Well, we're back to stealing toilet paper

Trip writing:
When we were in Europe we scrounged for things like toilet paper and salt so we could avoid having to buy a big (4 rolls) pack and have to carry all of it as we were limited for space. On Fri we stayed at a Hotel in Tegus (both of us for $19), and when we were leaving Jessie grabbed the toilet paper and said "Well, we're back to stealing toilet paper".

On Sunday night when we returned from sending our last blog we all had a volunteer meeting, and at the end the volunteer coordinator thanked us for being nice about having to be separated the first week. She told us that she had wanted us to bond with the other new people from the start and then gave us keys to our own room. Now we have our own bathroom with cold water on the left and cold water on the right. We have a nice size closet, plenty of shelf space all around the room and two desks. The drain from the sink in the bathroom flows directly in to the back of the toilet to be simple and save water. It’s nice to be able to unpack and settle in now! Here are a few pictures of our room:

This is our room looking at the bathroom and the closet from the bed:

This is looking at the front door from our bed:

The bathroom:

Our bed:

We have gotten some groceries and Jessie cooks most of her meals, but I try to eat from the ranch kitchen every meal. Breakfast is usually hot milk with rice in it, a wheat roll and a banana. Lunch is two small tortillas, a soup with chicken (or sometimes pork or beef) and rice. Dinner is a combination of the breakfast and lunch stuff. The soup with chicken is sometimes replaced by a couscous with hot dogs or beans with a hard salty cheese and scrambled eggs or spaghetti.

On Monday Jessie worked on the Hortileza (gardens) and I worked in the Tortillerilla (place where the make tortillas). With tortillas they start by boiling dried corn in a 25 gallon drum for 3hrs over a wood fire.

Then we rinsed the corn by filling and dumping water out of a 5gal bucket of corn. We then dumped the 5gal bucket of corn into a grinder to make meal which we worked into dough, pressed into flat circles, cooked, stacked, and bagged.

Wednesday Jessie worked in the Tortilleria and I worked on the Granja (animal farm). My job on the granja was to tend several hundred chickens along with another new volunteer Lauren. We collected, counted, and sorted by dirty or clean around 500 eggs.

On Tues Jessie and I worked in Hogares as tios for the day which meant we woke up early to get them ready for school and stayed with them all day until they said their prayers, except for when they were actually in class. A different child volunteers to pray before and after every meal and at the religion classes that are taught once a week in the evenings and before bed. They always pray for Father Wasson in the kingdom of Heaven, Haiti, and a lot for NPH International, the weather, the food, their tios, and their siblings. They love the food! They rave about it. They always ask if we like it, and they want to know what our favorite foods are and what we eat in the US. They make a soup that I have eaten twice now called sopa de menudo (soup of chicken giblets) which includes every part of the chicken KFC doesn’t serve, even the feet. It can be tedious to eat because of all of the bones in the neck and feet, but I hold the record as being the only gringo to like it. They are obsessed with asking Jessie and me if we are married even though they very rarely see us together, but they have heard about us. They want to know how many kids we have and when we will have kids. I maintain my celebrity status to a ridiculous level. I’m sure it’s just because of my name (they are feeling a little culture shock of their own) and I anticipate it blowing over fast so I can know what it feels like to be Kevin Federline or that jerk with 8 kids. It’s funny when they ask my name and I say “Trip”. Then they give a laugh like “that’s absurd” and ask “what”? Ta-rip I reply. To which they usually say “Ay, yo no puedo” (Yeah, I can’t [say that]). As a side note everyone thinks I’m from Germany here, but one lady in Tegucigalpa asked me if I was Peruvian.

On the Sunday before last some guys my age asked me to play basketball after lunch. I’m not terribly good at regular sports like basketball, soccer, football, baseball, and such, so I was nervous that I’d get embarrassed playing with them. As it turned out I’m like a Honduran Kobe Bryant and it seems they like to play basketball a fair amount. I’ve seen Reinhart playing several times, but I haven’t gotten a chance to cross him up yet. Although he looks fairly good from what I’ve seen, and the kids all play more coordinated when he’s in the game.

Yesterday in hogar they played volleyball and asked me to play. It’s fun to play sports here especially with 12yr olds and a net up to my forehead. As soon as we got off the plane I told Jess “It’s great because in the States I’m short, but here I’m tall”.

The Canchas on the girls side where we shoot ball:

After volleyball on tues we were eating on the canchas at the buen pastor underneath a street lamp when all of a sudden we heard a zap and crackle like a bug zapper. We all looked up to see a thin wire burning like a wi ck on a stick of dynamite. I yelled “Cut off the lights!” and three boys went running to the hogar. Before they got there the wire fell and landed draped across a tree. Nothing happened after that, but it was crazy watching the wire burn.

