Spring Break ~ Honduras 2012, Day One
(Yes, I know, long overdue, right?)
*** March 17th ~ Saturday ***
The day of departure was actually Friday, the 16th, but all we did was drive to Atlanta. Although, some fun things took place:
- Got to meet the Mayhew’s parents
- Spent the night in their home church’s building. And by “spent the night,” I actually mean “stayed up much too late”
So on Saturday morning, at about 5AM we left for the airport. Due to my time travelling over the weekend (bounced through three different time zones, forwards and backwards), I was exhausted, and so slept through the majority of the flight from ATL to Miami. I discovered there that tired college students can sleep anywhere — even an airport floor. What? The layover was long. But finally we got on the plane to take us to Honduras.
Upon our arrival, we went through customs, changed money, then went to Burger King to eat.
And then we met some kids. We drove the bus to an outdoor soccer field in this neighborhood. The field was right by this dropoff, and there were people living right up to it. Within five minutes, there were kids all over the place, and at the end of ten, Deidre had a baby in her arms.
My friend Caleb had brought a coloring book and crayons, and I don’t think the poor thing knew quite what he was getting into. He got swarmed. Kids were running up, wanting to color, and he’d tear out a page and give them a crayon if he had one, or break someone else’s in half to try to share them. I’m still not sure if he got all his crayons back.
I stood around, taking pictures, feeling a little bit out of place. Spanish was flowing, and I quickly realized I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. Nothing useful, anyway. I followed people around, snapping pics of their interactions, listening to one friend talk in nearly fluent Spanish with a child. I wasn’t entirely used to having so many kids around - I didn’t know what to do with them. Fortunately, I was saved - by a little girl named Elvia. She came up to me, took my hand, and seemed content to pull me around. She showed me several things, and I’d respond by asking “Que es esto?” She’d then tell me what it was.
On a few occasions, she’d prattle off in an involved Spanish paragraph, and I’d have to call Alex or Michael over. At one point, she had seen my celtic knot ring and asked if I was married. haha!
With Elvia’s help, I warmed up to the kids. We went and watched them color, played soccer (meaning I got hit with the ball a lot), climbed on things, and just stood there with each other. Such a quiet, feisty little angel.
Caught me by the heart, she did.
After all this, we loaded up, waving as we all hung out the bus windows, and headed to Casá de Esperanza. There, we played with even MORE kids. The kids at the Casá, in some form, didn’t have a home to go to. So of course, we loved on them as much as we could.
See? We spent a couple hours there, making wonderful memories. Finally we trekked to the mission house to drop our stuff off, then walked to the Iglesia to get food.
I think all of us went to bed early that night.
Want more pictures? Check out this link for Day One, and this link for the Day of Departure.
Stay tuned for day two!
