This week

6/11 – 6/16
I have been terrible about keeping track of what we've done this week, but here is what I can remember:

Monday: I think this was actually Sunday, but Danny took me to see the river, and it was so gross! Before it was really pretty and nice to go swimming in, but now it just looks like a disgusting swamp that I would not dare swim in. The problem is that Dole keeps dumping chemicals into the rivers, and it ruins the river and disrupts the balance of everything living in it.

In the evening, we made pastelitos for dinner – so delicious!!

Tuesday: We used the rest of the dough from the pastelitos to make the fried things that I can’t remember the name of – fried dough kind of like small elephant ears with honey on top for breakfast – so tasty. Did laundry in the morning, and learned that the things that grow on this vine wrapped around the mango tree are used to make scrubbing wash cloth things (see the photos). In the evening, Danny and I went to Ceiba for dinner and went to see Snow White and the Huntsman.  

Wednesday: In the morning, I went to talk with Iris, the in-country director of PEP. Since I speak Spanish, I will be teaching the afternoon “Reader’s Club” classes, which are to help the kids with their reading/writing in Spanish – there are classes at 2 and 3pm, so the kids go to English for one hour and Spanish for the other. Since it is a holiday week for the kids here (at public schools – it’s Student’s Week), only Juan showed up for the morning class at the El Centro PEP location. I went to try to find the Semillas de Esperanza (Seeds of Hope) PEP location to help out the volunteer that teaches those classes, since she was on her own for a day while in between other volunteers. I followed a little map I had, but didn’t find it…the first person I asked told me one way to go, but I still didn’t find it, so asked another person who said they had no clue, then went back to where I had been before and asked another person, who was really nice and said she’d noticed me bike by a little earlier, and had her son take me to Semillas, which I thought was very nice! He took me to the school (even though I’d asked for the church since that’s where the PEP classes are) so there was no one there. I called the other volunteer, and by then the first class was just about over, and she said not to worry about it since only a couple of kids showed up since they didn’t have school (they got Mon and Tues off from PEP, but a lot of them took the whole week off). I guess at least I got some good exercise!

A few of the girls from my class who I had last year came early, so they played with Moffy til it was time to go over to class. It was so great to see them again! I was surprised when one girl, Nicole, saw me, and screamed, Stephanie!!! And came running toward me and gave me a big hug – I didn’t see her when I was here in December, so it had been nearly a year since I saw her, and since there are so many volunteers that come through here, I was a little surprised to get such an enthusiastic welcome! I went to class at 2pm and was with Miranda, the volunteer who has been running the class for the last few weeks, but will probably end up spending her last week teaching English, to take over for Helen, whose last day is this week. For the first hour, we did a puzzle where the kids each had to find 10 differences between 2 pictures, and then write a story about the pictures, incorporating several specific words into their stories. They came up with some pretty entertaining stories! For the second class, we did a word search and bingo using those words.

In the afternoon, a new volunteer, Brittani, arrived, so when she got here, I introduced myself, and after she had met everyone and gotten some water, we went over the information from Honduras Children and then took a walk around El Porvenir so she could see the town and all of the important spots and meet Amalia, one of the in-country directors. When we got back, we went to a couple of pulperías so she could get food for the next few days til she goes to Ceiba. I just remembered how hungry I was when I got here for the first time and had no idea where anything was or where to get food, so wanted to make sure she was set for a while! She is really great and will be teaching PEP at Semillas.

Thursday: In the morning, Danny and I went to hand out the clothing and toothbrushes/paste that I brought from home, as Carlos arrived with my big suitcase on yesterday afternoon (he picked it up in San Pedro so I wouldn’t have to take it to Pulhapanzak and then spent a few days in SPS). We went to the area around where Jim’s latest bathroom project is – it is incredible how poor some of the families in that area are – a lot of the houses look like they’re about to fall apart, and most of the bathrooms only last a couple of months, because they’re just a piece of concrete stuck over a hole, with some tattered sheets or metal around it, but are better than  what some of the families have, which is nothing L (For more information about the construction projects, or to donate [all donations go directly to materials], visit http://www.honduraschildren.org/construction-project/). Everyone we gave clothing or toothbrushes/toothpaste to was so appreciative.

Today’s classes were a fun day since it was Helen’s last day. For the first part, we played Twister and hopscotch in the school, and some of the kids danced (see video link below!). Sahory and Vilma brought me a pineapple, so I cut it up and shared with the class – it was delicious!!! After about an hour, we went to the campo to play. A few of the girls wanted to go over to the new park that’s being built by the campo, and of course, take pictures! They all love taking pictures and posing for photos!

After class, I went to play basketball with Danny, one of his friends, Angel, and Vlad. It started pouring, so the ball was a little slippery, but it just kept us cooler! After dinner, we all went over to VH1 to hang out and celebrate Helen’s (second to) last night in Porvenir.

Friday: In the afternoon, we went to Mario’s to watch part of the England/Switzerland game with Helen, Miranda, and Brittani. I worked on my III project (a summer project for school – I am doing a Critical Review of the Literature looking at the link between pesticides and diabetes) for a while after that, and in the evening, Danny and I went to watch a movie with Angel and Vlad at the beach house.

Saturday: Spent some time in the morning organizing my stuff now that it’s all here, and played with the puppy, Max J  Mely made lunch for all of us, and in the evening, we went to Ceiba for dinner and saw Prometheus (which turned out to be quite a strange movie!). All of the volunteers went rafting or away somewhere for the weekend so get home today (Sunday).

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101297854281518.2984316.10735354&type=1&l=cad0e398ab
Videos: Coming soon