Photos of Copan

House at the end of the street..........View from the the roof...............View to the right from the
in the middle is where I stayed........of the house where I stayed....................roof.








Roof-top café serving................... The little 3 wheeled taxis.......... View from the mountain across
Café Welchez with a view................. used in the town.................. the Copan River, towards town









Copan River (color cafe) ..................Copan River .......................................Copan ruins

More ruins ......................................Wild Macaws outside ..................This was in the bird park
.........................................................the ruins








Also in the bird park .....................The river going through ..............Macaw in the park
...............................................the bottom of the bird park

Last Day in Copan

I am enjoying my last day of vacation here in Copan. Today was the rainiest day yet here. I rains just about every afternoon late in the day or evening but today it started about 2.30 pm. There is no colin on this keyboard! So today was a good day to enjoy Cafe Welchez in a cafe and check the score of the Hokie's game on the internet. Hokies won!
I went to the ruins yesterday and enjoyed walking around on 1300 year old rock building formations. It is amazing that they really don't limit you from walking on most of the ruins, only a few are off limits. I did not make it on the Cafe Welchez tour this week. They are charging $30 now and I was told it is not coffee season so you won't see the harvesting and processing part anyway. But I did spend pleanty of time in the Cafe Welchez cafe here in town. An interesting observation: I am in the town where Cafe Welchez is located and their coffee plantation is only a short distance from here, yet they sell their Cafe Welchez for more than it costs in the stores in San Pedro Sula. 65 lempira here vs. 50 lempira in SPS. This is really a touristy area and everything seems to cost more so that is probably the reason but I was expecting a bargain at the outlet store which was not to be.
I head back to the Casa tomorrow in time for the kids to have 3 days vacation. Monday is independence day, Sept. 15, Tuesday is also a holiday for independence day, and Wed. is the day of the teacher. Given their strike for almost the entire month of July and some of August I was surprised they still got a day of celebration, but go figure. Thankfully most of the kids at the casa get to go to private school for free so only a handful are affected by teacher strikes and days off. I will get some photos posted soon after I get back to the heat. It has been enjoyable here with lower temps due to the mountains, but I am looking forward to seeing all the kids again.

Futbol (soccer)

There was a great celebration here and around the country last night when Honduras beat Jamaca in the first world cup qualifications. Honduras won 2-0. The game was broadcast on a large screen in the center of town here. You could hear a very loud cheer each time a goal was scored. After the game was over, you could hear lots of fireworks and there was a spontaneous parade of cars and taxis, about 10 minutes long driving around the town up and down all the streets honking their horns and yelling. The parade of cars passed our house twice.
Honduras beat Canada 2-1 last Saturday so they are now solidly in 2nd place in their bracket with 6 points where the top two teams advance to the next round. Canada and Jamaca each have one point and are tied for 3rd place. Futbol is the national passtime here to this is huge for them. Ironically, the Honduan star of both games and new national hero, Ramon Nunez, who scored 3 goals, was born in Honduras but has live most of his life in the U.S., going to school and college in Texas and playing a few years in the MLS before returning here last year.

I`m in Copan

After being here in Honduras for more than a year without doing any traveling other than my visits to see Maynor at the other orphanage, NPH, near Tegucigalpa, it was time for me to get away for a little bit. Juan was sick two weeks ago and thus I was sick last week and Masbey told me to take a vacation to rest so the time was right. I decided to finally visit Copan, the town of Mayan ruins everyone goes to visit except me in the past 6 years. I took the chicken bus to get here. They call it that because it is very slow, stops all along the way, and occasionally people carry livestock onboard. Yesterday I was thinking it was just the slow bus to Copan when about half way through the trip a lady got on the bus with a box full of baby chickens cherpping away. So it literally was the chicken bus yesterday.
Copan is really quaint and pretty in the mountains. I am staying with a family that I just met yesterday. $12 a day for a room in their house with 3 meals included. When you are living on donations from other people you can´t go staying at the Mayan Grand Plaza. They are very nice and the house is very nice and modern also. Rob will appreciate this one: This morning for breakfast they made Folgers coffee. Here I am staying in the prime coffee growing area of Honduras where Cafe Welchez and Cafe Copan are both produced and they serve Folgers! I plan on going to the Cafe Welchez plantation for the tour and sampelling on Wed.

