Graduation and Giving, Dresses and Dances.

The school year here in Honduras has now come to a close, and this week we celebrated the graduation of the 5^th/6^th grade and 9^th grade from the vocational school. Every student graduating got to choose a sponsor to spend the graduation evening with and escort them across the stage to receive their certificate. Four of my hogar girls graduated from the 5^th/6^th grade in the vocational school, which is an accelerated program to help older children who come to the ranch and are very behind academically or possibly have never been to school, catch up so that they can be main-streamed again. So next year they are looking forward to joining their peers in the normal 7^th grade class. Those who graduated from 9^th grade are now certified in a trade such as electricity, shoemaking, woodworking, metalworking or making clothes, and will leave the ranch today to go do a practicum for 1 month in Tegucigalpa. Ideally, if the student chooses to be finished with school and leave NPH, they are skilled in a trade and could support themselves on their own. Those who plan to continue on to high school will do one year of service, volunteering in various jobs on the Ranch in return for their schooling, and then continue their education in January 2013. We will celebrate the Montessori and 6^th grade graduations from the elementary school next week.

Instead of “The Sweet 16 Birthday” in the United States, the most anticipated birthday for most adolescents in Latin America is turning 15 years old, called Quinceañeros. In 2011, 30 NPH children turned 15 years old, and instead of celebrating each individually, the Ranch throws one big huge birthday bash for all the kids together. The oldest girl in my hogar was included in this bunch. Everyone gets very dressed up, the Quinceañero boys in a button-down collared shirt and tie, and the girls in a flowy, lacy dress; all outfits are matching and made by the kids in the sewing workshop. The girls were manicured, groomed, and painted up, looking like they were ready for prom. After a celebratory mass, we all ate dinner in our hogars while the Quinceañeros were served a special dinner and cake in the auditorium. Later the younger children rejoined the party and all the birthday kids were paraded in arm in arm with their escort, who was often a mentor or older sibling. Then they shared a waltz. After that, several of the kids performed a choreographed dance in the center of the auditorium. I must say, the kids here can dance impressively well, since they grow up dancing from a young age. The rest of the night was just a huge dance party, which I have to admit I had a blast dancing the night away with volunteers, employees, and kids to various types of hip-hop, reggeaton, and Latin music.

A few weekends ago I got to take a quick trip a few hours up north to a colonial city, Comayagua, which was the historic first capital of Honduras. My highlight of the trip was climbing up into the bell tower of the cathedral in the central park. The clock in the bell tower is the oldest in the Americas and the second oldest in the world. It was built in 1100 by the Moors for the palace of the Alhambra in Granada, and later donated to Comayagua, Honduras by King Phillip II of Spain. The view from the tower was beautiful looking down on all the colonial buildings, surrounded by the rolling hills. There were several other historic cathedrals and buildings to wander around as well. Although we only stayed for a night, I left feeling refreshed and with a new understanding for the history and culture of Honduras.

Every night before we turn off the light in hogar, one child will volunteer to say the prayer. Praying is no rare occurrence here on the ranch, and by a young age most of the children are able to confidently say a genuine prayer in front of their peers. In this season of thanksgiving, I have been continually amazed by the gratefulness of the children. While many of us would look at these kids and feel sorry for them for their circumstances, that they are orphans or were abandoned or abused by their parents, or that before coming to the ranch they lived in a shack with a dirt floor and ran around barefoot, or had to beg on the streets for food and money to support their younger siblings. And now they are safe and cared for, but still, all their worldly possessions fit inside one small locker, they share a 3 room house with 20 other children, live apart from their brothers and sisters, and have only a few caregivers amongst them. They do not feel sorry for themselves. Instead, they give thanks for what they do have, for their health and their family, for knowing that they will have three meals a day, and that they have loving caregivers to care for them.  And more, they pray for those who have less than what they do. They ask God to take care of the sick and the poor, for the children living under the bridge, and those that have no bed to sleep in at night. Even though the holiday is not celebrated here, these children truly embody the spirit of thanksgiving all year round.

Another value that I have seen greatly exhibited among the children is generosity. As we are nearing the Christmas season, Hondurans love to play “Amigo Secreto,” which is essentially what we would recognize as “Secret Santa.” The kids do it among their school classmates, in hogar, and we even have Amigo Secreto going among all the healthcare personnel. And they take it very seriously… not only do they do everything to prevent their ‘amigo secreto’ from discovering them, but they go to great lengths to keep it a secret from everyone involved. Although these children have very few clothing items and personal possessions, I have watched several of my kids pick out one of their best shirts to pass on to a friend. One of the little girls, Ana, somehow compiled 6 different gifts from her personal belongings to give to her ‘Amigo Secreto.’ I have come to the sad realization that it is often those who have less that somehow give more, and those that have more are less generous of their worldly possessions. I told my kids that many people in the US could learn a lot from them about generosity and the spirit of giving.

 The oldest clock in the Western hemisphere, made in 1100 by the Moors.

 The view looking out from the belltower of the Cathedral in Comayagua, Honduras.

 Weekend trips with Lydia and Irene.

 The main cathedral in Comayagua, Honduras' first historic capital.

 Wendy, Kelsi, Tia Dania, and Sonia on graduation night.

 The 30 Quinceaneros who turned 15 years old this year, all dressed up to celebrate their big birthday.

 At the party with Sonia, the oldest in my hogar and only Quinceanera.

 Some of the girls from my hogar, Estrellas de Belen.

 The Quinceaneros performing a choreographed dance, impressively starting with a waltz that transitioned into other types of dance.

 Getting all dressed up for the birthday Celebration.

