looking forward to each of them.