Langa

Hey guys! Day two:

Woke up late. I set my alarm for 9am on my iPod but I checked it at 10:15 and we had to leave for 11….quickest shower I ever took. I didn’t even get to blow dry my hair! (my hairdryer is soooo weak here. Nothing like the champ it is back home.) Didn’t have breakfast, Morgan gave me granola bars. Don’t worry, I’m fine :)

Today was windy and in the 50’s. Everyone (from South Africa) we talked to today was saying how freezing it was. So that parts a little funny.

We went to a township today, called Langa, and had a walking tour with two locals that live/had lived there. Townships are kind of just like smaller towns back home but I think it’s a lot more people in a smaller amount of space. But I also don’t know how much land 457 hectacres(?) are and they can only estimate their population (~56,000 people). So this township ranges from the poorest people…living in backyards, shacks…to “hostels”…houses given by the government but housing 3 families in one room (14 people)…to smaller (better looking) houses with running water, 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen all for one family. It was really astounding and our guide kept emphasizing the sense of community. The unemployment rate is currently 40% (25% if you include the employed entrepreneurs that don’t charge tax for their services). And in Langa, we saw a ton of entrepreneurs…selling homemade goods, barber shops, ladies making sheep’s head and liver. But I think the best part of the day, even though it’s the most heartbreaking, was being able to see the kids in the township. As soon as our coach pulled up, there were a ton of kids running towards us and holding our hands and posing for pictures. It reminded me sooooo much of Honduras. And I can’t help but compare it and see the similarities. Running around with no shoes, or shoes that don’t even qualify as shoes in the US, and dressed in any clothes that will keep them warm. But it was so awesome because these kids were just so friendly, and cute, and they just wanted to be played with or held. I feel like my trip to Honduras really prepared me (in a sense) for what we saw at the township because a lot of my classmates are just astounded and I notice that everything they point out that really touched them is something I already experienced during spring break. I am so glad we visited the township on our first day here though…what we saw was truly indescribable and a really good way to start off the trip. Only pictures can give you some depiction of it. All I can say is that going to Langa was incredible and I encourage everyone to make a trip down here to see it. I’m not kidding ;)

We also went to a church after the township and had lunch made by Mama Knox. I really wish I wasn’t a picky eater or had different taste buds or something. They made such great food but I only liked some of it and I just felt SOOO bad giving back what I didn’t eat. :\ But custard is a big thing here for dessert and I’m really digging that. Might be dangerous.

After we got back from lunch, we got to go down to the Waterfront, which is a bunch of shops (like a mall) and basically the biggest tourist-y thing to do in Cape Town. There’s a crafty-artwork-homemade goods section which was AWESOME. The artwork and crafts there were soooo incredible. Definitely going to go back and buy a few more things for the fam :) I also purchased the cheapest pay-as-you-go phone from the Vodacom store inside the mall. (WOOO! I get to call my family and tell them I’m alive!) Then we went to a restaurant with our “small” group…11 PT kids plus Dr. Fitzpatrick (one of the professors with us during the trip). It was really nice and we even ordered wine ;) haha it was quite delicious wine too, not going to lie.

Today was definitely a good sign of how the rest of our trip is going to be: ummm, AMAZING! Tomorrow starts our medical side of the trip!

I'M HEREEEE!

alright so i'm a little worried about how much internet i have used/have left so this is probably going to be short. very short.

i hate flying. so glad thats over. but we're here and we're tired and its awesome! its almost 9:30pm here and i am exhausted and i will be going to bed soon. waking up at 9 am tomorrow, breakfast, shower, walking tour and such! yay!

lots of other really awesome stuff that we're doing this week: working at a SHAWCO clinic, visiting different colleges and associations, and doing a project for little kids (:D!), visiting Robben Island, visiting a hospital or two....so sweet!

hopefully i'll get to explore tmrw and use this lovely internet access again (for 10 Rands...ugh.)

until then, enjoy the sunshine you lucky New Englanders! cause its winter here :P

tick tock tick tock

ohmygoodness ohmyGOODNESS! less than a week. holyyyyy cowwwww! (excuse my language) ;)

still gotta pack hahahahahaha...that should be very very interesting.

but i'm updating because i had a little bonfire shindig at my casa tonight so i could see everybody before jetting off to South Africa for a month. and i am so very glad i did because so many people came and it was a lot of fun. so THANK YOU to all those who stopped by, stayed, played, ate, cleaned up, etc. love you all :)

and a special thanks to my lovely boyfriend Bobby for doing all the work that i should have done. whatta great guy i got ;)

so....does anyone have tips on how to pack all the clothes you need for a whole month (plus shoes and a hair dryer and a few toiletries) UNDER 40 POUNDS?? please let me know asap. thanks!

3 WEEKS UNTIL SOUTH AFRICA!

holy poop! i cant believe we're just 21 days (3 weeks!!) from leaving for South Africa.

this. is. INSANEEEEE!!!!

don't worry, i'm not packin yet! i still have to do 2 assignments for the classes we're taking there before we leave...yikeeeees.

anyways. the reason i'm posting is because my professor for my trip just started a blog that will be updated (hopefully) everyday by my classmates while we're gone. and i am one of the co-authors of the VERY FIRST POST! whoop whoop!

so here is the link to that blog, ENJOY: click here to go to the blog!

Check this out!

My friend Marcela made a video with all the pictures we took on our trip and its really fantastic so I really recommend watching it--a great inside look at our service there! So, to watch the video click here!

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!

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