Cassie's Travel Blog: Tips and Tricks!

hello everybody!

hopefully you are here because of the website i wrote in the thank you note that you received in the mail. :)

Please please pleaseee!: post comments and ask questions! i'd love to hear what you all think and if you have any question in your mind big or small please ask me because i love talking about my trip & i love promoting Daisy's Children!

TIP #1: To post a comment--at the bottom of each blog post is something that says "Posted by Cassie at #:## PM" and next to that it will say "0 Comments" ...hopefully it won't stay at zero ;) but click the "0 Comments" to write a comment!

TIP #2: To view a picture larger--click on it! it will bring you to a page with a larger image of that picture and to go back to my blog just click the back button on your internet browser!

TIP #3: if any of this does not make sense or is not working, please let me know! my email is gucwa.c@husky.neu.edu and i check it probably more than 20 times a day so just send me a quick email cause i'd love to hear from you! :)

ALSO i uploaded all the pictures i took on the trip to my Facebook but everybody can see them by clicking here! Enjoy!

Saturday: Adios Amigos!

time to go back to the United States.

it was so sad saying goodbye to everyone there and leaving such a beautiful place, and they couldn't stop telling us how thankful they were of our help. i can't even put into words how gracious and grateful these people are.

our team was so great, too. we all came from different places, different majors, different ages, and most of us never met before but at the end of the week, it was like we knew each other for so much longer. the Hondurans called us "Las Gringas" which is their term for Americans or white people. we took it as a term of endearment and thats our team name; we had a great group with us :)

and, lastly, i can't thank all of you who donated enough. you made such an impact. not only on me, but on this organization. at the end of my fundraising, just from sending friends and family a letter asking for help, i had raised $1,435 (excluding the money my parents insisted on giving me towards my trip). it really blew me away how much support i received, even from those who i don't speak to often or have never even met before--so incredible. and i only asked for $5, i did not receive a donation under $15. it wasn't even my birthday! my mom sent the letters after New Years, i go back to school and a week or two into the new semester my mom would text me almost every day telling me i got more money. it is just so humbling so really, everyone, THANK YOU! you all made this an even greater experience than i had expected. muchos gracias! :)

group picture before packing up!

mixed feelings before leaving the house :(

probably one of my favorite picture: little Yester--cutest kid i have ever seen!

Friday: Las Gringas Don't Want to Leave...

today i woke up early to feed the kids breakfast at the Guarderia. this is at about 7am. they're usually served some kind of oatmeal/porridge and a kind of breakfast cookie. a lot of the kids that go to Kinder come to the daycare for breakfast before they head to school. they're all so adorable :)

we ate breakfast and went back to the Guarderia. we had a good number of flowers and trees to plant! a lot of the older boys came to help, and they kinda sorta took over a little bit so there wasn't a bunch of stuff to do outside...i did plant my guanabana tree though! i can't wait to visit it when i go back! at the end of the day, everything was planted and the finished product of the yard looked soooo awesome!

for our last day inside the Guarderia, we played with the kids, made Muddy Buddies with the kids, blew up balloons, and handed out the finished tie dye tshirts to the kids. so there were a ton of little kiddies running all around the place with balloons wearing tie dye tshirts! it was so precious, i could have packed all of them up and brought them home. and it was also really awesome to step back and look at everything we accomplished there: outside, the mural, all the smiling faces :)

we also brought a ton of water balloons with us so once all the younger kids were gone we made a ton and had two crazyyyy water balloon fights with the older kids. round one: drenched, it was awesome with the wonderful weather and the kids were hilarious. round two: i did not even get my hand on one balloon because these kids went nuts and i was scared of going near the bucket of balloons. insane. awesome.

we had a wonderful dinner on our last night made by Maria Elena and we gave gifts to her, Pastor Anthony, Ryan, and the two women that helpful Maria Elena cook for us the whole week. it was so nice :) then we presented them with a homemade cake that we cooked in the kitchen at Guarderia (the stores in the village even had Betty Crocker cake mix and frosting!). except the oven was a tiny bit broken at would shut off if it was turned up above 250. do not be alarmed, it was fine...it just took about 3 hours to bake. pretty funny.

it was sad to think we were leaving the next day, very bittersweet. but the last thing i wrote in my journal that night was: "I'm excited to go home and tell people about this beautiful place." and thats what i'm doing now, yay! :)

me with my guanabana tree!

this is Lourdes! whatta cutie!

The Paz Family: Pastor Anthony (far left), Ryan (in white), and Maria Elena (in red)

Thursday is Mural Day!

is tomorrow really friday?? friday, as in our last day here? thats impossible.

Ryan's laptop got better internet service this morning so i was able to blog on the Daisy's Children website! which you can all read here! (Click the word "here" to go to the website) :)

not much more work to do on the drainage system outside so not a lot needed to be done outdoors today. inside the Guarderia, there was a lot going on though. kids were doing watercolors in the meal room while we closed off the big playroom to paint the mural! after watercolors, a few of the girls started making monkey bread with the kids (monkey bread: (n.) a delicious pastry-like dessert made with biscuit dough, melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar; made in a baking pan). the girls made the biscuit dough and then had the kids roll balls of dough in cinnamon and sugar. came out soooo good!

