The End of the Blog

After 3 years, my mission in Honduras has just come to an end. I arrived back in the USA last Friday. As it was in Dec., I was very sad to leave the casa and the kids. I went to the airport with Masbely, Xiomara and Juan-Fernando. This time he really understood that I was leaving and what it meant after experiencing it in Dec. for a couple of months. I told him that just like so many other kids in Honduras, his papa was going to the US to work and I would be back to visit him. Unfortunately for the boys I was living with, there was no plan for after I left, just like in Dec., so the boys will be living on their own without any adult with them. I can only pray that someone else will feel called to go there to help out like I did 3 years ago, or that they decide to hire a new employee to stay with the boys at night.

The most positive news that happened the last couple of weeks that I was there was that Carlos Roberto decided to get baptised in the church he has been going to. Carlos is now 20. He had a lot of problems when he lived in the casa and was eventually kicked out at age 15. After living with Xiomara for 3 years, he moved out on his own and was living with a former employee of the casa and her son and Josué in our neighborhood. They are the next door neighbors of the boys new home where I was living. Carlos still has motivational problems and rarely works, but he is getting better and maturing. He began going to church last year and made the decision to get baptised.

After I got home, I got a message from the casa that the dog Mau (like the Chinese emperor) died. Mau was a donation from a Spanish couple returning to Spain and they could not take him with them. He actually had his own trust fund also as the couple would donate money for his food and vet bills. They told me the kids were very sad to see him go. They burried him in the park.

After 3 years of living at the casa surrounded by kids, it is going to be a big adjustment returning home. It will be nice to return to a somewhat normal living arrangement, but I will definitely miss all the kids and having them around constantly. It will be sad going to the supermarket without Juan. As I told them at the casa, I am not leaving forever. I will continue to visit as I regularly did in the past before 2007 and I look forward to this. I hope that you all enjoyed keeping up on my mission with my little blogcito here.

Adiós!

Moving along

I am still here at the casa, 3 more weeks before time to head back to Va. again. Things have been going along as normal. It is hotter than ever; 104 degrees Friday and Sat., 107 on Sunday and supposed to be the same today. And no it is not a "dry" heat like Arizona, it is sticky. It is so hot inside our house that it burns when you touch the table or kitchen counters. No, we don't have a/c. My toothpaste has melted into toothliquid and the liquid hand soap is very hot when you use it. It was 120 degrees when I was in Egypt years ago and this heat is way worse than that desert heat was.

http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/honduras/san-pedro-sula/historic

Kimberly, the youngest girl at thee casa, went back to live with her mother. It was a little sad because she was doing so well here. She had recently learned to walk on her own and she had been moving about the casa alot. She was eating really well and gained a lot a weight, a real chubby little girl. That was the main reason for her coming here; to get well and in good health. The sad part was that her brother, probably 2 years older than her is skinny as a twig and really malnourished. The grandfather says he does not like beans or vegetables so they don't make him eat either. The fear is that will happen to her when she returned to her family. They talked to the family services people who said since the mother placed her here at the casa voluntarily she can take her home when she wants and there is nothing they can do. We will pray for the best for her and hopefully the family will put into practice the nutricion advice they were given.

I went to lunch yesterday with Darwin and Mauricio. Darwin is my friend who grew up at casa Amor y Vida and left there 2 years ago. He lives about 2 hours from here and comes every other month to the hospital for his check up and get his HIV medicines. We always go to lunch when he is in town. It is nice to keep up with him after he left the area. He started back to school in Feb. after being out a year due to missing paperwork he was never given when he left Amor y Vida. Mauricio had his hospital visit the same day and came along with Darwin who me met through me in the past. Mauricio lived in my casa for 2 years and returned to his family, living with his aunt and uncle, in Dec. He is doing well and is growing a lot.

Two months down, one to go

Obviously my blogging has changed during my return to Honduras. This is partly due to me relocating with the boys to our new house a few blocks away. It is not that far of a move, but far enough that the office, which before was just a few steps from my room, is now a couple blocks away. Also, I am busy most mornings when I would use the computer the past few years. All the boys in our house now go to school in the afternoons, except Jaime who splits days with Masbely, Sandra and me for homeschooling. Unfortunately he has not changed much.

Speaking of Jaime, one of his older brothers came to visit him for the first time a couple of weeks ago. His brother, Wilfredo, is 16 and lives in another childrens home here in San Pedro Sula. He spent a little time with Yohanna and Jaime who are siblings. They have another older brother Rigoberto who is 18 or 19 and lives with their father. Maybe some day they will come to take Jaime to live with them. I think living in a family would be the best thing for him.

This week was Milton's 18th birthday. Last year he was told that he would have to move out the day after because he had be somewhat of a problem as well, but that changed and he is going to continue on here hopefully to complete school if he sticks with it and does not get into too much trouble here. Milton is the 4th boy from the casa to reach 18, the other 3 have already left. Josué and Carlos live next door to our new house so I see them a lot. Unfortunately, neither goes to school nor works which is a disappointment. This is the main reason they decided to let Milton stay dispite his problems because they did not want to see a 3rd boy being unproductive. Sindy will turn 18 in May and Alba in October so this year there will be 3 reaching the age of "majority."

Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week) and the kids were all out of school. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are national holidays and almost everything was closed. We set up the swimming pool again and the kids got to swim. We even have a little one in our house for the boys to use. I went to Tegucigalpa on Friday to bring Maynor from NPH here for the week, but unfortunately there was bad miscommunication (not on my part), normal for Honduras, and Maynor went camping with all the other boys for several days. I had just gone there 2 weeks before to finalize the visitation and everything was on track and all the right people knew, so I don't know where the miscommunication happened after I left. Anyway, I spent a night at NPH alone and returned the next day without him. Everyone here was disappointed that he did not come for the week.