Thurs I was in Casa Suyapa as a tio for the day. This started at 5:45 am (an hour which I’ve stayed up till more than I’ve gotten up at because I worked the night shift picking up trash for 5 ½ yrs through college). We woke all the little sleepy boys (ages 4-8 in this room) pulled off the pee pee sheets to be washed, and helped them make their miniature beds.

The tio asked me if I spoke Spanish well because that would make this easier, and told me to go help them in the shower. I quickly got over feeling like I was at a Michael Jackson sleep over party, and then I took direction from watching what a tia was doing. Each little boy had their own scrub sponge. So they got wet, opened their shower curtain and held it out so you would take it, no Spanish necessary. I added soap and washed their top half, so then they could wash the bottom half. Some older ones took care of themselves. After that in the other part of the bathroom there was a collection of different miniature toothbrushes with paste already on them lined up, and a boy picked his out and handed it to me. Yet again I figure out what to do without using Spanish. They are a little ADD so I spent like 20mins going "aaaahhhh" so they would mimic me and not slowly close their mouths as their attention waned.

The dining hall in Casa Suyapa:

Then we met the girls in the dining room and we all ate breakfast together before we walked around a mile to school. The whole way I had a boy on one side and a girl on the other holding my hands and chatting to me about everything. After school we played all afternoon until dinner. After dinner we showered them again, and the boys were crazier than in the morning. A lot of them were dancing and dancing and singing (kinda), and two little ones were in one shower doing some latin version of the twist. They had the curtain open and were splashing so I closed it and said “Alright shower up” and one just stopped, jerked the curtain back open and dramatically started dancing again shaking his finger at me in a Motown, Diana Ross fashion. I wished my mom could have been there, she would have loved to see all the little boys so happy. Moments like those make me well up with tears because it’s just too much joy to see these kids who have so little and are so happy. The head tio was reading them a bible story before bed in the locker room and somehow we missed a little boy slip into the bedroom to exact some revenge. He peed in another boy’s bed which I think is terrible, but hilarious.

On Fri they had a dinner for us new volunteers and Jessie and I went into town early so we could shop. I bought almost 2000 limpiras ($100) worth of tools. I budgeted for this as I feel the value of the time I will save from not having to run around the 2100 acre ranch chasing tools or trying to fix things with improper tools is much greater than the $100. Thank you to all the people who helped me achieve this convenience, especially my dad who gave me the cordless power tools (saw, drill, flashlight) that I brought down with me which have already been so useful. Our electricity goes out almost daily and the rechargeable flashlight is invaluable, and something I wouldn’t have brought otherwise. I have fixed a few things that were easy, but I have a list of more difficult things such as: Our volunteer fridge not cooling, our washing machine leaking, light fixtures that need rewiring, boards missing on playground equipment, a brick wall with no metal support over an open passage which is falling and needs support, and a national currency whose value is steadily falling (as an Economics major). That was a joke, but the new president does want to raise the minimum wage again by 30%. This will mean more jobs lost, and the tragedy in Haiti is already forcing the ranch down here into a tighter financial position because Haiti needs the charity so much more now. Last weekend a bunch of the older kids went to the malls in Tegus with water jugs to collect donations for NPH Haiti. I was blown away by how much they collected. We have photos of them pulling the money out of the jugs and counting it in Stefan’s office.

We'll write more later, and Jessie will write about her experience last week. For now, we went into Tegucigalpa this weekend and finally posted pictures!

Cheque

Cheque is a Honduran slang word that doesn't have a real English equivalent because it is used for many different word we would use. Mainly cool or well. It is used constantly. It is on Pepsi billboards that only have the logo and say Cheque underneth. There is a magazine called Cheque. When you ask someone how they are they'll say cheque and when you say see you later they'll say cheque.
So far we have been in orientation every day, or as Trip calls it, “disorientation,” because we have been bombarded with a ton of information about the way the ranch runs. It is particularly grueling because there are some in our group that don’t have a firm grasp of Spanish so we’ve had an interpreter. Thus, Trip and I have had to hear everything twice, which is frustrating, although necessary. Part of our orientation has covered culture shock, and the side effects that they describe from this are very broad. Trip now facetiously blames everything, from being tired in the morning to being hungry, on culture shock. In the evenings we have been hopping between hogares (homes). Each night we are each separately placed in different homes for dinner and recreational time so that we can get to know each group better. We both agree that it’s truly our favorite part of the day. We have to then decide what our three top choices are for which hogar we would like to be placed in for the duration of our stay. We would spend every night with this hogar and every other weekend as well, so it is a really important decision that will define a big part of this experience. I feel more confused about the decision with each different group of kids I meet! It’s a tough decision. Originally, we were told that we would be able to be in a hogar together, but as there are not enough volunteers to go around to each hogar, we have decided that it would be alright if we were separate. We would both like to be placed either with the girls or the guys, though, because the genders are split on opposite sides of the ranch and generally they do a lot of activities separately that way. We would definitely get to spend more time together if we were on the same side of the ranch. Hopefully they’ll compromise with us!

