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.

Brian

This is our newest little boy, Brian. He is 2 years old but he is very small and thin. He cannot walk yet. His mother is in the hospital in the final stages of AIDS and is not expected to live much longer. They are from the Santa Barbara area of Honduras where there is more Spanish influence and less indian so the people are much fairer skin color.

After a very long day of traveling, I made it back to the casa last night around 9:30 p.m. our time, 11:30 in VA. I had to take a tour of Central America on the way back down, visiting Guatemala and El Salvador before returning to Honduras.

When I got to my gate at the airport in Charlotte, I figured that Pastor Marty must have been praying for me because they put me on the Pittsburgh Steelers airplane (his team). I had no idea that USAir painted airplanes with football team logos and I did not see any other teams at the airport so the Steelers were quite unique. As we flew over Guatemala City they must have thought the team was coming to town for something because it looked like we were on a private team jet.



This is the view of part of Guatemala City from the airport terminal during the down-pour of rain.











Shortly after taking off from Guatemala and rising above all the rain clouds, you could see the peaks of the volcano stiking through the clouds.










This is the Pacific Ocean and the El Salvador coast just outside of San Salvador where we landed a few minutes after this photo was taken. Two oceans and four countries in 14 hours made for an interesting but very long day.








The 4 boys were all waiting up for me when I arrived (past their bed times on a school night) and we were all very happy to see each other again. The house was not too messy either so I was happy. I had a great reunion with all the little kids in the morning, especially Juan-Fernando. He was very happy to see his Daddy and they all told me he was very sad when I left. Not much changed while I was gone that I have seen so far, but we got a new little boy today, a 2 year old named Bryan. I will get some photos of him posted soon.
I had a really great month visiting my family and friends and thanks to all of you for treating me so well during my time back in VA. I will try to keep posting more regularly this time.

I'm Back

Sorry that I have been such a bad poster lately. No excuse, just busy and writers block. Anyway, I arrived back in Norfolk for my 4 week vacation here. I will be returning to the casa in San Pedro Sula on July 6th. It was sad leaving the kids but I am looking forward to a little break and rest.

Just before I left Gustavo celebrated his 4th birthday. What a wonderful thing this is. Gustavo spent several weeks in the hospital in December and seemed to be near death. He was terribly skinny, could not/would not eat food nor take medicine because he constantly threw it up. But he had a lot of people praying hard for him and he made a miraculous turnaround and recovery. This photo is of him last week on his birthday. He is now in great health, runs around playing and fighting with other kids just like a normal healthy boy.

On the left is Juan-Fernando with Dulce. I was very sad leaving Juan because he is too young to understand that I was leaving for a few weeks but would be returning. He was very sad when I talked to him but he gets sad when I just go next door to my house for the night. I think he will feel abandoned by his daddy and may be upset with me when I get back.

Left to right: Antonio, Juan-Fernando, Ater, Sarai, Gustavo, Estella, Dulce and Erick

The two summer volunteers from Notre Dame arrived two weeks ago. They are Elesia and Katie and are both very nice and great with the kids. Both of them enjoy spending time reading books to all of the kids and they also help with their homework. The girls are going to trade off weeks staying in my room while I am gone so there will still be an adult in the house to supervise the boys. I am not going to worry about the boys because they are in good hands during my absence.

Mother's Day

The kids had a little celebration and presentation for all the ladies who work at the casa for Mother's Day. First they sang a song then some of them did different dance routines. It was a cute time for all of them.

Labor Day

May 1st is Labor Day in Honduras so everyone is off work and the kids are not in school.

