Piojos

It's 4:30 AM on a Saturday morning and I'm sleeping in a top bunk with a girl on each side of me, arms wrapped around me like they're afraid I'm going to try to escape in the night (of course sharing a bed with these two also gave me a nice case of lice, my first case EVER, which is surprising since I'm living in an orphanage where the kids sit and pick out each other's lice for an hour every Saturday morning and then proceed to use their combs to fix my hair afterwards). I awaken to shouts of, "They escaped! They escaped!" only to learn that 3 girls from the other side of the house that I'm sleeping in somehow managed to open a door and run away around 3 AM. Luckily they were found in town a few hours later and returned to safety within the orphanage. 

Tammy, one of the staff members here, says that the "running away syndrome" comes in waves. One or two kids run away and before you know it, there's someone trying it every other day. They secretly pack their bags and run to what they consider "freedom," without knowing that the freedom they're running to so eagerly is a family that can't feed them, begging for food, sleeping on the streets, selling their bodies for about $2 a night, or other nightmares. 

I have been struggling a lot with the number of kids that have run away (or left) in the last month. I returned from Guatemala to learn that Esperanza, one of my favorite older girls in the Toddler House had left with her older sister for Tegucigalpa. They were both over 18 so they could legally walk into the office, get their papers, and leave. Then a group of 4 older girls that I really liked hanging out with left shortly after that. And since then it really has been like a wave. I've even been recruited to help watch some of the girls in the mornings so that they don't make a run for it. One mother who had 5 kids here, 2 of whom ran away (1 made it home, the other hasn't been found), came and collected her other 2 daughters and took them home, supposedly because she doesn't want them trying to run away. One of her daughters, Azucena, is only 12 and told her mother that she didn't want to leave. Tammy said she had more potential than 20 other kids here, combined. She's smart and beautiful. She wanted to stay and continue to study. Now, however, she's living in Tegucigalpa, one of the most dangerous cities in Central America, with a mother that leaves her alone every night, taking her sisters to sell things in the streets. 

With all of this running away, you would think that I'm in a horrible, ugly place, not one of the most beautiful places (that I've seen at least) in Honduras; a place full of hope, opportunity, food, and most importantly, God's love. But as it is in most cases, the grass is always greener on the other side, especially when you're a child and there are rules and discipline where you used to have none.

I have developed such close relationships with some of the kids here and I just want the best possible things for them so it hurts me to see some of them trying to run away or talking about leaving when I know that they know nothing of the outside world and the hardships it holds. I try to tell them how difficult it is to work and get food outside and how many more opportunities they have in Emmanuel, but it doesn't seem to help. I know that God is watching over them and protecting them, even when I (or the others here) aren't there to do it for them, but it's so hard for me to accept that I can't do everything for them and I can't fix all of their problems. Most of the kids here have experienced so much more hurt in their few years of life than I have in my almost 23 years and I just want to be able to take all of their hurt and pain away. That is one of the miracles that I have witnessed here, though; being able to see God's hand in their lives; to see how a child can come from an awful, abusive situation and be totally transformed into a child again, with God's love.

Despite the difficulties, I thank God everyday for bringing me here to this incredible place, full of hope, joy, and His love and just ask that He continue to bless this place and the people here.

So This is Love

Yesterday, I went to the Valle de Angeles (Valley of Angels), which is a little bit outside of Tegucigalpa with about 7 other volunteers to check out the famous handmade crafts and really cheap (but good quality) leather. We spent the day shopping, eating pupusas (a thick kinda flat bread that looks like a pancake, but is made from corn flour, with fried pork rind, cheese, or beans inside... delicious!), checking out the hammock selection (they were way better and cheaper in Guatemala), and just being tourists. It was a lovely day... until we went to catch the bus back to Guaimaca and it was an hour late, which put us on a bus in 3rd world country in the dark... I actually don't think it was very dangerous since the bus was so jammed full of people that if anyone had tried to rob someone and get away, it would have taken a good 5 minutes to get off of the bus. The funny thing about this experience was that the bus had American pop songs jamming the whole way like "Get Low" and others. I had to bust a few baby dances moves ;)

Time has been flying by! I have been in Honduras for almost 4 months and have a little over a month left. For the month of April I went to Guatemala with my friend Katie to study Spanish... and have some fun! It was so wonderful! We were in Antigua for Holy Week, which was super cool and crazy because they have these insane processions with statues of Jesus and Mary in scenes from Holy Week that weigh several tons and are carried by several hundred people, wearing costumes, that take turns carrying them. They're accompanied by marching bands and continue all through the night. It's crazy! But way fun at the same time! People come in from hours away just to see and participate in the processions, especially on Good Friday. They also make these carpets on the roads out of colored sawdust. Some of them are incredibly intricate and take hours to make and then are destroyed as the processions walk over them. I actually got to help make one!

After that, we went to a little town on Lake Atitlan called San Pedro La Laguna. It was so incredibly beautiful! There are lots of little towns on this huge lake, surrounded by mountains and volcanos. The local women (and a few old men) in San Pedro wear traditional clothing that is so beautiful (I got to dress up in it one day and it was super fun!) and colorful! We lived with a local family that had 3 daughters and were so great! We got to be great friends. There was a surprisingly large hippie population there, which just made it that much more cool because you know my love for hippies ;) Our school was beautiful, set by the lake with trees and little thatched huts to study under. Everyday I had 4 hours of one-on-one class with a young Guatemalan women. I learned a ton of Spanish and about her culture too! 

One of the best things about the trip, though, was the freedom... San Pedro was a very safe town so we could go out at night to watch movies in the little local bars, listen to music, go salsa dancing, go to the solar-heated hot pools (which were super hot!), or just go for a walk. At Emmanuel, we have to be back inside the gates by dark and preferably by 4 PM. I know it's for our own safety, but sometimes I miss being able to do things at night.

Now I'm finally back at Emmanuel, my home for the past 4 months. I can't begin to describe the feeling of coming home. I missed my kids here so much! A few months ago, one of the girls asked me if I was a mama (they actually ask me this all the time and I wonder where they think my kids are if I did have some...) and I told her no, but she said, "Yes, you are; you're our mama." That has really stuck with me. It has made me realize (even more than I already did) how blessed I am to have such an incredible family. It's also made me realize the wonderful opportunity that God has given me to just love on these kids. I think that I fall more in love with them every day. 

There's a little 2 year-old girl in the toddler house named Martha (or Martita) and she is absolutely precious. She's a little clumsy (they call her "Bola," which means drunk because she's always falling) and she likes to call me "Mama." Whenever I go to see her, she starts laughing and running towards me with her arms out. When I came back she was so happy to see me (along with all of the other little toddlers because they're some of my favorites so I go play there a lot) and it just made me realize how much I love these kids. 

Along with this love for the kids, I'm also seeing more and more of God's love each day. He has already taught me so much and is continuing to do so and even though we work very hard here and pour out so much of ourselves, He is constantly filling us up so that we are never empty :)

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.