First impressions!

We arrived at our project in La Colorada on Tuesday evening after an exhausting, yet relatively stress-free, 19 hours of travelling - that is in comparison to the other half of the Honduras group who nearly missed both their flights and whose bags didn't leave Heathrow with them and have not yet made it this far... The views from the plane as we came into land in San Pedro Sula (yes, that is the murder capital city of the world) showed a country different to what I had expected in the sense it was a lot greener and more mountainous. We also quickly realised that it gets dark very quickly here and it's pitch black by about 7pm. Melody and Jacob (our hosts and also the directors of the home and children's parents) picked us up and we went to children's home by truck.

At Miqueas, there are 39 children, although we have only met 35 since the 4 eldest attend boarding school. It's not hard to remember which child has which name but there are so many of them and some children get called their first name by some and second name by some that it's pretty confusing. Melody and Jacob are from the States and have legal custody and guardianship of all the children who are being raised as a large family unit instead of as orphans in an orphanage. All the children call Melody and Jacob Mami and Papi and by day they spend a lot of time with the Tias (nannys) who supervise, cook and do some activities with them etc. The volunteers (us)  run classes, homework help and activities although we have been eased in slowly and haven't done much yet, also many of the children are on holiday at the moment. All the children speak Spanish and we are picking up new words and phrases each day although it's very difficult to understand them and they often laugh when we try to speak Spanish to them. A few speak good English as they attend a bilingual school, and in fact all the children attend private schools. Melody told us that it's estimated that public school education is about 50 years behind that of Honduras's Central American neighbours and I'm sure we'll soon see their standard of education as we are going to be teaching English on Friday mornings in the local village school to children who have never had any English teaching at all before, no pressure!

The view of La Colorada from upstairs at Miqueas. 

Exploring our village 

Innes (my partner) and I are staying in the house that Melody and Jacob live in and there's also another volunteer staying here too. We have our own room and bathroom (our shower is cold which is brilliant because it's so hot here and it's virtually just a hose sticking out the wall so it has been rightfully named 'José'...'ha ha ha' I hear you say...). Melody and Jacob are brilliant, they have been so kind and helpful so far and it's useful that there's no lanaguage barrier. Saying that, as they and the other volunteer Gaby (who's our age, really lovely and also here for a year) are all American I feel like if I come back using words like 'the mall, the movies, trash can, garbage and jelly' I wouldn't be at all surprised (sorry Dad!). We've got a weekly food allowance, so when it was announced that we were going on our first shopping trip we had made no list or plan and had no idea where to start. Turns out we didn't buy enough vegetables and a few other things and meals so far have been omelette, egg-fried rice (an interesting experience) and cheese wraps. Next time we go shopping we'll be more prepared!

So far, during the days we've spent a lot of time playing with the children, they love clapping games unfortunately Innes and I only know 'a sailor went to sea, sea, sea' and it feels like I've sang it a million times so far - it got old really fast. We've got some ideas of other activities to start with them though and are looking forward to getting properly stuck in. This morning we took a trip into the local big town which we were quite excited about as the village the children's home is in is nice yet small, pretty poor and there's not much to see. Progresso we were told has a beautiful church, park/square and a market, idyllic right? Not quite. As it turned out, the town is busy and polluted with cars and buses and motorbikes everywhere, the market was inside and the people stared a lot. We bought drinks to break a 500 lempira note only to find out when we had sat down that the waiter had completely ripped us off and despite the drinks costing 32 lempiras he gave us only 48 in change. We were not impressed but too scared to try and confront him about it. After this Innes's shoe broke and she limped whilst Gaby and I walked about for half an hour trying to find our way back to the bus. So despite a somewhat disappointing morning, we figured that Progreso has plenty of shops should we need anything and despite the town not being scenic and the atmosphere not being what we'd hoped it was colourful and there was lots going on and the bus ride was beautiful - palm trees and mountains and some colourful houses. The buses here also all play music loudly, either Spanish or English/American music from the 70's so that was amusing! However it's clear from the road that poverty is widespread, many have small houses cramped together with corrugated iron roofs, a lot of the children don't have shoes and people make their living from selling things by the roadside.

Progresso

So that's what this week has consisted of so far! Honduras is in some ways very similar to Mexico which I visited a couple of years ago but it's noticeably poorer and there's little tourism here - being the murder capital of the world and all. It's certainly a very interesting country and Innes and I are looking forward to spending more time here!