The In-Between Time: La Contenedor y el Hogar de Don Bosco!

Dinner at the Hogar don Bosco

So hello to all! My stories from Tegucigalpa will have to be cut short because so much has happened since then, that I am just far too behind in the blog. So first I want to tell you all that you are still in my prayers, though I might not seem to be a part of your lives right now, I know that your lives have continued to move along, with your own triumphs and difficulties, so please don´t forget to let me know how you are, your lives are important to me!

So in Tegus, I have a few mental images for you:

One:
Forty children from first through sixth grade, all running around in torn clothes, broken shoes, having a blast playing basketball, and soccer. They are all skilled because they have an hour and fifteen minutes of mandatory sports time every day, and also play in their free time too! Aww Man they were cute! Then the fighting breaks out and these cute little kids start hitting and cussing, etc, and I remember the problems these kids have. After dinner and after polishing their school shoes and putting on their pj´s the twenty girls start going crazy during their weekly dance party. Until I realized that some of these six and seven year old girls are dancing how little girls shouldn´t know how to dance, the only evidence of their past history, and the work of some of their mothers... These are the awesome, tough, and troubled kids that arrive ever Sunday, eat and sleep during the week at the Hogar. While there, they are taken to the public school that segregates and picks on them :(, they return return to the Hogar in the afternoon, and they have catechism, homework help, crafts and sports. And then finally Friday, they return home to their poor broken family lives with their prostitute mothers/ beggar parents, and every other lowest of the low professions you can think of.

Dance Party!

That is the Salesian Father on the Right, and a box of Trader Joe Crackers form the Contenedor

Two: a trailer truck full of food and clothes, well I was at the Hogar Don Bosco when they reiceived the monthly “contenedor” which they use for themselves, and dispense to 40 other families most in need. Up a steep steep hill from the street we sent truck load after truck load of boxes while the kids hung on for their dear lives while also attempting to hold the boxes in, as Kate drove the dying stickshift “ 92 up the hill. They received a ton of (what i think is really good) healthy Kellogs cereals (that none of the Hondurans liked), food from Trader Joe's, tons of hospital garments, and tons of miscellaneous boxes of clothes and random stuff. The other volunteers there are from Spain along with the Salesian priest, and it was refreshing to have other outsiders looking in with me. In some senses it is important to have a foreigners view of your country to see critique things well. As Spaniards, the father there also was used to the higher standard of living (like those in the US), but now lives here where things aren’t always so nice. Being there I didn’t feel guilty about where I came from, unlike in Santa Rosa, where I often felt guilty for having been raised in “wealth”. The priest didn’t try to hide that he had lived with higher quality things and was used to European food, but explained to the kids what it was like! H explained to them what the boxes of "Flat bread" were to the kids, who were amazed that anyone would use crackers like tortillas! I realized that I don’t need to feel guilty for having been raised in a more affluent country, and neither do you, we just need to rejoice and be thankful for what we have, don't waste it, and give what we don't need.

Two of the three Spanish Volunteers who work with Kate

Three: a see of white and gray habbits! The reason I could come down to the city in the first place was because the Madre superior Sor Yvonne came to visit from Rome to celebrate 100 years of the Salesian sisters in Honduras, with all the sisters from Central America! It was so cool to see so many sisters dedicating their lives to serve, and then to see the 17 postulants and 27 aspirants (those who are going to become sisters), was really cool, the church here is alive and the congreagation was so young! I was lucky enough also to be able to participate in some of the fesitivities and see some professionals dancing really well, the professional dances that I've seen the girls here dancing all the time.

Four: Finally imagine a shnazzy restaurant where at least hapf the people are on the dance floor jammin out to the YMCA (not doing the letters)! I had the chance to go out dancing one night at a restaurant, and it was really fun, it was in the breaks they had Kareoke, and they played such an array of music it was hilarious at times that they would follow a regatone song with some cheasy song in english, but everyone loooved it! Before we left, the spaniards were worried that they didn't look nice enough and would get kicked out, but we had to remind them that they were in Honduras, where everything matches! The joke was that we all needed to go"al Contenedor para hacerse guapa" [to the container to make ourselves beautiful!] which probably was true , but no matter, we went and danced and all was fine, The only sad part is that unfortunately, Tracy (the volunteer here in Santa Rosa with me) had already left for Santa Rosa and after seven months still has not gone out dancing, but, hopefully we will get to go out dancing some time here before she leaves in November!

Driving Through "Gracias" in one of the few areas of flat countryside!

Overall It was an awesome trip, beginning with Mass at the Cathedral in the Centro, and ending with a Mass with the sisters on Sunday! Is there a better way to have a trip than beginning and ending with Christ! well there was a lot in this post, but believe me there is alot more going on here right now, but that will have to wait until later!

--Prayer Requests: For all the missionaries that serve here in Santa Rosa, and all the other VIDES volunteers all over the world right now, especially for two of my friends Mary and Monica, who have gotten very sick on Mission. And that we can figure out a good plan for what more to do to improve the Comedor Infantil (the soup kitchen I work at).

Random Pics from Valle de los Angeles where a Spanish friend of Father Eduardo lived.