First Day at the Guarderia!

alright so my Monday morning starts off at 5:45am. Because at 6am we went to a neighbors home and milked their cow. i milked a cow. or at least attempted to because i was AWFUL at it. no good, terrible. and the one time i got it, i sprayed milk on the kid teaching me how to do it...whoops. lol

next was breakfast: cereal, milk, and bananas (store milk, not the milk from the cow we milked haha). so good. then it was time to go to the Guarderia (the daycare!). We had some outside work to do and they also needed people to work inside and help out with the kids. i worked outside first. for the week, they wanted to finish a filtration system in the yard next to the Guarderia so the yard won't get flooded when it rains. so there was a man there that i guess has experience in this stuff? haha but he knew where to put the pipes under the ground and set concrete and drill holes in the pipe so it was legit. that was the end goal though. the first day we had to dig holes for the pipes and sort rocks. sorting rocks...quite a story. so they ordered gravel for this project and "gravel" was a big pile of sand, small rocks, medium sized rocks, and HUGE rocks! so they asked us to sort them because they only wanted the sand and small rocks. lots of fun! we also got to go inside, play with the kids a little bit, serve them lunch and then we went to eat lunch ourselves once the kids were napping. ryan gave us the option to go to Trinidad where theres a market to look around and stuff so some girls stayed back and others went to the market. i went to the market cause i wanted to see what it was like.

Trinidad was definitely bigger than Concepcion del Norte, just a lot more stores and such. they had a courtyard outside their Catholic church just like our village. it wasn't too far either so the ride wasn't bad. we went to Kobs and had ice cream and it was SO GOOD (and cheap! everything is soo inexpensive in Honduras it is nuts). i also got to buy some fresh, whole bean Honduran coffee for Mom, cause mama likes coffee :). by the time we got back, i was soooo tired (from waking up to milk the cow in the morning) so i took a solid nap. then we had dinner, hung out, some team bonding :) and then it was time to go to bed!

milking a cow...sort of.

conquering the rock pile!

where the kiddies eat breakfast and lunch :)

Sunday: a day of rest

we woke up to roosters. yes, they warned us about them...and described them as a "chorus of a million roosters"..something along those lines. and these roosters are cock-a-doodle-doo-ing veryyy earlyyyy. i think Sunday it was around 5am. and there were a lot of them. at all different times. crazyyyyy! but i fell back to sleep. and then i woke up again to the smell of food. got up, showered real quick (yes, we had a shower!), let my hair air dry (i blow dry my hair with my beautiful hair dryer every day. this was a big deal.), and ate breakfast. breakfast consisted of pancakes with honey, bananas, peanut butter, juice. pancakes were delicious and bread + honey + PB + bananas = best sandwich ever. especially with these bananas. bananas in Honduras > bananas imported to America. we are really missing out guys, and its really upsetting.

then we went to church! Sharon said it would be the best way to meet the community, and it most definitely was. they had the kids practice this little welcome message to say to all of us in unison, so cute. and all these people were so wonderful and grateful, i don't think i will be able to emphasis enough how amazing the people of Concepcion del Norte are. after church, we played with all the children. and there were a LOT. we played soccer (aka "footbol"), a few hand clapping games, and took pictures with them. these kids LOVE cameras, it is so hilarious. they ask for your camera and in 5 minutes it has another 50 pictures on it.

then we had lunch (oh, and i also forgot to mention that all of our meals are eaten outside). and then...after that...we hiked up the mountain (higher up into the mountains)...and went SWIMMING in a COFFEE VAT! filled with water, filled with water! not coffee. it was so cool. and perfect because it was soooo hot out! it was so much fun, a few kids came and we played volleyball with them in the vats. oh, and this was at a shut down coffee bean plant which is why we were able to fill it up with water and go swimming.

also, there is no real sense of time in Honduras. Sharon put it as breakfast time, lunchtime, and dinnertime. i also did not have a watch so this was especially killing me since my day is mapped out hour by hour in many different ways. but it ended up being a good thing, rather relaxing :)

Sharon and Jennifer left in the afternoon on Sunday to go back to the states. Ryan stayed with us for the week to help us out and kind of be our American guide and contact go to.

