just a humble room

Since I moved into my home at JEC, I've had request after request to upload pictures of my room here. I've honestly been too lazy to try and clean my room enough to take pictures of it. Since it is small, it tends to get messy fast. So here it is. My humble abode. HUMBLE being the key word here. While quaint, it is coming along quite nicely.

Now don't be fooled by first glance. This is not my bed. This is the extra bed in my room where this, that, and my luggage rest. My newest addition to my room is the mini refrigerator. It's perfect for the small amount of things I need cold - such as water, milk, some veggies, and CHEESE. Honduras has all sorts of good cheeses, but that's a different post.

This is my real bed. It's a good size, and while it's not the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in, it's much better than the one in my prior post from last week. As you can see on my bed - I also have my mini fan - big shout out of thanks to Clare Lundy for sending me that. Always looking out for Julia.

One of my favorite and most grateful items I brought from home were my college-favorite, over-the-door hooks. They are great to hang wet things like towels and bath items.

Ah, my nightstand. Just the essentials that usually stay put here. Consists of earplugs - so the frogs/little screaming boys don't wake me up in the morning. Lysol spray - because I live with teenage boys who smell funky about 95% of the time. My Jesus Calling book, love my mom. And last buy not least - my flashlight - since the power goes out 4 out of 7 days a week here.

My organization center is what this is. Yes, I'm aware I have a lot of crap - I'm a woman - so therefore I occupy many a product.

Hope you all enjoyed taking a little tour de mi nuevo hogar aca (my new home here)!

tuesdays are silly

Happy Tuesday to all of you!

I'm a little Dutch Girl!

Considering my circumstances that 1. all showers here are freezing cold and 2. i prefer not to shower out of a bucket when not required, I unfortunately haven't had the pleasure to wash my hair (although I have bathed) since Friday morning. Today is Tuesday, and yes, I'm aware, MOM, that is 5 days. This really ended up being a blessing in disguise since it is forcing me to try new styles with my hair. With the help of bobby pins, lots of baby powder, and my incredible finds on pinterest, I was able to create this little German/Dutch girl hair style. I paired it with my favorite headband, which the boys here refer to as Julius Caesar's crown, and I believe it turned out quite nicely.

A Humorous Post

I'm feeling quite humorous today. The problem here lies that I am in a spanish-speaking country, and I have to actually try to be funny here. It's not the most difficult task at home, where everyone speaks the same language. The funniest thing I can do here is tell people about my experiences I have on a day-to-day basis.

Exhibit A: The bed I slept in this past weekend. Incase you are not able to see the large holes in the side and foot of the mattress here, don't you doubt for a second they aren't there. The part that is not visual by photo is the fact that I could feel every spring in the mattress when I attempted to "lay" my body in this bed. The best part is that once I mounted this gem, my body rolled towards the center and remained there until the morning light.

Exhibit B: This past weekend I was served "chicken feet soup". To avoid being rude, I did not whip out my camera and snap a picture of the chicken's foot that was floating in my soup. I really wish someone had snapped a shot of my face when this bowl of "soup" was placed in front of me, because in that instant I wanted to die. This instead is a photo I found on the internet, but is very similar to what I experienced. The family I was visiting kept talking about how incredible delicious this soup was, and the 7 year old girl next to me literally bit into the chicken's ankle like it was filet mignon. To avoid crying at the table, I sipped the broth and ate the potatoes and vegetables continually commenting on how hot the soup was (to avoid picking up the foot and facing my death). As soon as the grandmother (who cooked this brew) stepped out of the kitchen, I whipped the two small chicken's feet out of my soup and plopped them into the bowl of the 7 year old, chicken-feet-lover. She thanked me thrice, and that was that. A small disclaimer: this picture is an exaggeration of how large the feet were. They were honestly small, perhaps from a young fellow whose life ended too soon. The ankle and toes were really the only part served in my soup - the upper thighs were left out of this dinner (thank you, sweet Jesus).

My time here is really full of hilarious moments filled with humility and occasional utter disgust. I will try to write about more of these moments soon. Some possible topics would be how I sometimes shower with a bucket of freezing, cold water, how I seem to have no equilibrium here at all and constantly fall down, or perhaps about how I've been peed on and thrown up on twice. -- Anyone have any requests?

Animal Freak

So I'm a huge animal freak. I like them all. I also really love it when they are silly. Here are a few of my favorites that make me laugh out loud to myself.

Hope these bring you giggles as they brought me.

Busy September!