During the mornings I am studying Spanish with a lady here in town and I will be using my afternoons to be a tourist for the first time. I did not bring the cable to hook up my camera to a comuter so I will have to post photos after I return to the casa this weekend.

Van Resolved

The insurance company finally settled the claim for the van that was stolen in February. The original van was a large Nissan that could carry just about all of the kids. It was exactly like many of the local bus routs use all over town, thus was a high theft item. We had it exactly one month before it was stolen. The insurance company paid 70% of the purchase price for the insurance claim. Insurance here is not what it is in the U.S. While my former employer GEICO would have probably deducted a little from the cost, they would have paid a lot more than 70% for a one month old vehicle.
The one nice thing the insurance company did was to give a list of vans sold here and which are high theft ones and which are not in demand for theft. They indicated the smaller vans are not stolen nearly as much because they are not big enough to use for he public buses. Thus the decision was made to buy a smaller Hundai van as the replacement. We do not have it yet, but my understanding is that while it is smaller, it can still carry the kids that go to school in one trip and will serve all the needs for transporting them. It won't be big enough to carry all the kids from the casa at one time, to the beach for example, but it is rare that they all go out at one time. We rented a school bus the one time we went to the beach this year and it worked out great so that will be the plan for the future.











What the New Van Will Be

Van Same as the Stolen Van
.

New Painting

This is the newest addition to the wall paintings in the main casa. This was done by Alesia, one of the summer volunteers from Notre Dame. They returned to the U.S. in August after spending 8 weeks living and working at the casa with the kids. Included in the photo is my ever present shadow Juan-Fernando.

My Plant Project

This weekend I parted ways with my Papaya plant project. Back in March, as an experiment I planted some papaya seeds that I took out of the fruit that we bought and ate. Mama Laura told me that it would only take about a year for a papaya plant to become fully grown and bear fruit. I thought it would be a nice agricultural project for the boys to help out with and learn a little about planting. The first two photos are of our plants taken on April 11th when they were in a 2 litre coke bottle and clorox bottle.












Recently, the plants had gotten too big for the new pots they have been in and were ready to go in the ground. We don't have an area at our house to put these where they would be safe so I decided to give them to Masbely, Eva and Sandra to put in the yard of their house, reserving all rights to the first fruit. The photos below were taken on Sunday before we took the plants to their house.













This is the yard where we planted them. The other plant is a little farther up in the yard out of the picture. Papaya plants with fruit are usually only about 6-7 feet tall. So if Laura's projection for 1 year is correct, we should be eating some sweet papayas in March.

Mission Team Visit

Here are some photos of the recent visit by a mission team from North Carolina, Louder Than Words Ministries. One of the first opportunities I have had in a long time to get a group photo of most of the kids together.

Special Cards for the Kids

Lauren's church in Ohio, St. Mary's parrish, had a vacation Bible school where the kids made a huge stack of cards and letters to each of the kids at the casa. Each child got about 5 different cards personally addressed to them and decorated by a child from the church. Some of the cards were from a Spanish class and were written in Spanish. The kids were all very excited to have something special sent to them personally. Thanks to Lauren and everyone at St. Mary's for this very thoughtful gesture. Lauren and Mark also have a web page devoted to the kids here at Casa Corazón where they are actively trying to get padrinos (sponsors/godparents) for each of the kids. http://www.the-orphansprayer.org/

Special Day

Thanks to everyone for thinking of me on my birthday and sending the cards from the church. I received 3 cards full of signatures and well wishes from everyone at Church of the Messiah. That was very thoughtful. Here, I got a cake and had the spanish version of happy birthday sung to me numerous times. I think Mauricio was more excited about my birthday than I was. He started singing to me in the morning two days before and did so again the day before and day of my birthday. He also went out and bought me a nice present from the market. The little kids who don't go to school came over in the morning to sing and all the school age kids did so later in the day. Then I was taken out to dinner with a few of the people here which was very nice.

Rotation of the Boys

Jonathan ......................................................................Jaime

We had a big change at our house a couple of weeks ago I have been waiting to write about after I saw how it worked out. Jonathan, the youngest at 11, moved back to the main childrens home and Jaime, also age 11, moved from the main home into our house. There were a few reasons behind this, but mainly Jonathan is very immature, much more so than the other 3 boys in our house and Jaime was a big disciplinary problem in the main home. I was really dreading the move for fear of the disciplinary problems coming to our rather calm house.
The change has worked out well so far. Jonathan is enjoying playing with all the younger kids again, but he still comes to our house every morning to do his homework for school.
Jaime has done much better in our house. He was a real bully with the younger kids in the main home and in ours there is no one smaller than him to bully so that problem stopped. The ladies in the main home are happy not to have to deal with his behavior anymore. He has almost constant supervision with me which he needs and could not get in the main home with 32 other kids. His behavior at home has certainly improved. He continued to have problems at school, so now he is being home-schooled by a teacher hired to work one-on-one with him in the mornings here.
So for now, the move has benefited both boys and the main home without disrupting our little house too much either.

