I'll try to remember the highlights.
Tuesday I sat down with the kids from preschool. They were out eating with the big kids, but they gathered together at one table. Elvin was talking loudly, as usual, but his mouth was full of food. I asked him, "Elvin, why are you talking with your mouth full?" He quickly responded, "Because we're not in class!" I couldn't do anything but laugh. I told him at least he is honest!
Wednesday we only had 4 kids in the preschool class, so there was room to spread out. Some of the kids were doing summersaults on the carpet. Carpet is a luxury for them. They don't have carpet at home. Some only have dirt floors. I decided since there were only four kids we should take advantage of the space, and the carpet, so we did some stretching then some exercises, then some more summersaults, frontward and backward, and bridges. The kids had never tried back summersaults before. I used to teach acrobatics and they really enjoyed it so I told them anytime we have a class of four or less, we can do that again. Patience is not the strongest virtue of preschoolers, so it is dangerous to do summersaults with more than 4 kids. Feet were flying everywhere. The next morning they met me at the van asking if they could do exercises again. I took a quick look around and pointed out that there were more than four kids, so no, we cannot do exercises today.
Thursday was chicken soup day. Merlin told me he found a heart in his soup. I looked up expecting to see part of the heart because chicken soup is made from all of the left over parts. Marlin literally clips the toenails off the feet and cooks the feet. The kids love it. I scoop out the veggies and try to avoid the meat. Anyway, Merlin was holding a piece of celery shaped like a heart. It was so cute I took a picture. Then all of the kids found hearts in their soup and needed pictures taken. I have lots of smiling kids with celery hearts from Thursday.
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| Merlin's celery heart ♥ |
Friday the teachers were on strike. We had 68 kids and 14 of them were in my preschool class. I started out with two of the older girls helping, but then they left me alone and didn't send anyone else in to take their place so I was stuck in the classroom with 14 crazy preschoolers. One of them was screaming and crying and wanting to leave, which made more scream and cry, but Lourdes said she needs to learn to stay in class so she stayed for about an hour, screaming and crying. I stood next to her. She knows me well and hugs and kisses me every day, but she didn't mention a word before she decided to urinate on the floor. So then I had 14 kids and a wet floor. It was not my favorite day ever. I was ready to go home after all of the kids left. My bags were packed when Walter went to his car. But then Lourdes said that Walter could not take me home because where he was going was very ugly (ugly is used often here) and I could not go with him. I figured he had to do an errand at a bad part of town or something so I said I would call my taxista, then I could stop at the store and get milk on the way home. That was when she said NO! I could not go to the store because that was the ugliest place of all! Finally I understood the teachers were having a horrible strike, burning tires and flipping over cars right in front of my supermercado. That is a good place for them to have a protest because it blocks all of the major highways. I was anxious to get home and do laundry because I knew I'd be busy all weekend. I did not want to hear that I was trapped at the church. Then Lourdes said Don Juan could take me home on his motorcycle. I asked how it was safe to go home on a motorcycle, but not safe in a truck? Lourdes said motorcycles can scoot between cars and get away faster. Jairo was gone to another city. He had been stuck on the highway, not moving, for 3 hours because of striking teachers too. What kind of an example does this set for the children when they hear about their teachers having violent riots in the street???
I finally decided I would call my taxista just to ask him how the roads are. He is always parked 2 blocks from my house so I figured he would know what was going on. I trust him and I knew he would tell me if I should just stay at the church. He said he could come and get me, but we might have a long ride home. Turned out we had no problems at all getting home. Everything was clear in our direction. Cars were backed up in the other direction, but we sailed right home with no problems and I sent a text to Lourdes to tell her I was home safe.
Today I got up early to attend an all day seminar about how to preach. It was really great. At the very beginning during prayer Jairo asked us to choose a passage to pray over. In the end we had to speak about that passage. It was harder than we all thought. Jose did a great job and of course Walter did really well, but he is a pastor now, so that is to be expected. It was crazy watching Jairo prepare things in one minute that sounded great when we worked for hours and still struggled. That is why Jairo and Walter are pastors and I am not. But I can see now that I could give a message if I ever had to. At the end we decided to meet again in November to learn something else. The topic has not been decided yet. I will also attend a seminar about violence - how to differentiate between difficult and dangerous situations. I am not sure when that is. Since I don't have a car, I just go where they tell me. Jose, Karla, Walter and I are going. Not sure if others are going as well.
The other Walter sent me a message yesterday that he received notice I have a package waiting for me. He will get a copy of my ID at church on Sunday and pick up the package Monday. It's from my Mom and it took less than 2 weeks to get here!
I just experienced the strangest thing!!! Right now, I heard rain in the distance, but no rain drops on the trees outside my window. I could hear the pounding of the rain getting closer and closer from the North, then a couple of drops on the trees then a few drops on the roof and then a downpour! After about a minute of rain the temperature dropped significantly. The rain moved back toward the North for a second, but now it is a constant pounding storm outside. I am sitting about 8 feet from the window and my toes are getting wet. The front door just blew shut. Glad I am not outside or driving in this! But it is good for the trees. My avocado tree is very dry. I've been watering it when we have extra water. The lime tree is full of gorgeous limes. The platano tree that broke in April is still broken but there is a smaller one next to it which has two big bunches of baby platanos on it. Fany knew I would be excited about that because she remembered how sad I was about the platano tree falling down. Fany and I talk almost every day now. We stop over at each other's houses and yell into the door to see what the other is doing when we are bored. Did I write about climbing the avocado tree and shaking the avocados down? That was fun. Her daughter, Laura, laughed so hard. She is about 8 months old. She was giggling like she thought we were nuts, shaking that tree. That got us giggling too. Those were the hugest and juiciest avocados I've ever had in my life. Actually it was the first juicy avocado I have every had.
Well, not much else to say. I am already getting requests from people to bring them things from the states. Today a friend asked me to bring him some specific shoe laces. I told him sure, they won't take up much space and they don't weigh much. I can bring him shoe laces.
The storm is already calming down. Glad I didn't have any laundry out. That was the strangest thing, hearing rain in the distance like that. Always something new and exciting in Honduras.
You can pray for Lourdes. Her back is hurting her a lot, like it used to back in March and April. Also Clara, the mother of two girls from the breakfast program keeps having to go to the hospital. She has something wrong with her back and also has something wrong with her chest so she is having trouble breathing. She has been to the hospital twice. From what I understood the first time they told her to breathe with her mouth open and that was it. I asked Lourdes to get a better idea what was going on, but Lourdes said that I understood correctly. The second time she was given more medicine to shoot into her veins. I don't know what it is or what it does, but Lourdes has been going to her house and giving her the medicine every day, which is hard for Lourdes because it is a long walk all uphill to get there and it's tough on Lourdes' back.
Jetty has been doing much better. She hasn't had a hairball since that first day when I started the vasoline treatment. She is getting a little chubby, probably from lack of exercise. I play with her, but it's not the same as when she used to go outside. She is famous here. Even today at the seminar one of the men asked how she is and if she has a boyfriend yet. I'd rather have people talking about my cat getting a boyfriend than about me getting a boyfriend.
Sorry for the long lapse in entries! I'll do better this week.
