Saturday, April 18, 2015

 With apologies.  This is now day #3 and we have not been able to post so far.  Internet has been down but all seems to be working now.

This blog begins at the beginning - Saturday and we hope to get you caught up as best we can now.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

As we start this blog on our first day at El Hogar, we are waiting for a pizza to arrive as we are not sure what time it is, but know we are hungry!  It has been a long day since our alarm went off at 0230 this morning.  Travel went well after spending two hours in lines (immigration and security) in Toronto.   (Where are all these people going at 0400 in the morning?)  In Atlanta, we met up with Jane and Tom who arrived from Cincinnati, and Lynne (from Kanata) arriving from Los Angeles who had been vacationing in California and Bruce from Colorado whom we met in Tegucigalpa before we headed out on our next leg to Honduras. 

 Landing in Tegucigalpa is always an interesting experience.

 

Gathering all our bags is sometimes a challenge, but all seemed to make the trip OK.  

 Our host and friend Raul met us with the only available van, so that it meant two trips to get luggage and people transported. 

The other vehicles were tied up with all 100 children who are spending the day in a park at a pool and having a wonderful day together.  Since there would be no children at El Hogar, Raul took us on a long tour through the old historic part of the city.  We had not seen some sections of the city before so it was a treat to get such a complete tour from Raul.   

It is a very unusual situation to have the whole  campus empty.  Not a child to be seen until the big bus rolled in and all the children rolled out, happy and tired from a wonderful day.   Lots of hugs and greetings and we are happy to see them and especially to see Erika who spent the day with them at the park. What a joy for us to see those happy faces and their excitement in seeing yet a new voluntario team.

The cook had also been at the park all day and since it didn’t seem fair to ask her to find us something to eat after cooking two meals for all 100 children and the teachers, we were glad to order the pizza which arrived on the back of a motorcycle.  Obviously Lynne is excited about her pizza. 

We shared together at the end of the day and offered lots of observations about what we saw today and our first impressions of the country.  We are here to learn and to share what we have as a new volunteer team, following as example the greatest volunteer of all - Jesus.  Everyone was glad to roll into bed after a very long day. 

Posted by Janice