I have just about 1 month left here. I leave on May 14th. My plans are to return to work after returning home. I don't think I will have to shovel 4 1/2 feet of snow this time back.

Yes I am in Honduras

I have not posted since returning last month, but I have returned to the casa in San Pedro Sula. Quite a change from my extended vacation in the U.S. A little more than 3 weeks ago I was shovelling 2 feet of snow out of the drive way and today the thermometer busted through the top and it is currently 105 degrees here, 41C. The first week I was back here was actually quite mild and cool in the night, but it is officially summer now. They always say March and April are the hottest months of the year because it is the dry time with no clouds nor rain.

There have been some changes here. First of all, the boys and I have moved to a different house. The original casa has two subsequent house additions next to it where we used to live in one and the oldest girls in the other. The next group of girls was ready to move on from the younger kids house so the boys moved over to another house where the sisters used to live. They still own the house and it was renovated before the boys moved over. We now live about 2 blocks away from the main compound. That is good and bad. Good in that we don't have the constant pass through traffic of people going from the main casa to the office which was right behind us in the former location. Our house is much more peaceful now that we are isolated. The downside is that it is not as convient for me to get to the office to use the computer which is okay, but that is my excuse for not updating my blog. I keep my computer in our house now whereas in the past I kept it in the office since I lived right next door.

In the former house, I had my roommate the gecko, but now our new house is the Hokie House San Pedro Sula. Our neighbors have a turkey family who wonder the neighboring area and always come up to our fence for food. I hear the gobble gobble of the turkey 5-10 times a day and it always sounds like the recorded gobler at the Tech football games.

The positive thing that I had for the past 3 weeks was that all 4 boys in my house went to school in the afternoons. Last year some were in the morning and some in the afternoon so I had my hands full all day with homework and supervision with literally never a minute alone in the house. Now I have (had) the afternoons quiet. I was not spending my afternoons in the house alone; I usually went to spend time with the younger kids in the other house, but it was nice to have the quiet house to come back to for a rest occasionally. I say had because that all ended today when Jaime got expelled from yet another school, his 4th I think. So now he will be home schooled again in the mornings and stay in our house in the afternoons doing homework.

I just made a quick trip down to Tegucigalpa area to visit Maynor Galván at NPH. I went to make plans for him to come and spend Semana Santa (the week before Easter) with us here. I will go back there in 2 weeks to pick him up on Friday and bring him back. His brother Carlos will be coming along also. They will be here 9 days and then I take them back on Easter Sunday. It will be their first trip out of NPH overnight since they moved there 5 years ago. Maynor just had a 2nd operation on his his ears. He has had really bad ear infections for years and they operated on each ear to open the ear canal wider hoping it will help.

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All the kids were very happy to have me back, especially Juan and David. One of the first things Juan asked is when are we going to the supermarket, his favorite thing to do with me. We have been a few times since and he is very happy to be back in our routine. I did not give him the shirt in the photo, someone else here did, but I like it. Roberto started school because his birth certificate says he is 5 but there is no way that is accurate, he just started talking and quit using diapers the later part of last year. I have seen so many birth certificates with errors and it is amazing how those typing errors effect the kids lives. At least he is starting early rather than late, but he will probably not be able to pass pre-school at his early stage of development.

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Sister Eva came back for a visit and is here for a little less than a month.

I'm Going Back

Well, I thought I was leaving the casa permanently to return to work, but it has not worked out that way. My former job at GEICO is not yet open as expected but hopefully later this year. I miss the kids terribly and decided to go back for a 3 month visit to pass some of the time until my job eventually does open up. So you can tune in after Feb. 13th for more updates from the casa.

Return to Political Normalcy

The new, democratically elected by popular vote, president of Honduras was sworn in today. Everyone involved in last years problems got amnisty. The former ousted president, Mel, left Honduras today for the Dominican Republic with his family and possibly on to Mexico. This should put to rest all of the political problems of the past year... Hopefully. At least Honduras will begin to receive its needed international aide once again. Link to the full article if you are interested: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup

The Kids of Casa Corazón

These are the most recent photos of each of the 38 children living at Casa Corazón de la Misericordia.

1. Sindy 2. Milton 3. Alba

4. Mauricio 5. Maynor 6. Kenia

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7. Rebecca 8. Jonathan 9. Jaime

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10. Karla 11. Norma 12. Escarleth

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13. Isaac 14. Jhonny 15. Carlos

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16. David 17. Digna 18. Ater

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19. Ester 20. Nicole 21. Rosa

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22. Dariani 23. Antonio 24. Heidy

25. Dania 26. Jovel 27. Gustavo

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28. Johanna 29. Erick 30. Estella

31. Dulce 32. Denia 33. Mirna

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34. Juan Fernando 35. Roberto 36. Misael

37. Bryan

38. Kimberly

Mr. Jesse's visit

The kids were all happy to see Mr. Jesse again last week, or as they say, "mee-ster Jesse." Jesse lived in Honduras a few years back for a couple of years and was a regular visitor and tutor to the kids at the casa. This was his first visit in about 4 years, but most of the kids remembered him immediately. He had a little party for the kids and brought a lot of personal letters for each of the kids from students and various church groups he is involved with. The kids had a great time, especially hitting each other with the large blow up hammers that each one received.