Honduras Day 5

Thursday, March 19th.

I awoke with the roosters in full cock a doodle doo at 4:40am. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Breakfast was at 7:30 and was prepared again by Alba. We had typico breakfast which is chicken, rice and beans and headed over to the "stadium". We were pouring a concrete floor and building walls around it.

Luis had a few local boys come and help us plus AJ, Wes and Kenny, and Tom's crew. Loads of people there to help.

When we arrived on site we needed to prep the area. The ground was leveled and the rebar was laid but the depth was about an inch. I have learned that ideally the depth should be 5-6 inches. So we had to dig down a few more inches before we could start.

Whose gonna dig...not me....not me...I dug last time.

As the great minds decided what we are to do we started to move the piles of rock and sand closer to the area to be poured.

I was supervisor of the shovelers! They shoveled and I counted. We made quick work of it and had plenty of time to chill. Kenny on the left and a photo happy boy on the right. He loved scrolling through my camera to see all the pictures.

The cement needed to be moved as well, it was stored in the future kitchen that is acting as a supply shed now.

We mixed up 4 piles of sand, rock and cement together in anticipation of the water. We had to wait until they adjusted the area.

The great minds decided to scrape down the area and we needed some different tools for that. While Ed went to get more tools a soccer game began.

The leveling begins and they measure down as far as they can go in the area. Only 2 inches definitely not the 5-6 we would have preferred. I actually had a job and measured the areas as they moved across the floor. We measured the distance on a stick and I compared that to the string that Pat and Wes held. Whoa!

The soccer game is called and the boys add the water to the piles and the mixing and pouring begins.

Many hands make light work!

Pat and a local boy (I tried to get their names but could not understand them) tamped the concrete, then used a 2x4 as a screed for leveling the concrete, then worked the 2x4 back and forth in a sawing fashion to level the concrete at all points across the form. The area they have done is one pile, several more to go.

This is the last load for this side and it is lunch time. The boys found a wee bit of down time.

I had brought some supplies for Val to disperse and we headed to her place to look at the materials and decide if we wanted to use any for the ESL class I was going to assist with. I had lunch with her and we had ham and cheese sandwiches, no typico, it was a nice change.

This is the school. There are stairs to the roof and a storage area, then a bathroom on the end of the building. There are 3 classrooms for the different levels. The classes on Sat. are separated out by age and sex so the topics would pertain to the groups present. Val's class on Thursday is an ESL class open for the community. There were a few adult women and several children probably aged 8-10.

I worked with a table of 3 kids. 2 girls and 1 boy. Their English varied from trying to repeat what I said to actually understanding and being able to answer questions. Pearla on the right was very good and could look at a children's book and name the items I pointed to. We were working on colors, shapes, animals, and numbers. She had no problem with any of these. The very shy girl next to her began to relax after the 2 hour class and could name a few of the items without prompting others she could repeat, while still some were very difficult. She had a problem with blue...bluea is how she had pronounced it. The problem was the closeness in the language. They added the letter e in front of the s words so Steve was Esteve. Letters look the same but have different sounds.

I showed him how to feel the sounds of some letters like t...if you put your hand to your mouth and say the letter it is like spitting on your hand. V makes your lips vibrate. He got the hang of it and it became easier for him. He was full of smiles and giggles. I had a blast.

Towards the end of the class I had them teach me the Spanish for what I was teaching them. It was actually funny for them to see me get stuck on words just like they did. I could not say amarillo correctly due to the ll making the y sound and orange, anaranjado, had too many syllables.

Kevin was the son of one of the adult woman in the class. He stole my heart. He was just sitting there and not part of the class because of his age. I gave him a piece of paper and some crayons. He starred at me with eyes saying what do I do. I drew a pathetic little kitten head and he smiled and began. He was occupied for a really long time.

When he was done he explained to me what the picture was in Spanish of course I had no idea what he was saying, but he was an excellent artist and I could tell the scene was of his surroundings. Loads of trees, bushes, and animals. His eyes wide he looked at me and I flipped over the page. Again he went to work.

Later he tugged on my shirt and showed me a scene of public transportation. I said several of the words in Spanish that I knew and he was so happy he hugged me and held on tight. I was thrilled.

This is the entire class.

When I was done I headed over to the job site and saw that they had completed the other half of the cement and were building the walls.

