Epiphany Youth El Hogar 2018

Today was our last work day in Honduras. We were left inside the gates of El Hogar because of the ongoing transit strike. We woke up at 7:30 and went straight to a breakfast of banana bread and watermelon. Our work consisted of digging more holes, weeding, cutting wood, hanging a sign, and making compost rollers. In the morning hours, we hung up a sign that says "Huerta: Sembrando Esperanza" or "Garden: growing hope".  The blog will pause here because the writers (Reed and Chris) have just seen a giant cockroach and need to find a more secure space to continue. "Is it still there?" - Lizzy. "Yeah, it's just chilling." - Chris. Also, we just learned that cockroaches fly because this one just did. Lizzy named this cockroach Juan 2.0, in case you were keeping track of cockroaches. So more about our work... We dug A LOT of holes. Like 16. Which means an almost equal number of blisters. But we got a good system down by the afternoon, so we di...

The fifth day in Honduras began bright and early! We started out the day at the agricultural school, which is about an hour drive from El Hogar. Upon arrival we were greeted by the director Johnny and some fresh coconuts. Johnny has worked there for approximately 15 years. We learned about the Tilapia pond, harvesting of corn, the pigs, and finally got to visit the baby cows. Where some of our group were dare devils and let them chupar(suck) on their hands. The farm is about 270 acres and is much less crowded than last year. Due to the future construction the children that went to the agricultural school now attend the technical school, leaving only a handful of staff to tend to the farm. Although it is unfortunate that the farm no longer holds the energy of children, it is nice to see that it is still running per usual. After our extensive tour of the once prosperous agricultural school, we headed to lunch.We went to a traditional middle-class restaurant; were we tried fresh fruit ju...

Hola. Es Lydia y Emma. Somos muchos si... (that's Jake Spanish - the only words he really uses are muy, mucho, and si, and "uses" is a strong word.) So we're writing the rest in English because Lydia knows very little useful Spanish and I doubt you all will be able to understand my Spanish. Today we had a good day. We woke up early, had beans for breakfast (except those of us who are Emma and are "wisely pacing themselves"), lost a soccer game to the technical school boys, and were forced to play lots of tag. We woke up early to have a meeting with Matt (the executive director) about the future plans for consolidating the high school campuses. News flash: they're being consolidated on what is currently the farm school. Emma was the last person woken up (at least in our room), which is highly irregular. We who are not Emma had refried beans for breakfast because that was what was served. And that was the first time we've had refried beans. Yay! We l...

Writers: Will Rappole, Robert New Today was our 3rd day in Tegucigalpa. We spent the whole day at the main campus because it was the first day of the Transit strike. The Transit strike was is an effort by the people of Tegucigalpa to protest the high government taxes on gas. The strike began Thursday of last week, with a break over the weekend, set to continue for the rest of the week if negotiations fail.  We began the day at 7:15, and had breakfast soon after. We had sugar bread, bananas and milk in a bag (which almost no one touched). After breakfast we waited for Erica to describe our work for the day. In that time, we spent playing UNO, which some people are not the best at. Robert declared that it was his goal to get all the cards. He did this very well, at one point having at least 30 cards.  Our job, which is apparently optional, was to dig holes to build garden boxes. However, the soil was tough in some places and rock in others. We only had one pick, wi...

The Individuals: Lizzie Reynolds, Ellie Rappole and Jake Athyal State of mind: Ellie is playing Soduku and Lizzie is "being a good child" (Ellie's words). Jake is typing (furiously). The day: After a hardy breakfast of pancakes we pilled into Erica's van and headed to the church. The service's music was 10/10 and the sermon was very "Spanish". I'm not gonna rate the sermon cause only Rebecca and Emma could understand and they kept laughing at the jokes and we just stood there in awkward silence. Everyone seemed very connected and together and happy and there was a lot of community. Compared to this, our church seems fragmented because there are so many more people. All the members of the congregation were very supportive of one another and there was a part of the service built in for announcements and everyone was like "Yay!!" and clapped a lot. We then got pizza afterwards to take to the girls school and Lizzie would like you to know t...

Traveling to Honduras on a service team is always an adventure and this year is certainly no exception.  Before we even left, I received a note from Erika Skafel, the lovely person who coordinates our visit, that there was a "transit strke" in Tegucigalpa, and that she might have trouble meeting us at the airport. I didn't know exactly what that meant, but assured her that we could easily sit tight until she could meet us.  I was quickly distracted from this as another curve ball hit us at the airport.  The team - though traveling internationally - would no longer be allowed one free checked bag, but needed to pay the $25 fee.  I had checked on this as recently as a couple of months ago, and complained politely to a not-terribly-interested-in-my-point-of-view American Airlines employee, but to no avail.  So, those of us with credit cards scrambled around the checkin kiosks paying for bags.  No trip to Honduras is without its curveballs, but this was befor...