Sunday my roommate and I awoke to two inches of water on our bathroom floor pouring down the stairs onto the tile in our room. We figured something was wrong with the seal on the toilet and turned the tank off. It was no problem, we had three other bathrooms in the house.
Today we were going off the property and worshiping at St. Mary's Episcopal church. The service wasn't hard to follow even though it was in Spanish. The prayer book was a duplicate of our prayer books at home, even down to the page number things were on.
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| St. Mary's Episcopal Church |
As a reward, each week some of the children get to join the service teams at the church. As a special treat, we get to take them out to lunch afterwards. McDonald's is their restaurant of choice. So off we went to the McDonalds in Tegucigalpa. Of course it was at the mall. Which of course was gated. We arrived before the children who were in a different van. Each of us bought a child or two a happy meal and had it waiting for them when they arrived. There were thirteen children.
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| McDonald's in Tegucigalpa. |
This is where things got interesting. I noticed some of the kids wolfed down their french fries but didn't touch their cheeseburger. I took my child's cheeseburger out of the box and gave it to him, encouraging him to eat. He smiled and put it back. Hmmmm. I finally asked Raul why they weren't eating. He said they take the food back to share with someone who wasn't picked to come on the outing.
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| The kids enjoying their meal. |
If you don't have the tissues out yet, you will need them for the next part.
Outside of McDonald's there is a little boy named Anthony. He attended El Hogar for two years and then his mother pulled him out. She needed him at home so she could bring him to places like McDonald's to beg for money. She had dropped him off earlier in the day. She had given him a quota to make. All the children immediately recognized him. Claudia (the director of the elementary school, more about her tomorrow) brought him into McDonald's to have a hot meal and play with his old friends. They made the decision to bring him back to El Hogar for the night. While Anthony was excited to come back to El Hogar, at the same time he wanted to go home because he had secretly stashed 150 lempira from his begging. Claudia was going to contact the mother and bring her before the court to get him back into El Hogar. We came to McDs with thirteen children and left with fourteen.
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| Anthony talking with one of his friends. |
We arrived back at El Hogar about 2:00 pm. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with the children in the courtyard. Soccer is a favorite game as well as rollerblading. These kids have endless energy. They are in motion from 6:00 am until 8:00 pm. And those Happy Meals? We saw signs of them all afternoon. The boxes became hats and airplanes, the sundae cups became a treasure holder, nothing goes to waste.
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| Future soccer star! |
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| Me and some of the kids. |
At dinner time we were able to watch the United States vs. Portugal soccer game. They have a TV in the cafeteria. Tonight's meal was rice and beans, cheese and fried plantains. I had a plantain. I am not a big fan of beans and the cheese didn't appeal to me.
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| Typical meal served family style. |
We were back on the volunteer house by 7:00 pm. I went to take my shower for the night. Unlike last night, the water was pretty cold and there was no water pressure. The next person went to take their shower and there no water. Then the sinks were not working. Then the toilets were not flushing. This was probably my worst nightmare. But we knew when we came here we would have to keep an open mind. So we just went with the flow (or lack of flow) and used the bottled water to flush until we could let Raul know there was a problem.
I was in bed and asleep by 9:00 pm. At home I would never be able to do that. Here it is the norm.
Barbara, you make me feel as if I'm there with you when I read your blog! Keep 'em coming.
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