Choosing to Live!

So a lot has happened in the last few days, and I can’t help but think about what it means to choose life! I’ve heard this saying so many times, at pro-life rallies and in church, but it means so much more now.

First, Saturday morning after sleeping in ‘til 6:30, we went to visit the children at the Sisters of Charity’s orphanage right down the street. My friend Kate Palla, a VIDES volunteer in Tegucigalpa , had come to visit for the weekend so this was a special day and we were with some very special kids. These kids have all been abandoned by their parents and come to the orphanage in various stages of malnourishment. Until now I have never seen children so capable of breaking your heart. Here at the school these girls at least have a family of some sort, but the orphanage has four sisters and a few staff members, but over all is grossly understaffed for the amount of children there. We went to the infant area where there were about twenty-five infants from 2 to 18 months and one paid staff member and one lady who helps out sometimes. The smell of urine a poo was a little overwhelming, because between bathing and feeding them all, there is little time to change their cloth diapers. We spent most of time just picking up and holding the kids because they were all just dyin’ for some lovin. Then I helped feed a few of them. They had an ingenious home-made highchair for feeding six kids at the same time. After a couple hours visiting hours were over and we left. Just seeing these kids, you know that God loved them, He took them out of drains and away from certain death to here, where though they were not up to US standards, the children were all fed and loved and were taken care of. Merely their presence in the world is a gift, and their little lives are so precious!

Secondly, I’ve been working at a soup kitchen for children, that the diocese runs from a school building we have across the street. Children between the ages of 2 and 10 can come and receive lunch. I have been taking names and taking pictures of them to make them ID cards for when they come. Oh they are “bien lindo!” (so cute!) But it pains me to talk to the parents who come with them, because they all have such sad stories, and have no money not for lack of working. After leaving the Orphanage Saturday, Kate and I went to explore the town of Santa Rosa , like I’ve never explored it before! So from 9:30 am- 4:00 pm we walked almost all the barrios within the city. I got to see where it is that the kids are coming from, as I recognized the different barrio names, and also see how it is that someone can work all day and earn nothing. The streets are full of people selling cheap goods that they buy in bulk and then try to sell on the streets to make a minimal profit, but there are so many people selling the same things and very little people looking to buy stuff. This week two of the boys have been coming without shoes because someone stole them, but they don’t have the funds to buy new ones. Choosing life for these kids and these parents every day is deciding to walk around with smiles, seeing the small blessings in life, and really LIVING!

Thirdly, yesterday we celebrated the day of the Teachers, all day, starting with a special Mass, a special breakfast, then a special assembly, then ending the day with a special dinner. We had some good times, with some crazy dances by the girls in the assembly, then our own dancing after dinner. But what I realized here is that being a teacher here means a lot more. As one of the teachers said it, the school is another home, and we are second parents to the girls. Here the teacher’s primary responsibility is to not to make sure they get good grades, but first and foremost to ensure that they become women of God and women of good character. The teachers take this seriously too, and whether they like it or not, the girls’ private lives are all public knowledge, and they never say aww too bad that’s their problem, but here they do something. I am just amazed at how much the sisters and the teachers choose to give life to these girls and to the community by uplifting them and preventing the culture of death to continue its evil cycles.



Good Night! Pray for us here, and pray for me that I am able to get to know these awesome sisters and these teachers better, and that we can all try and choose to preserve, live and give life!

PS. I Love all of you back home! And a special shout out to my girls! Muah we'll talk soon, and send me your' phone number again and I can try and call it some night around 8. Muah!
   Some of the Ninos I serve every day!

God Bless America!