Amor y Vida update

I went to the hospital on Friday to see the older kids who left Amor y Vida. All of the kids have to go to the hospital once a month to get their medicine prescription renewed and I knew Aug. 1st was the date the older kids go so it was a good opportunity to see them all again. I saw Giovanny who left Amor y Vida 3 years ago, and most of the kids who left recently. Only one, José did not show up for his appointment, which is a concern because he won't get any medicine without making each appointment. Hopefully he rescheduled for this week. The kids are mostly getting adjusted to living in the outside world after living in a group kids home for years. It is sad that several of them are no longer going to school. Hopefully they can start again in Feb. when the new school year starts in their new neighborhoods.
Three of the kids who were set to leave Amor y Vida the past couple of weeks are being allowed to stay there until the school year ends in November (Jessica, Alfredo and Brenda). This is much better than what happened with the others being forced out mid-year in school. My godson, Angel, who just turned 14, was given one more year until he has to leave to live with his Aunt and two brothers who he has never met. Hopefully during this year he will have the opportunity to meet them or visit them for a weekend so he will know them a little before the move. At least he has a year to prepare mentally for the change. So the future for the other kids is a little better than what happened with all the older ones last month.

Amor y Vida

Some unfortunate things have happened at Amor y Vida starting while I was gone. The board of directors decided that they wanted to only be a center for children from newborn up to 10 years old. All of the kids who are over 11 and have any family, were told to leave and move in with their family members. While I was gone, 5 or 6 of the kids left and another 3 or 4 since my return. This is very sad for all of the kids, the ones who left and the ones who are still there and for me too. The kids who have no family are being allowed to stay.
For those who don't know or remember, Amor y Vida is another home (orphanage) here in San Pedro Sula for children with HIV. Our church group would usually visit there after visiting Casa Corazón. I stayed there with Joe and Tom the first three weeks I was here last year and I usually go there once a week to visit the kids. They had 39 kids and their kids were all older than the kids here at Casa Corazón because for years they would only accept children over 6 years old. The day to day director of Amor y Vida, Tito, left there a few months back and the president of the board and foundation in charge took over daily operations. Things changed quickly and many of the older children were not happy. The sudden change in policies and departure of 10 of the older kids was very sad and shocking. Rather than being a home for these kids to grow up in until they finish school and are ready to go to work on their own, it has become a temporary lodging place until they are old enough to take care of themselves when they must return to their relatives. In some ways I can see the reasoning because if they have family they should be with their family and not in an orphanage. But for the kids involved, this was their home for a long time and the sudden change in rules is really difficult. Some of them have relatives living in very harsh conditions.
Tito came by today to visit with me and talk about the situation. He still has a huge heart for all of these kids who were like his own kids for many years. He has been in contact with almost all of them very regularly since they had to leave. He is personally giving them money for their bus fares to get to the hospital so they can continue to get medications. He is also actively looking for a home for one of the girls who is 16 or 17 and had to move in with her grandmother who is very poor and lives in a tiny shack in a town near the coast. She cannot afford to go to school any longer nor take the bus to the hospital. Tito told me that she and all of the kids have been phycologically devastated by their sudden uprooting.
This really has been sad for me in visiting there. Many of the kids I was closest to are no longer there but I still want to see the others who have not left so I will continue to do so.
Please keep all of the kids from Amor y Vida in your prayers.

Day at the Beach

Saturday was a fun day for the kids. We rented a bus and took almost everyone to the beach. After raining all day Friday, we were worried the trip would be cancelled but it was a pretty nice day. There was a ton of trash on the beach that probably washed out from the rivers during the all day rain the day before, but the kids still had a great time. Here are some of the photos of the day.






Things have been going well at the casa. The computer used as a server in the office crashed so I have not had access to the internet in quite a while. I am using another computer now because mine cannot be hooked up to the network until the server is fixed.