Reflections on Life

I feel as though I have been transported back to Washington state as I sit on my bed and look out my window at our courtyard garden and watch the fine misty rain dance about in the air. Instead of the short bursts of down pours that the previous months held, it is now a little grayer, a little cooler, and the rain is a little more drawn out. Never the less, there is laughter and joyful voices of tiny children out my other window as they play on the squeaky swing-set equipment across the way, and I feel at home. This month I sat down to write a volunteer testimony for our Home Correspondent and the NPH website to help give donors and future volunteers a better idea of what the volunteer experience is all about. I would like to share some of the insights I came up with as I tried to reflect upon my 10 months in Honduras thus far.

I often forget how different my life is here compared to back home. A change that might be more noticeable returning back to the USA in a few months than it was originally coming to Honduras. But right now, it is just life. I walk almost a mile to and from work each day. This walk I often enjoy as a time to think and enjoy the beautiful 7am misty view of the fields and mountains around me. In the afternoon, the joy of the walk depends largely on the temperature of the day. As most of you know, prior to coming here to Honduras, I had a wonderful job at a fabulous Children’s Hospital. The clinic here is a stark contrast from the state-of-the-art hospital I previously worked in where I had all the newest technologies and best resources at my fingertips. I spend two hours each morning doing vital signs in a room that doesn’t have light (the light bulb only turns on when it wants to) apart from the daylight that enters through the windows. We have no drinking water and most days recently, no other running water either. Friday I had to take my instruments outback to the spicket to clean them with the brown water outside. Our roof leaks terribly, and every day before I leave I have to remember to cover up all the important desk supplies with a water-resistant cloth, and hide the important papers in the drawers. Occasionally we have a bat that likes to visit and hangout on the ceiling. But we make progress slowly, and benefit from the love and support of others. This month I received a wonderful donation of thermometers, stethoscopes, and glucometers from Dr. Tammy Chelsy who had visited and volunteered at our clinic for a week in July and gathered donations to meet some of our needs.

I have had to adapt to the lack of conveniences, and in many ways become much more resourceful. I have learned to do many things by hand, such as sterilize equipment, make cotton balls, and bag and label medications. Here my scope of practice is very wide and I wear many hats. I am not only a nurse, but also janitor, maintenance, secretary, administrator, supervisor, and pharmacist. I do everything from sweeping and mopping to filling medication prescriptions and educating patients about their health and wellness. Life is never dull here. I have helped deliver a baby in the back of a pick-up truck, twice, tended to many machete wounds, and careened down the windy road toward the Tegucigalpa hospital in the back of a minibus converted to ambulance. It’s great… I often wonder what it will be like for me to readjust back to an acute care hospital setting in the US where I am strictly a nurse with lots of rules, guidelines, protocols and policies to follow.

One of my highlights this month was getting the opportunity to visit the home of one of our volunteer surgeons who performs minor surgeries for some of our patients every couple weeks. He has a passion for chocolate and raises his own cocoa plants in the highlands north of here. His home however was just close enough to take a fun day trip, in which we helped us to make chocolate from scratch. We started with the fermented cocoa beans, roasted and shelled them. Ground them up until it looked like coffee grounds, and then put them into his special mixing machine with milk, butter, and passion fruit flavoring. In addition to the delicious chocolate that we got to eat, Dr. Cerna was an excellent host and we enjoyed a day of beautiful views and fresh air at his home set up in the mountains above Tegucigalpa.

Mid-October we had our second staff retreat of the year and headed south to an island called Amapala, off the pacific coast of Honduras. It is a lush, jungle island with a 783 meter inactive volcano peaking in the middle. The staff retreats are always a lot of fun, especially since half the volunteers work opposite weekends, so there is some staff that I never get to travel with otherwise. Unfortunately we timed our trip just a tropical storm was cruising its way up the pacific coast. It rained in spurts about every 10 minutes, and when we did finally make it to the beach, we went swimming in a torrential downpour. I guess we were wet anyway, and we had warm coffee waiting for us when we got out.

Lastly, a moment from Hogar. There is one girl in my hogar who is a year or two older than the rest, and as many of the older kids here go, it takes a while to earn their respect and trust. They see many visitors and staff come and go in their lives, especially the volunteers who are only here for a year. It seems like a long time to us who uproot our lives back home and leave our family and friends, but really to the kids we are present for just a small fraction of their lives on the Ranch. Anyway, when I first came into the hogar in February, we both definitely rubbed each other the wrong way, and she barely spoke to me for the first several months. Then, if I did get her attention long enough to say something, it was usually followed by a drawn out eye-rolling. Over the past several months I have finally been able to break down that barrier with a lot of the girls, and little by little, with this one in particular. Then last week, unexpectedly, she came up to me, wrapped her arms around my wait, looked up at me and said “Heder, I love you! When you leave I am going to cry a lot.” These genuine words were so unexpected and surprising coming from her mouth, that all I could do was smile and think about how much I will miss each one of my girls as well.

 Enjoying the view and fresh air from Dr. Cerna's patio, overlooking the mountains around Tegucigalpa.

 Cocao beans ready to be roasted and shelled.

 Lydia, Kate, Caroline, Micaela, and Gina hard at work shelling the freshly roasted cocao beans.

 Turning the chocolate grinder to break up the nibs into grounds, while sipping a fresh cup of hot chocolate.

 One of my favorite families on the Ranch over to our house to spend some quality family time together.

 Although hard to tell, this is actually the back of a school bus, jam-packed from floor to roof with produce and goods that locals were bringing from Tegucigalpa to the south coast.

 Waiting to cross from the mainland over to the island of Amapala with all the volunteers on our Staff Retreat.

 The whole volunteer group enjoying a rainy day at the beach.

 The city of Amapala at dusk.