So today we celebrated Honduras Independence Day! I spent all morning in the sun, watching a parade of schools of all ages. School after school , after school marched by presenting their "acto civico". As far as I understand every school in Honduras has to make a some kind of presentation in the town square within the the first fifteen days of September, culminating until today, (we did it the first Monday of September). The parade began with two fireman, and a handful of military veterans, and then began the two and a half hours of numerous schools.. The schools had marching bands—only one of which had something other than percussion instruments, many girls in elegant homemade dresses depicting Honduran countrysides, a dance team, and little kids parading holding things representing the country. It is a funny thing to have this “acto civico” and all this parading forced upon the students. It was amazing to see all the schools that are here, and how sincerely people want to change their country for the better, by showing they are educating the young, however, I kept thinking that in the US we don’t have this extensive parading of schools. Our school’s patriotism is always shown at football games and sporting events where we begin with the national anthem, and our parades are businesses and military who want publicity as being patriotic. What a contrast!
People stay in the US, because they have all their needs supplied, I’d even say that a lot of American’s aren’t even necessarily proud of being American, because they would rather claim to be “citizens of the world.” Patriotism in the US seems to be more of an added bonus, to be proud of where you live. But here, people are more intimately connected with the earth, there is not as many artificial things that separate man from nature like in the US. There is not air-conditioning, little electricity, even for harvesting crops there is less mechanical equipment, and most of the people live in the countryside selling what they grow on their farms. Patriotism lies deep it is here that they have their culture, their food, and their family. I spent September eleventh driving to the countryside of Intibuca to the house of one of the girls, so she could visit her family that she hasn’t seen since July. What should have been a two hour trip took six hours to get there, because the road were so bad. We actually couldn’t even make it to her house because of the mud, so we stopped and hiked about twenty-five minutes up and down some hills to get there. What a gorgeous land it was, full of pine trees, banana trees, corn, and potatoes. Her house in the shade of the pine and banana trees, was homemade out of wood and adobe so the roof reached maybe six and a half feet high. It had three parts/rooms, an outdoor bathroom, and an outdoor water station, with water straight from the mountain they lived on. It was quaint and pretty much the bare bones, they hadn’t been able to go to a store in a while because of the roads, so they had killed one of their own chickens for us and made the most amazing tamales, atole, and corn on the cob for me and the sisters. I loved it, and they loved their home too!

Tracy and some of our girls!

I think that the government assumes that there is a true need for patriotism, so that people don’t just leave their country, but I don’t know if this is the way to make people stay. Patriotism just doen’t suffice to keep people here. No one here wants to leave the land that holds their heart, yet, after years of working, after receiving the best education you could afford, and still your family is struggling to survive, it is hard not to want to leave. Ohhh God Bless America!

Felicidades!

Some of the internas with their gifts

Marinita on the new bicycle!

Felicidades! Today is “el Dia de los Niños,” the day when we give gifts to the children, for being children. Since I’ve been here there has been at least four festivals to celebrate something or other, today has been my favorite though. We had three cakes that we shared between We also gave them all the presents I brought from Arizona, each girl received a pencil and a hair tie. It was wonderful to see them so happy. I want to tell you about this festival, because there is a reason why there are so many festivals, because the suffering here is so great, there is always need to lift the spirits. Every day we here about something bad that happened to someone’s family. First with the massacre in Mexico, and then there was a whole bus load of people killed on the road here from San Pedro Sula, one of the cipota’ cousin's murdered someone and then ran and now they fear that the family of the victim are going to kill the other family and burn their house down when they are sleeping in revenge although the whole town knows it was not their fault. Another one of the internas has been sad all day because the aunt that she lives with was supposed to come today to see her and she didn’t, although she hasn’t seen her in four weeks. This interna’s parents have lived in the United States for the past nine years, and she has lived passed from one family to another separated from her other bothers and sisters who are still here in Honduras too. “El Día de los Niños” makes everyone happy for a moment, like all the other festivals, but as I saw as we all went to mass today, nothing brings peace except God. The sisters know this, and the girls are learning this. You can have everything you materially need, and still be so unhappy, or you can have nothing and still have reason to celebrate, because you have God. I am amazed every time I see these girls and these sisters celebrate. Life here is not really life without God, I pray that I can see past all that stuff I have and see how useless it is. Until then Felicidades and Please Enjoy life, it is great! Good night!

Santos won one of the raffles!