We have each had separate experiences so far, as we aren’t really spending much time together. On Saturday, I was placed in the youngest hogar, which is a coed dormitory. On a typical Saturday morning on the ranch, you see all of the kids out doing their various chores from 9-1. They are out picking up trash, sweeping, chopping wood, hand-washing their clothes, baking bread for the week in the huge outdoor wood stove, and various other “aseos.” With Casa Suyapa, the youngest home, it was the day to wash all of the mattresses for the kids up to 7 years old that had been peed on an uncountable number of times during the month. It was amazing how much these young kids participated in this chore. They helped me and the tias (their full-time care takers) haul all of the leather mattresses outside to be scrubbed down and hosed off. They were all so eager to help. It is really a part of the culture here on the ranch for these kids to be so hard-working, even at their age. It’s something that you really have to see. One of the youngest boys was helping me out the most. He’s not yet four years old, he has the most adorable face you’ve ever seen, and he was all smiles and giggles the whole time we scrubbed.

Here is the little guy:

Afterwards, we scrubbed all of their little flip flops and then raked leaves, trash, and accumulated things outside. I had a really great time with them, but it was exhausting.

Trip had quite a different experience. He’s going to tell about it here:

This is Trip typing now. The boys are in the coed dorm Casa Suyapa until they are 7 or 8 years old then they move to the Buen Pastor (Good Shepard) where they stay until they start studying a trade and things change a bit in their living situations. There are four hogares in the Buen Pastor the oldest being Arca de Noe consisting of boys around 15yrs old. I went to Arca around 8:00am and they broke into two groups to do different chores. The group I got sent with had the chore of cutting down trees in the mountains with an ax to take to an old woman who had no one to help provide her with wood. It was great that the boys were doing charity work given their situations. We all followed the tio up into the mountains over rough terrain with briars and underbrush while he searched for a suitable dead tree:

On the side of a steep hill we chopped one down and chopped it into 9ft pieces. I then drug a big limb back to the volunteer home (San Vincente) retrieved water for the boys and climbed back up into the mountains. The tio, who is such a nice hardworking guy, had chopped down another tree which had rotted up the middle so we split it long ways into three pieces. A 15yr old boy and I drug down two of these 20ft long logs and afterwards a few of us had a fight splashing each other by throwing rocks in a creek:

By 1:00 when it was time for lunch I had blisters on my hands (because of culture shock) and I was soaked in sweat and water from the creek. I’m glad because I look forward to getting into great shape again since college has made my mind sharp but my body soft. The older boys didn’t open up too much to me, but I think that’s natural, although I do think I earned some respect with my hard work and clearly unexpected skill with an ax that I got from cutting wood with dad my whole life. Also, I showed them some tricks on a bicycle which impressed them. So far I’m just blown away by the tios and tias. They are just great people and I think that they are key to helping raise these kids right.

Now we’ll go back to Jessie typing for both of our thoughts.

The next week of our orientation is based around learning the jobs that a variety of people have on the ranch so that we can come to know and respect the hard work that we do. We will be changing jobs everyday next week. We will be working in the kitchen, the hortaleza (vegetable gardens), the granja (where they raise chickens, cows and pigs) the tortilleria (where they make tortillas) and as tios and tias for a whole day each. I’m sure it will prove to be an exhausting week! We will also continue our hogar rotation.

Another great part of this experience aside from coming to know all of the kids (we usually learn at least 15-20 names a day!) has been coming to know all of the other volunteers. We are living in a big house with about 20 other volunteers right now. It is set up where the rooms wrap around a courtyard with a bunch of trees and a bonfire pit (we’ve already used it three times! Great fun!) and then there is a common area and a common kitchen.

Courtyard with bonfire pit:

Common kitchen with "the fridge" note there is no handle:

Everyone is super nice and they all come from interesting backgrounds. I’m really excited to be spending the next year with all of them!

Most of the volunteers:

We are waiting for the old volunteers to leave, so we’ve been staying all together (8 girls) in a very tiny dorm room. It’s kind of a pain, but it has been a great bonding experience. Trip is staying in the same size dorm with one other guy. They have so much space!

