Day 7: El Murro

Today we scrubbed a wall for Jesus. After the three sisters ran up the (fun, said by caro/ killer, said by janie/ entertaining, said by mary mccall) hill, we began our first day of mission work.The current task for the eight kids in our group is to clean and paint the concrete wall at the hospital's gate. From 8 to 3, we slaved away scrubbing at the mold, with no breaks. Not including the lunch break...plus the mid-morning snack break...plus the rain-is-falling-too-hard-right-now break. Celia is a woman who runs a small restaurant at the hospital gate, and we happened to be cleaning the wall in front of her enterprise. Sweet Celia brought us a snack, drinks, and gave all eight of us a hearty Honduran lunch, including rice, beans, tortillas, and her famous and delicious fried chicken. Her kindness was a wonderful motivation to persevere in defeating the persistent dirt and mold, and by the end of the day we were proud of our progress.
Spill count: multiple buckets of bleach water

Day 6: Macaroni & Cheese

With a group of ten, shopping and preparing food is quite a challenge, especially with four teenage guys. The nearest grocery store is 80 minutes away (in a city called La Ceiba) and across three bridges, which often wash out during the rainy season. So families in Loma de Luz typically travel to La Ceiba once every 7-10 days. The day we drove here, we first shopped for food and other supplies in La Ceiba. Finding our needed products in the huge supermarket, deciphering the Spanish labels, and mentally converting the prices to American money made the side trip an experience. We checked out with three full grocery carts. Today we made nine boxes of macaroni and cheese, cooked in a huge pot with two cups of milk and two cups of butter, not to mention all those packages of cheese. When Mary McCall and Caroline were trying to figure out how much to cook, Will and August assured us that they would each eat their own box's worth. Even though they held true to their word, everyone had plenty of food, especially with the fresh papaya fruit.
P.S. Caroline counted her mosquito bites in church today. The grand total is currently 43.

Day 5: Gringos and Geckos

Still being oriented about Loma de Luz, today we were given a tour of the campus and hospital. Afterward, we walked across the road to the Caribbean Ocean. Later in the afternoon, one of the missionary kids introduced us to a bunch of the local guys. The Hondurans referred to us as 'gringos,' which is slang for 'white people,' and immediately challenged us to play against them in soccer. We held our own and only lost by one point. The game was very fun and we think Honduran soccer in the afternoons will become one of our routines.
A Special Note from Janie:  So last night I was in the shower and I looked up to see a gecko crawling on the wall right above me! I freaked out and rushed through washing my hair. When I was ready to wash my face, I did so very cautiously, squinting my eyes open every 3 seconds, ignoring the sting of the soap, to make sure the little creep wouldn't jump on me. I couldn't stop thinking about Parent Trap, when the step mom gets one stuck in her mouth.
Spill Count: 3 cups at lunch. dont worry, we were outside

Day 4: Bienvenidos a Loma de Luz!

Our New Years Eve started off with a rush! Water rush, adrenaline rush, and fireworks rush. The water and adrenaline came with white water rafting with the cutest Honduran guide. Hiro es muy hermoso! Not only did he a) improve our Spanish and charm us with his English, b) sport a sick earring, c) win a Michael Jackson dancing contest in the city, d) have an adorable smile, but he also e) bonded with the fam by eating lunch and playing Uno with us. Not to mention his incredible rafting skills, including a daring, brave, and quick-thinking rescue of Janie, who fell out at the very beginning of a class 1 rapids but got swept through, and might have drowned in and might have DIED in, a class 4 rapids. We begged dad to let us take our new love Hiro home with us. A few hours later we arrived at Loma de Luz, the hospital mission where we'll be staying. The missionary kids were friendly and welcoming at their New Years party, which included new names and faces, a bonfire, and fireworks. We're really looking forward to the opportunities in this new year, especially what God might bring us here in Honduras.

Day 3: New Country=New Experiences

We woke up this morning when it was still dark, to the sound of mysterious tropical animal noises.We've never been on a hike with a guy carrying a machete. We had fun talking to our Honduran guides who only spoke Spanish. We tasted cocoa beans, which grow in fruit on trees (who knew?), and termites, which we decided have a woody flavor (no surprise there). Never in the States would tourists be allowed to climb the slippery cliff of a waterfall-- but we got to do it in Honduras! Janie's Chacos dominated. Back at hippie/couple retreat camp, the food we ate wasn't new to us, but who can say that they've eaten bbq chicken wings in Honduras?
Spill Count: 5 glasses of various drinks, but no broken glass for once

Day 2: Hippie Camp

 Even though American Airlines had planned for us to fly to La Ceiba this morning, my dad (typically) changed the plans and hired a bus driver to transport us to La Ceiba. The ride up here was gorgeous, yet long. Along the way, we bought some type of fruit, called lichas, from some vendors selling the red, spikey sphere. The process to obtain the edible part was interesting. First, you would bite into the fruit, breaking open the tough outer core. Doing this, you would pop out the grape-like seed nestled inside the core. Then, you throw your remains of the outer shell outside the window and pop the prize into your mouth. Either sucking on it or biting the pulp off, you eventually come to a hard seed in the middle, which you, again, throw out the window.  In La Ceiba, we are staying at a lodge. This ‘lodge’ is a hippie camp for couple’s retreats. We reallyyy fit in... Yesterday, we were able to retrieve only 17 of the 20 bags, the missing ones including August's only bag and the bag with all our schoolbooks. Thankfully, we found the three missing pieces of luggage and the airline flew them to the correct location two days later.

Spill Count: 2 GLASS cups, and the glass shattered everywhere, including Janie's finger!

Day 1: 19 hours and counting...

Off to Honduras! All 10 of us. Slowly, and kinda surely we made it there. We got up at 4am for our 7am flight out of RDU which didn't leave until 2pm because of a loose fuel screw... and we were delayed another 5 hours in Miami because of a computer system down, but finally the group arrived to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Because of the delay in Miami, we missed the flight to La Ceiba, but spent the night in San Pedro Sula. Rewind to the 8 hours in Raleigh. The delay obviously messed up all of our other flights, so in compensation, we successfully won 10 lunch vouchers, 10 dinner vouchers, 4 taxi vouchers, 5 hotel room vouchers, and business class from Miami to San Pedro Sula (we deserved it, after 19 hours of waiting and more waiting)!!! Despite the meal eaten in Miami, everyone enjoyed the three course meal filled with salad, pork tenderloin, asparagus, corn potatoes, and toffee sundae. Add in first class service and 8 weary kids are suddenly transformed into happy travelers. Back to San Pedro, on the way to the hotel, in one of the taxis, just August and Janie were riding together. The taxi driver was playing 'Dancing Queen' and Nugget leans over and whispers “All I can think about is the movie Taken.”

Spill Count: 1 cup of water in RDU