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What a day!! Aside from being awakened at 5:30am by barking dogs and roosters, I slept great! It did take me a little while to fall asleep, as tired as I was, but it is pretty hot here.
Our day started off with breakfast: cocoa krispies and a banana, and then we were off to the supermercado to take out some Lempiras (Honduran currency) and buy some snacks. As I am one of just a few Spanish speakers here, I was the ATM chaperone. As many of you know, I am not very good at math so I had a little trouble figuring out how many Lempiras to take out based on the amount of American dollars they wanted. $1.00 American = 18.5 Lempiras. I think I kind of got it.
Our next stop was to La Pimientera, one of the schools that is already finished. There are 3 classrooms, and we met 3 of the teachers. The school hosts children from grades 1-6 so half of them will attend in the am and the other half in the pm. The finishing touches for the school will be the bathrooms and the student desks. For now they have been
holding classes on someone’s front porch under an awning. Take a guess how much the teachers’ salaries are at that school? Give up yet? They earn nothing. These teachers work for free because they value the education of the children. The government, not so much. Makes me think about the teacher strikes as of late in the United States.
Back to Villa Soleada for a short break and then lunchtime! I was very excited to eat and make a typical Honduran meal with a local family. Rania, Kate and I went to La Casa de Yolanda for baleadas, pastelitas de piña and platanos verdes. Carla, the second oldest of the sisters, showed us how to make baleadas, which are flour tortillas cooked over a hot fire, then filled with beans in a paste form and fried eggs. DELICIOSO! Yolanda and her husband live in their home with their SEVEN children, grandchild, and some cousins. There are 18 people in that house. And from what I understand, they all sleep on mattresses pushed together on the floor, as space is extremely minimal. I also bought some handmade goodies from the oldest daughter, handbags made from candy and chip wrappers (woven
together) and a couple of bracelets. Yolanda made all of the volunteers here a bracelet with our names on it, for just $5.00 per person! Just a side note, five dollars is approximately 100 Lempiras, for which you can probably buy a full meal. The families here LOVE the Americans and their full wallets!
After we stuffed ourselves, it was off to work! The next three hours I shoveled sand, mixed cement, and got bitten by bugs. We were making the cement to fill in the supports for the walls to the bilingual school we will be helping to build this week. A couple of the local kids wanted to work too so they helped shovel the cement into the buckets to bring to the workers. And while we were at the work site, I met the man responsible for the ENTIRE ORGANIZATION of Students Helping Honduras, 28 year-old Shin Fujiyama, who is a local hero to the Hondurans and a pretty amazing person. He started the organization in 2004 with just a few other volunteers, when a woman down here wrote to him and asked for his help to build her a home. There are now 44 homes
in Villa Soleada, along with two schools, two childrens’ homes, and the volunteer lodge. If you haven’t had a chance to read the history of SHH, I will be posting a link to Shin’s blog at some point.
Delicious dinner back at the lodge this evening, followed by a VERY NEEDED cold shower. I happen to like that there is only cold water; it feels great! The night finished out with reflections on today’s activities, and some down time.
I look forward to adding more stories as the trip this week continues! I hope you are enjoying reading about my experiences.
Hasta mañana!
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Priscilla
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Hola!
What wonderful work you are doing, Katz-y! Wish we could have shipped those school supplies for you -- maybe next time?