Thursday nights the men come to play soccer so it was critical that the walls went up to protect the floor. Several families and men helped out.

That is Mayra and Luis cleaning the tools and the water barrels.

This is Sarah, from Sweden, and a mission's son. Her story was fascinating to me as she fled from Iran and an abusive husband. Knowing tidbits about Muslim culture I was intrigued as to how she was able to flee. She had a prearranged wedding that took place when she was 14. Her "husband" was a high military official with a great deal of power and control. She was pregnant with her first of three sons months later. The abuse began shortly after and she lived with it for 10 years.

When she was 24 she fled to Turkey with the boys and tried to get to Sweden where her sister had moved several years ago. Her husband arrested her family and neighbors and investigated every aspect of her flight. She was detained for months in a Turkish refuge camp and finally had the $8,000 from her sister for fake paperwork that would take her to Sweden. She boarded the flight with 74 other illegals and was on her way. The passengers were discovered with their falsified papers and a forced landing in Norway. They were housed in a dorm room setting with woman in one room and men in another. They were there for months with no communications outside of each other.

They were interrogated and were offered immunity if they divulged the country they were fleeing from. So basically they were to rat out the group in exchange for their own safety. When Sarah was asked she said she would never tell and that nothing they could do to her was worse then the 10 years of the abuse she had lived with.

The last lady who was questioned gave them up and was pretty pleased with herself for insuring her own safety. The 74 people were gathered up and their names called. Those called were placed on a plane back to Iran... the first name called was the lady who ratted them out. She was not so pleased now. Sarah and her boys' names were never called and the interrogator told her he could not deliver her back to the atrocities she had faced. She was released and still had to make it to Sweden. She finally arrived in Sweden and lived safely ever after. She now (last 4 years) travels the world and spreads her message to the people she meets through mission work.

Sarah, Megan and I share this area. My bed is the bottom one.

Megan's clothes. She brought 4 suitcases, one full of shoes. She was quoted to say she was a "girlie girl", I on the other hand wore the same jeans for a week!

Sarah's area.

The beds were much more comfortable here than the ranch but the shower was much, much worse. The hot water drip that came out of the shower head would not wash an ant down the drain. If you turned the water on more it was ice cold. Hence to say I took ice cold showers followed by hot drips of water. I love showers in the morning but dreaded them here. The fact that you had to take them after the days work made it worse.

We were all in agreement that the first thing we were doing when we got home was take a hot shower! I took a 45 minute shower when I got home and wanted a longer one.

The outside grounds were tended by Alba as well and here are a few examples of her love for nature.

Did I mention that we had fresh bananas for breakfast one day. They were yummy.

And the chickens were fresh too!!

We did not eat parrots though.

This is the chicken coup.

Their dog also had pups. 4 survived and three were sold but one had snuck away and was being secretly feed by mom. The pup was so cute. It lived under the coup. It did not want to be approached but Steve grabbed hold of its rope and picked him up for me. He slept peacefully in my arms until supper was ready. He was to be given to a home soon.

Sunsets were pretty here too. I realy enjoyed watching the clouds move swiftly through out the sky.

Today was a great day. We accomplished a great deal, I got to help with the kids, the conversations at Val's were interesting, and I fianlly got to place the Mafia role in the game of the same name.

The game is really fun and we played each night. Cards are dealt and depending on your card depends on your role in the game. An ace is the mafia (there are 2), their role is too kill the citizens of the town. The K is the detective (one), he/she gets to accuse some one of being the mafia, the Q is the doctor (one), he'she gets to save some one from the town. Anything else is a citizen.

The narrate then tells the town top go to sleep. Then he wakes the mafia. They select one person to kill and then they go abck to sleep. Awaken detective and he/she picks some one to find out if they are the mafia, narrator says yes or no. Then arise the doctor and he/she can save one person, themself or someone esle. The town then wakes and finds out who was killed.

The citizens then proceed to decide who is mafia and can lynch one of their towns people if they so chose. The game repeats until the mafia is killed off or until they are the only ones left. I got to be detective and doctor a lot but mafia only once. I liked dectective the best! The more you play the more you learn how others play. The first night we played we kiled more citizens than the mafia did. We had no reasons or assumptions for their deaths but killed them anyways. Future games we used more logic and discovered the mafia more often than not.

Tom always has interesting games to play and this one was great for a diversified group and helped create common experiences.