Oh, All The Places I'll Go: 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!