Monday starts the actual work! :D

juan jose loves to take pictures, and pose :)

i forgot to mention that i also got to ride a horse!

the coffee vats we swam in!!

another example: yahir just came up to me and took this picture of us with someone elses camera! haha he's so cute :)

The Departure

so here we go. we left at 3:30AM Saturday morning. or I prefer to say Friday night because i didn't go to sleep Friday night so it was still Friday for me. but yeah, i got on a bus with my team in front of the Ruggles T stop on our campus...at 3:30 in the morning. and not only was it cold at that time but it was snowing! snowwwwinggg! a lovely goodbye present from mother nature. we got to Logan Airport and I watched the sunrise, while enjoying some wonderful Dunkin Donuts coffee. then we proceeded to fly from Boston to Miami and from Miami to San Pedro Sula, Hondruas! I honestly don't remember that much from the flights, probably because i was trying to sleep on both of them.

anyways, we were in HONDURAS! the sun was shining and our family for the week was waiting at the gate after we went through customs and such. This group included Sharon (the founder of Daisy's Children), Pastor Anthony (the Pastor of the Evangelical church in Concepcion del Norte), Maria Elena (the Pastor's wife and our Honduran Mama for the week), and Jennifer and Ryan (two volunteers that spent the week before with Sharon in the village). from the moment we got there everyone was SO NICE, like--unbelievably nice.

we loaded our suitcases into a truck and a 15 person van (our ASB team consisted of 12 lovely ladies, including myself :] ) and we all squished in and drove the 2 and a half hours to Concepcion del Norte. we were driving to the mountains and then we were driving in the mountains. very much in the mountains. the sides of the roads were lined with houses, but houses made with sheets of metal or a patchwork of sticks with dirt and rocks filling the spaces in between, houses without roofs or floors. and definitely without running water or a toilet. a big contrast to the beautiful mountains and green trees surrounding us.

now this was all around 1PM and everyone in our van was falling asleep or fast asleep. i got up at 8am on friday morning and it was more than 24 hours later soooo i was falling asleep but trying not to because all you wanna do when youre driving in this beautiful place is look out the window! pretty hard battle.

then we got there! and we were exhausted lol. but after we unloaded all of our stuff and were all set up in Anthony and Maria Elena's house, Sharon showed us around. before i get into that i want to mention how these amazing people gave up their house for a week to let us stay in it while they slept in the church. also, Maria Elena was the one that cooked us every single meal every single day (and all were DELICIOUS). not only were they gracious enough to do that but they also continued to thank us every day for coming to Honduras to help them. basically, the two most amazing people ever.

Sharon showed us around the village which was relatively small but still had a lot to it. i'm going to post a link to all my pictures on facebook so everyone can see them without having to actually have a facebook. so Sharon showed us the Catholic church in town (a lot different than the Evangelical church right across the yard from the house we stayed in), the mayor's office, a bunch of stores and houses, and the land that the mayor recently gave Sharon to expand and build a community center/after school program for older children/small orphanage. so cool!

Maria Elena made us the best dinner ever. and we got to meet some of the kids, who are beyond adorable. and friendly. and it made we wish i knew spanish. note: whoever said spanish and italian are pretty similar are very wrong because i know italian and i guess i know it enough to the point where it suddenly came back to me and i wanted to say everything in italian because its the only language i know besides english. the spanish speaking children did not understand my italian. and knowing italian did not help me understand the spanish babies. so sad.

and that was the first day!

sunrise at Logan!

sun in San Pedro Sula!

with Sharon on her new land!

the church!

FIVE DAYS, PEOPLE!

this....is what makes me happy despite the fact that i have a quiz and practical tmrw, an anatomy and phys test wednesday, aaaaaand another quiz on thursday. i am sooooo excited not only because of the weather, but because i get to play with little spanish babies for a whole week and bring them a bunch of fun things to do and play with. YAY!

and i will end with another quote from the one and only, Dr. Seuss: "If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good." ...so wise. love it! :)

testing: 1, 2, 3.

why, hello there! i am home preparing myself for my FIRST of two abroad trips this year. first stop--Concepion del Norte, Honduras!

so so so so so so so sooooo EXCITED

three weeks and counting people!

stay posted ;)

-cass