We have to go now to go to yet another meeting on a Sunday night… great! Signing out for now, but more later.

Love, Jessie and Trip

El Rey Feo

We have arrived safely in Honduras, and are as settled in as we can be at this point. We will be staying in dorms, separately, for the first month until the last batch of volunteers leaves (some honeymoon!). It's a little crazy in my dorm with eight girls! Trip is in the same size room but with only one other guy. So we won't really be able to unpack and settle in for another month or so.

Everyone has been so nice and welcoming so far. Trip and I arrived 24 hours before any of the other volunteers did, so yesterday at mass Stefan (the director of the orphanage) introduced us to the whole orphanage after the service. Kids came up to us all day afterward wanting to meet us. We learned so many names yesterday, but we fear that when we see them in different clothes today it will be a great deal more difficult to remember them! They're used to people having to learn their names, but we hear that they will pressure us endlessly to learn theirs.

We anticipated Trip's name being difficult to say in Spanish, as in Spanish pronunciation it usually will come out sounding something like "chreep" or "chreek." We decided to keep his name as is, though, using the english pronunciation, to see how it went. This has actually very quicky given Trip a nickname, Shrek. This is what everyone thinks he is saying. So now, some of them are already calling me fiona. Hah! We'll see how this pans out, but I think Shrek might stick.

Our actual orientation doesn't begin until tomorrow morning, so we've had a lot of time to walk around this huge campus (they call it the "rancho" or ranch) and get to know all of the different buildings. Reinhart (the previous director of Honduras and a friend of Grandpa's) is in Nicaragua right now so we haven't gotten a chance to catch up with him yet.

Last night the power went out in all the rancho. So we had to wait a long time to get our dinner and then we walked to one of the hogares (homes), Casa San Andres, where the mischievious boys live. They have been separated from the other homes for their bad behavior. We waited for about a half hour in the complete darkness waiting for their food to arrive before we ate, until finally they decided to build a great bonfire in the boys' common area so that they could feed everyone in the light. We ate beans and sour cream on tortillas! The boys were all so crazy around that huge fire! They ran around and had a great time. Two boys were sharing a pair of rollerblades, on one foot each, and it seems they have gotten really good at using only one! They were weaving in and out of everyone standing around the whole night. Finally after about an hour at the bonfire, we heard one little voice cry out from the crowd: "La Luz!" and then there was a great roar of cheering, as the power had finally come back on, which meant that the Saturday night activity would still be held. The activity that evening was "El Rey Feo" or The Ugly King, which meant that each home had to choose someone to dress up as crazy and ugly as they possibly could. Everyone scurried back to their hogares to dress up their candidate. We dressed up Marco* (who I had sat next to in mass earlier that day and who is less than four feet tall with an eight foot personality) in a homemade fat/humpback suit with boxing gloves, ashes from the fire smeared on his face, a mop for a wig and a monacle that one of the other boys in his home pulled out of his special shoebox of his most precious possessions.

Marco* didn't end up winning, but the competition was wild and crazy. They all walked down a makeshift runway amidst a roar of cheers, loud crackling music which jumped from Honduran salsa to the YMCA, and an announcer you could barely understand. It was a bit scary at times. The 8-12 year old girls grabbed us as soon as we got there and instructed us to yell "ESTRELLAS!" whenever their contestant was on stage. They challenged Trip to dance, which ended in him wearing a cowgirl hat ten sizes too small and doing his best salsa moves while the girls squealed in delight. The ropes that defined the edges of the runway were taut with excitement while a hundred pequeños were near hysteria as each contestant strutted and danced down the stage. It was all fun and games until one of the kids told the announcer my name and I was called to the front to eliminate a contestant. It was terrible! One of the hardest things to do! I couldn't possibly eliminate another, so I grabbed Trip and made him eliminate the next one, who left crying. In our first act of Central American politics, we were corrupt in our choices, as we had pledge alliance with the estrellas so that we would continue to be in their good favor. The last four kids were judged by a screaming match in which the estrellas ended up winning. Trip and my cheers definitely tipped the scales. It was a late and crazy night, and my ears were about fried from standing next to the screaming girls all night.

Unfortunately, we haven't felt comfortable enough to bring out our cameras quite yet, so we don't have any pictures. Soon enough we will! For now, we are just having a great time learning the places, the faces and becoming accustomed to this new world. Tonight, we will have another bonfire in the courtyard of the volunteer homes to meet all of the new volunteers. Stay tuned for more!

*Names are changed to protect the privacy of the children.