so a little while before lunch, ryan asked if anyone wanted to come to the nursery to pick out flowers and trees for the yard because we were going to plant on friday. i'm curious, i wanna see what a Honduran nursery looks like and Ryan says it shouldn't take long so i volunteer to go. my friend Kaysha and our faculty leader Sara also volunteer. so we hop in the van with Ryan, Maria Elena, and Pastor Anthony and head to the nursery. now, we were expecting a half hour drive...a little over an hour we get there hahaha after 50 minutes i thought we were going to be going all the way back to San Pedro Sula! but we got there and we picked out a ton of plants, it was insane. and on the way back we stopped to get some drinks since we already missed lunch at home (banana soda--try it!!) and we also stopped to get some sugar cane (yumm!) and some fresh bananas (double yum!). so we were gone a long while, and by the time we got back our team was just a little bit worried, it was a little funny.

but while we were gone, the rest of the girls got SO MUCH done on the mural and we were really close to being done by the time we got back. so by dinnertime, we finished the mural and it looks amazing! we painted the kids hands and had them make flowers with their handprints and we wrote their names under the flowers they made. it looks so good :)

i picked out a Guanabana tree at the nursery!

Lourdes getting her hand painted!

our team with the finished product!

the beautiful mural! it looks SO GOOD!

So Much Done On Wednesday!!

woke up, got outta bed, dragged a comb across my head.

hahaha, kiddingggg! i'm sorry i can get really carried away with this. i did take a shower everyday though. i sort of alternated between morning and night showers depending on how dirty i got from working. and Marcela (she's one of my really great friends here at school, we're both in Physical Therapy together and we just happened to be placed on the same trip!), would just braid my hair. whatta great girl :)

today weeeeee, got a lot of work done outside! we made paper bag puppets with the kids, and made rice crispies (Sharon told us before we came that they love rice crispy treats, so we bought the ingredients and packed them up with all the rest of our supplies--which consisted of a ton of stuff for the kids!). we also did tie-dye with the kids! we bought a tie-dye kit and little Hanes tshirts before we left the states. they were so cute, we just asked them what colors they wanted and we had them hold the rubber-banded tshirt while we colored them (didn't want to take any chances!). they mostly just stared in confusement, so adorable.

oh! and we also visited the Kindergarten today! they are so so so soooo cute in their little uniforms at "Kinder" (what they call kindergarten). they have a building with one big room and a small back room with a sink to wash your hands...didn't see much else back there. they all have to wear uniforms in order to go to school, which is why some kids can't go to school since the uniforms cost money and some families couldn't afford it. they have one teacher and a teacher's aide (i think thats what her job would be equal to here). when we were there, they were having them work on a fine motor art project with ripping magazine paper & gluing it to notebook paper. and they also had a little dance/run around the room activity to show us :)

this is also the day when we went to Santa Barbara in the afternoon, its the closest sort of "city"...about 45 minutes to an hour. A lot different than San Pedro Sula but really awesome. went to Kob's ice cream again and i had a chocolate covered banana....ohmyGod, probably one of the best things i ate there. brought me true happiness :) we also got to buy some trinkets there and oh! i almost forgot! on our way there we pass a strip of huts that are all along both sides of the road going to Santa Barbara. the vendors in these huts sell homemade baskets, hats, and HAMMOCKS! i bought a hammock! my father is now the proud owner of a Honduran hammock hahahaha. i love it, its awesome. he better use it or else i'm taking it back.

so today was another great day! :D

totally not eating the marshmallows...

helping davide tie-dye :)

at Kinder!

outside a store in Santa Barbara!

The Day I Had My 1st Plaintain

Breakfast was an awesome start to the day: sautéed plaintains! yummmm! and horchata! (which i've had once, this summer in california. so good.) so breakfast was good.

at the Guarderia, we sorted more rocks, dug in the dirt, sorted through sand. i don't know how to emphasize how awful these rocks were haha. we just had a few buckets and we had to sit there, sorting...usually we chose a certain sized rock and tried to find any rock that size...once the bucket was full enough to be heavy we carried it to the stairs to the yard and dumped them into another pile of rocks for that size. then we also got to a point where we needed like small rocks and sand to put where the pipes were laid down. so we had to shovel sand/tiny rocks into buckets, create a sort of assembly line so someone was shoveling, another brought the bucket to the person right after the stairs, that person brought it to the one that walked to the pipes and dumped the rocks. hard work in the hot hot sun! i swear, my right bicep definitely got bigger by the end of the trip and my arm muscles are already too defined for my tiny body so it was weird.

but anyways. inside we were prepping the big playroom wall to paint a mural, so we were painting it with primer. we also played duck, duck, goose, which is one of their favorite games. there, they call it "pato, pato, gonzo!" so funny. all the kids wanted to be gonzo and they would just run and run in circles and we had to yell for them to sit down, otherwise they would just run and run and run lol.

i also made a bracelet for a girl named Lourdes monday night so today i gave it to her, she's so adorable. she's about 6 years old and she takes care of her brother, Carlitos; she's always picking him up and making sure he's eating his lunch and they walk home together. Lourdes and Carlitos are actually sponsored by Sharon. but i gave her the bracelet and since i don't know spanish the only thing i was saying was "te gusta?" ("you like it?") lol. but she had a little smile on her face and she was wearing it everyday the rest of the week so its all good :)

dinner was awesome as always, so much delicious fruit (we had melon every single day). lots of mosquito bites, bug spray is my best friend. and tuesday nights is when the older kids practice playing music at the church so the air was filled with their lively church songs, a good relaxing way to end the day :)

our team mascot, Cosmo, holding the bracelet i made for Lourdes

teaching the kids how to make bracelets!

juan jose climbing the coconut tree to get us coconuts--not kidding!