I have often complained about the schools here so just to give you a little idea why the kids receive such a bad education here is some more... Example 1: They passed a law (to cut down on gas usage) that you could not drive your car one day a week. Every car was required to get a sticker from their equivilent to DMV to put on their window with the day of the week that car could not be driven. If the car was on the road that day you would get a fine. Everyone was angry about this so three weeks ago the teachers decided they would go on strike last Thursday, two weeks after the announced strike date, and the strike was in protest of this law. One week after the strike date was announced but a week before the strike, the supreme court declared the law unconstitutional and it immediately stopped being enforced. The following week, the teachers decided that they had already planned to go on strike on Thursday because of the law (which was now no longer the law) and since they planned on not working the might as well just take the day off. So they still went on strike for the day, even though the law they were striking against had already been revoked. Nothing was learned that day but a lesson on laziness. Example 2: Today is Labor Day and a national holiday. Tomorrow everyone works as normal. The kids who go to the private school go to school tomorrow. However, the teachers at the public school in the neighborhood decided yesterday that they would be too tired on Friday after celebrating all day Thursday, so they were going to take Friday off too. Friday is not a holiday and was not a planned day off, just a decision by the local teachers that they would all not go to school that day, so there are no classes. They do not use substitute teachers here. If a teacher is sick or has an appointment or just does not show up for work, those students go home. I guess educated people to fill the teaching positions are few so these teachers never fear getting fired for constantly missing school. And so the cycle of bad education goes on and on.

Photos from My Trip

Here are some of the kids at NPH.










.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Maynor is in the photo on the bottom left and in the middle of the photo just above that. He is growing like a weed. His brother Carlos is tall and apparently he is starting to take off like his brother. The middle photo of the dam was taken this week and the one on the right in Feb. This shows how much the water level has dropped since we were there swimming in February. This is the dry season so they have had very little rain.

I'm still here

I just got back from spending most of the week at NPH near Tegucigalpa visiting Maynor Galván and all the kids there. There are quit a few new ones so it is always difficult keeping up with the names. Several of the kids always ask "what is my name" so I always try to learn them so the kids won't be disappointed if I don't know them. It is very nice to get outside in a nature environment, especially after dark to see the billions of stars easily visible in the dark sky. Here I spend almost all of my time indoors except for some walks through our dusty and dirty neighborhood and I never go out at night.
I had the misfortune of sitting next to the one person on the bus who could speak English and wanted to talk for 4 hours, mostly negative, prejudicial and foul. The only way I could get it to end was to go to sleep. It is amazing how some people can start a sentence with "I am not prejudice, but ... " and then spew out the most prejudicial comments I have ever heard. It is difficult to tell a person you are stuck next to that no, you are the definition of prejudice. So, sleep was an easier escape until I eventually saw a vacant seat and moved to the other side of the bus. I won't let the negative ending spoil a great week of fun and rest at NPH.
At Amor y Vida, the other home for kids with HIV that I visit here in San Pedro Sula, they had some unfortunate events happen lately. A teenage boy and girl were both kicked out for having an inappropriate relationship. Each had family of some sort they were able to move in with. Tito, the onsight director, was dismissed by the lady in charge of the foundation and replaced with a new person. Tito was very nice and welcoming of me and allowed me and my friends to stay there when we needed a place to stay so it was sad to see him go. Also one of the boys was caught stealing the very expensive medicine to try and sell it and he too was told to leave. He got violent and hit someone when he got caught which probably was a large reason for him being asked to leave right away and not given another chance. He too had an aunt or other relative in the area he moved in with. All of these kids had been at Amor y Vida since I began visiting there 6 years ago so it was sad to see these things happen and have them leave.

