End of the School Year (& Everything That Goes With It)!

I am so sorry for my EXTREME lack of blogging, but we’ve had horrible internet issues (leave it to Honduras to tell you your internet is working fine but you can’t even open your email) and it’s been a crazy month of June! 

Casa Verde (photo by my friend, Lindy)

We’ve already had at least 7 groups coming through to visit. These groups do an array of things - whether bringing lunch to the boys, piñatas and candy, pouring cement and doing manual labor, etc. Everything these groups do help us in many ways, and the boys absolutely love having so many visitors (and the attention, too!).

Fredy Cruz & Gary, the cat in casa rosada

This week the executive director stateside for JEC brought a group and have been working on certain projects here and in the area. These include buying and packing food baskets for all our employees (rice, beans, butter, milk, etc), pouring a concrete floor in one of our employee’s houses, and painting our new shop to sell our souvenirs. 

Today the group is having a VBS at the public school where all our elementary school boys attend, and tomorrow they’ll be heading out. My youth group from Harpeth Hills (Brentwood, TN) arrived to Tegucigalpa yesterday and are making their way to JEC on Thursday. I’m obviously elated for personal reasons to be able to spend time with my past youth ministers and relive how my love for Honduras began in the first place. 

back when I visited JEC with my youth group

Last week was literally insane - so many groups, visits, meetings, graduations, etc etc. Antony graduated kindergarten, so I acted as his guardian and walked him down the isle with his cap and gown (Honduran tradition). His class sang and performed a song/dance in english, had a slideshow of baby pics, and then each received a diploma and a small gift. We had taken his class trip a few weekends ago to a private club in Valle de Angeles (abt 2 hrs from Zamorano), went swimming, played and had a meal together. 

Antony on the morning of his kindergarten graduation

I will write another blog about Nelson later, since he graduated 6th grade last week - meaning he's heading to high school here in Honduras! We took a weekend trip with his entire class, and it was absolutely amazing. More details to come.

We've had plenty of reasons to use our projector for soccer games, movies, etc. The first Friday all four interns were here at JEC we built a fire and taught the boys to roast marshmellows. We've had movie nights with the boys in each house, popping popcorn and watching our fair share of bootleg movies. 

campfires, popcorn, marshmallows, etc

I also had the opportunity to go to the stadium for the big Honduras vs. Costa Rica game. This was the only one in Tegucigalpa (which is only about an hour away from Zamorano), so I went with several of my friends who teach in the local bilingual school. We all wore our jerseys, painted our faces, and had a blast. Luckily Honduras WON, and we even had front row seats.

Last night Honduras played the USA in Utah, so we of course had to project that game on the big screen and make popcorn. Our interns wore their american flag tshirts while all the Hondurans talked trash all day. Unfortunately for the boys, USA won scoring the game's only goal. I walked around telling the boys "I'm so sorry", and of course they all couldn't help but smile after all the smack they had talked the last week or two.