We have been so busy here at JEC! After our "Walk for the Way" last week, (which by the way- I heard through the grapevine raised about $22,000 - WHICH IS AMAZING) we wasted no time preparing for our next big event - DIA DEL NINO. This literally translates as "kid's day", and pretty much means tons of pinatas, candy, cake, and games.

Of course last minute my coworkers drop the news on me that they will not be present for Saturday's actual events- which was planned to basically be like a huge field day here at JEC. I was told around 4PM on Friday that I would be in charge on Saturday. This includes the morning games, prizes/ceremony for winners, and the afternoon activities that included all the staff and their families. Naturally my first thought was I NEED A MEGAPHONE. Or a whistle. Or maybe at least another 24 hours to plan.

I immediately tried to get organized, assigning one adult/staff member to be in charge of a certain game. The problem here is describing how the game works in Spanish. That is the issue people. While a normal field day would be a lot to take on, remember I took this task on in a foreign language. I mean we're talking a whole new level. Needless to say, the morning games and getting the day started was difficult. Once the sack race, spoon & egg race were through, we could move on to the more fun games - such as "el borracho". This translates as "the drunk" game. This is what they called it here - but we know it better as putting your head on the bat, spinning in circles, and falling down while running. It was hilarious. Especially with some of the younger boys who literally couldn't stand up.

The rest of the morning was more about joking around and having fun, but we do have some extremely competitive boys here at JEC. After all, they are adolescent and teenage boys. Competition is a given, really.

The day finished and prizes were awarded to each house. We worked it out where every boy got at least a small toy and candy from the pinatas. The prizes were suck as tonka trucks, board games, candy, small happy-meal-like toys, and more candy. By around 4PM everyone was exhausted and sunburnt, including yours truly.

This week has been just as busy. Tomorrow Honduras celebrates the 190th year of Independence from the Spaniards (are you proud of me, Dad?), and so we've had celebrations, pinatas, and desfiles, or parades/marches, every single day this week. I didn't had the chance to visit the high school or elementary school boys' parades (did I mention we almost went 24 hours without power and then once it came back, the water tank bursted?), but today I got to briefly visit the Alison School's desfile before heading to Tegucigalpa for a day of errands. I unfortunately did not have my camera, but of course it was cute. All the boys were dressed as "old-fashioned" cowboys, and the girls were wearing typical, Honduran dresses (probably what we would refer to as aztec).

That's all for now - but one more thing. I almost forgot.

Did I mention we frequently have rainbows here?

JEC Walk for the Way

On Wednesday afternoon around 3:30 PM, every single little boy, all 59 nine of them (ages 5-18), gathered in the front of JEC and prepared to walk three miles. While walking three miles does not seem like such a big deal to me, I am in fact a 23 year old who likes to exercise. I am not a five year old with tiny, short legs.

The reasoning behind this was to show support and gratitude to those walking tomorrow, Saturday, September 10th, in the first Jovenes En Camino "Walk for the Way". The walk is to raise money and awareness about the orphanage here in Zamorano, Honduras. Honduras celebrates "Dia del Nino", or "kids day", every 10th of September, so we had to do our walk early.

We walked all three miles shouting "HOLA" at every car that passed. Not to mention we also took about 75 pee breaks for the little ones whose bladders just simply couldn't handle it. Although it was a long way to walk for such little boys, complaints were almost unheard of, and the boys took turns carrying the signs we had prepared earlier this week. For those who are familiar with where JEC is located, we walked from the gates of JEC to the market in Zamorano (where they sell the awesome banana bread) and the Expresso Americano. We stopped at those benches to celebrate our finish with OJ and cookies. We were lucky as we took our last few photos of the entire group, rain drops started to fall and thunder clapped. We hopped on our JEC bus that met us there and headed home for dinner.

This is Cristian Ochoa - he was my walking partner the entire way :) He's one of the boys I'm closest to here at JEC, and while he's 13 trying to go on 18, he's the transparent type, and I can see Jesus so much in him. He has an incredible heart, even if he sometimes doesn't want to wash his clothes or do his chores. But seriously, I mean what 13 year old wants to do that stuff?

Extremely Happy

This morning we had our monthly (all staff) breakfast. It was absolutely amazing. I got up at 6 AM this morning to make potatoes and eggs for 30 people, and we had such a spread. Beans, tortillas, papas (potatoes), eggs, chorizos (sausages), juice, fruit, coffee, and the list only goes on. It was absolutely beautiful. The staff here is unlike a staff at a regular workplace. Every single one here is extremely filled with a spirit to serve others. Not only for the other staff members, but to serve the little boys and young men we have here at JEC. Needless to say - I'm extremely happy here. I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be at this point in my life - and who knows - maybe for more to come.