I'm back

I really did not go anywhere but have not been writing lately. Our internet service here really stinks and is out frequently so I have not been on the computer much. I have been occupied with kids, homework and helping them study for exams the past couple of weeks.
It has become full summer again here. It really never got cool, but was cooler when we had cloudy days and rain during the "winter" but it is as hot as mid-summer now. The kids all had off the entire week before Easter for Semana Santa which they enjoyed.
Everyone's health is good at this point. A cold/flu bug along with an eye infection went around and got most of us for awhile.
Milton celebrated his 16th birthday yesterday. He got to go to Masbey's house and work most of the day with Jonathan and Jaime. Punishment for the boys who don't like to do homework when they are supposed to.
The bad news to report is the brand new van recently donated to the casa was stolen. The old 15 passenger van had been in service for 10 years and was costing more and more with routine and expensive repairs after its numerous break-downs. 10 years here is probably the equivalent of 20 years in U.S. driving because here it is constantly on dirt roads filled with deep pot holes and lots of water and mud it regularly goes through, along with the constant heat. A generous donon paid for a brand new Nissan 15 passenger van that easily carried 25 children. These vans are very common here and are used in their local bus systems. Masbely was in the van when she was car-jacked and had the van stolen. Fortunately she was not hurt and survived with only the emotional scar of being robbed. The casa bought insurance when they got the van last month, but unfortunately the insurance industry here is nothing like that in the U.S. and it is not uncommon for insurance companies not to pay. Too bad my former employer, GEICO, does not write policies for Honduras, so they are stuck with some local company who said they will wait 3 months to see if the van is found and then decide what to do. Since the van was new and they only made one insurance payment, they are not holding out much hope that this company is going to pay for a new replacement van.

Rob's Visit

I had my first official visit from the Church of Messiah and the foreign missions committee. Rob was in Honduras this past week and spent time with Carmen in Tegucigalpa at His Love in Action school for deaf children and then came to San Pedro Sula to visit us Saturday until Monday. We had a good time and the kids really enjoyed having him here. He got to eat like the locals when we went to Popeyes chicken on Sunday for lunch to celebrate Jonathan's 11th birthday. The boys like going there for celebrations because they have a large play area for them to enjoy.

Our internet was not working for the past week almost so this is my first post in a while and I have a bunch of e-mails to respond to so if you do not hear from me for a few days, I will respond sooner or later. Also, due to people trying to post spyware in the comments section of this blog, I have to approve all comments before they are published so if you do not see your comment for a few days it is probably because I have not had internet access. However, some comments have been sent into cyberspace and never given to me for approval so sorry if this happens to you. I am only deleting the spyware comments, not those posted by normal people. And to the people who keep trying to post spyware, you are wasting your time because I am never going to approve your comments. Look below and you will see that none have ever been published so go to someone elses blog to waste your time.

Day at the Pools

The kids were treated to a fun day at a park with pools by some visitors. We jammed almost all of the kids into a large van and made a 45 minute trip to the park area. There were 3 large pools, one for kids so even the smallest kids were able to have a lot of fun.

Pizza Hut

Mary and Brian from New York visited the casa last week and treated 19 of us to a trip to Pizza Hut. The kids who went loved it, especially because they have a giant play area for kids, including an indoor place to play soccer. The photo was taken by Brian when we were waiting for our table. You can see all the eyes glued on the TV on the wall behind where he was standing. Mary and Brian have been regularly visiting the casa for the past 10 years, ever since huricane Mitch.

Casa de Mauricio y Isaac

These are some of the photos that I took at Mauricio and Isaac's home last weekend when we went back to visit their family again. Their house has a really nice view of downtown San Pedro Sula in the first photo. The second photo is of me with Mauricio and Isaac along with their youngest brother, Jovan, and their sister, Jaimy, who is between them in age. Neither of their siblings have HIV. You can see that Isaac's 6 year old brother is taller than he is at age 10, and their 11 year old sister is taller than Mauricio at age 13. HIV really stunts the growth of these children. The third photo includes several of their younger uncles and aunts.

The first photo below is Isaac and Mauricio with their uncle Victor in front of the casa. The second photo is the oldest sister of Isaac and Mauricio, Claudia, who is 16. The third photo is of their uncle Daniel (22) who goes to school in Tegucigalpa studying to get his degree to be a social worker to help poor and needy children. He is really impressive to have such a great desire to help others at such a young age.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The first photo below is Isaac and Victor with their house in the background. We were up the hill behind their house picking limes and sugar cane. They also have bananna trees there too. The next photo is their youngest uncle, Jonathan (11) with one of their cousins.