http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Kristen-In-Honduras/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Kristen In Honduras en-us Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:18:31 +0000 Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:18:31 +0000 The first weekend in May we had no school on a Thursday Friday was an activity in the school so I requested 2 days of vacation and took a long 4 day weekend to the Northern Coast of Honduras a 9hour bus ride to the beaches of Trujillo supposedly the nicest beaches in Honduras. We spent 4 very relaxing and beautiful days there not doing much but swimming in the ocean. Here are some pictures. http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Trujillo/blog-287848.html ProyectoThe past couple months havent really been eventful other than Easter and Holy Week. One of the things I have taken pictures of is the proyectos we do with the kids. If you donrsquot remember that is when we are assigned to a family we do it once a month usually with a kid from our hogar my hogar is really small and I have already done all 7 kids in my hogar so now I am being assig http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-287842.html The whole ldquospring breakrdquo that we have at home is here called Holy Week. We started it off the weekend before with a camping trip. Then the whole following week was filled with religious activities mass and things like that. Good Friday and Easter Sunday were the two main days. On Good Friday the kids at the ranch acted out the Crucifixion which was really interesting and the first http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-287828.html Camping Trip with the BoysThe week before Easter called La Semana Santa or Holy Week here is a week where almost noone works and its dedicated to remember Jesus and everything that led up to his death and resurrection. Obviously the kids are off school and during the whole week we have alot of masses or group gatherings in the church. One thing they also do is all go camping boys and girls s http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-262751.html Every year in JanuaryFebruary kids get moved around in Hogares because they are based on maturity levelgrade in school. San Andres is a little different and kids who may have had more trouble in their Hogar could get moved to San Andres for more individualized attention and a smaller group. Well we only got 1 new boy so far and his name is Marcos. He is Eliezer's younger brother. He is 12 http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-241473.html The School year here runs from February through November so vacation time is december and january. During this time they have Vacation Courses at the ranch to take up the time. It is kinda like summer camp or summer school depending if the kid needed more reinforcement in school or were failing a class. Courses were anything from Math or Spanish to Karate Soccer Dance or Music. All the kids http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-232026.html ChristmasI cannot express enough Thanks to everyone who helped give my boys a very special Christmas. It was a beautiful thing and like I mentioned in the other blog at one point while opening presents one of my boys even said These are the best presents because they are gifts of Love. I think that was my favorite part of the morning. They said thank you multiple times and talked about how http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-232030.html Spent a weekend in Copan visiting the Ruins and spending time in the cute little town of Copan Ruins. The town was amazing the people so friendly a very safe atmosphere. The Ruins were beautiful. We also were able to visit a bird park while there which was beautiful too. Also every restaraunt we ate at was delicious. http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Copan-Ruins/blog-232024.html As most probably know Quinceneros are the celebration of the 15th birthday. Traditionally it is just done for girls but here we celebrate both boys and girls. Just like with graduation at the school and in talleres each kid who is celebrating their Quincineros asks someone to be their Godparent. The girls have to pick a male and the guys have to ask a female. Ever a boy in my hogar asked http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-229397.html Volunteer Retreat The ranch paid for us all to travel to La Esperanza a place in Honduras to have a volunteer retreat basically getting to know each other better talking about things from the ranch supporting each other and so forth. The volunteer coordinator set up the weekend with the help of some others and it was really nice. The place we stayed was a beautiful lodge in the mountains. La http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/La-Esperanza/blog-232022.html Graduation of the school and Talleres. Each kid picks a madrina or padrino which literally translates to Godparent to sponser them for their graduation. It can be anyone volunteers tios tias teachers family outside the ranch etc. This person is special because they kind of serve as the parental figure in their graduation its the person the kid chooses to walk them down the aisle and http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-229396.html Halloween So we decided to bring some United States spirit to NPH and have a halloween party for our boys. Jennifer and I make a couple cakes and decorated the room with streamers balloons and candy. I bought each of my boys a plastic pumpkin bowl and filled it with candy and other little things like those plastic vampire teeth. It was really fun and here are some pictures. The best part I think http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-229395.html One of the boys in my hogar Perez the one always trying to stick up his middle finger in pictures has been sick for a while so they have been trying to do special things for him. One thing was to have a special birthday party for him. His birthday was in August but they couldnrsquot get a van reserved and everything organized until today. We left the ranch in a ranch van around 230pm. The http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-215949.html For our weekend off we decided to visit the largest lake in Honduras well it is one of the only lakes Lake Yojoa. We started our journey Friday as soon as we were done with work around 1pm. We traveled to Tegus from there got to Tegus ordered a pizza from pizza hut picked up a few other things from the store and head off to the lake around 3pm. We finally arrived at our final destination http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Lago-de-Yojoa/Pulhapanzak-Falls/blog-215655.html At the ranch they have this thing called Proyecto Familiar or Family Project run by volunteers. Each volunteer if they want to it is not mandatory can sign up for a couple times a month to do Proyecto. What happens is you usually have a kid in your hogar and all their brothers and sisters assigned to one day and they come to Casa Personal where all the volunteers live and hang out and have http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-213239.html Once a year they starting have the Day of Visitors. This is when any of the kids families if they have them can come visit the kids who live at the Ranch. They have a lot of fun activities and candy and food and stuff and people just come and spend time with their nieces nephews grandchildren brothers and sisters whatever their relation is to the kids who live at the ranch. Today all the v http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-211652.html ComprasSince there are so many kids at the ranch they don't really do much on their birthdays for celebrations. However they do want to recognize their birthdays and do something special so they do this thing they just call Compras which means like Shopping. Once every 2 months on a Thursday they take out ALL the kids who have had a birthday in the past 2 months. We take a ranch bus which is http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-209900.html So my mother has made several comments that it seems I am not actually working here just having fun on vacation so I decided to describe some of my work days so that it is clear that I do indeed work. I am at work 730 Monday through Friday. Mondays through Wednesdays I technically am done at 4pm and Thursdays and Fridays I finish at 1pm. Monday through Thursday I teach 1 English class each mor http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-209301.html Independence DaySeptember 15th For Independence Day they had a huge parade that the ranch was preparing for for like weeks. They had pompom girls cheerleaders kids dressed up in every kind of thing you can think of marching bands dancers people marching with banners and signs of all kinds. It was pretty crazy. So it was basically another day off school. At 8am we all left to drive a mile or http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/blog-208369.html So as I have already mentioned I chose working in San Andres the hogar or home for boys with behavioral problems. There are 7 boys and 3 of the 7 are brothers. Their names are Emanuel Santos Ever those 3 are brothers Mayron Eliezer Perez actually names Josue but everyone calls him by his last name and Kevin. They all have their attitudes and behavioral issues but overall they are http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-198091.html