Usted September 7, 2010

Sor Odie Running down the corridor!

Tracy and Sor Che before Buenas Noches

One of the things that is so different that I really had trouble with is using Usted. For those who don’t know, to say you singular there is the informal “tu” and the formal “usted.” I have never had to call anyone else anything other than the simple “you” it works for all people in English, but here “tu” can get you in trouble. I was a little bitter at first and offended when Tracy told me that I have to call the sisters Usted. Then I felt slightly indignant when I realized the sisters still used tu for me! What a strange thing the idea of separating those who deserve respect and those who don’t I thought. However, I’ve started growing used to using this new way categorizing people when you are talking to them. Though I may have felt indignant at first, it is almost normal now to be addressed as Usted by the girls, except then I feel guilty using tu back to them. However it is crazy how this idea pervades the culture. In the Estados Unidos, we’re all equal, and are always indignant with the idea of primacy of on person over another, but here, its is the way of life, the way of speaking and the way of viewing the world. However it isn’t only a primacy of one over another for no reason, it is a way for recognizing and respecting those who have earned a greater position and age, and those who you don’t know. Our relationships are not all equal and it is hard to see sometimes that there is a difference between children and adults and our close friends and those we have just met. Tu implies intimacy, and we don’t have that with everyone, unless we are God. How much does the American culture lack this idea of respect for our elders and respect for the stranger. Using tu with those who call you Usted isn’t weird for them because everyone who would be called Usted has been tu, and has earned it. In the eyes of the girls, I guess I have earned this title because I am so much older and "smarter" because I speak English. Why can we never be less than someone in the US…I need more humility. There is plenty of that here. As people always said at UD, that a humble campus makes humble students, and that applies even more here, as humble environments creates humble people.

First Things! September 5, 2010

First Things! September 5, 2010

So it has been almost a week since I have Arrived and yal have heard nothing from me, I’m sorry! I have been busy learning about “ mi nueva casa” and I have had a few random “enfermedades” which have not lasted more than a couple days and the sisters will not stop telling me is because I am getting used to the cold climate, because I come from somewhere much hotter and it is soo cold here (its only 70 degrees!). Everything here is so different, wonderful, but different. I can tell you more about the school later, because
I will be here a while, so I will tell yal about the drive here. I arrived late in the night In San Pedro Sula, so I spent the night there and drove up the mountains to Santa Rosa the following afternoon. It is about two and a half hours away by means of a two lane highway. The school’s driver kindly welcomed me to the Moon because the road is so full of potholes it might as well have been the moon! In different areas, there were families filling in the pot holes with sand, and stop traffic so that people would pay them for their work. The road climbed the mountains, passing casita after casita of the campesinos— some huts of mud, most of concrete or adobe, and a few of brick. Their fields grew on the side of the mountains, some fields of corn were so steep it was almost vertical. Along the highway in the middle of the day, walked mothers and children, (almost no men). There were a few areas along the road with maybe twenty houses a lot closer together and two or three stores and a restaurant, and at these places, they had speed balls on the road to slow the traffic. So that between the potholes, the people in the street, the speed balls, and the the slow cars, drivers on the freeways here spend just about the same amount of time in the lane for on coming traffic as they do in their own lane.
Finally I arrived safe and sound here, where things aren’t as much falling apart as about every other place I saw, and where children aren’t naked in the streets or shoveling sand for money, but this was my first impression, and a pretty acurate one of the life of everyone else in Honduras-- poor, always working, always trying to fill in holes in the system, and always facing life's problems head on.
When at every meal we ask a blessing for the food we are about to receive, it is serious, we don’t want to get parasites from the water used to prepare it. Then we give thanks after eating, for our delicious meal, for having a full stomach is a blessing! Just two days ago the girls were lectured for throwing away food, because five of them threw away about a fourth cup of food each! Now they all have to ask us every time they want to throw anything away, even if its only a bite, Usually they have to eat it or find someone else to. It makes me sick to think of the food we waste in the US, there is no comparison.