Christmas festivities began last night with a Christmas play put on by the religion department, followed up by a typical Christmas dinner of Tamales down on the soccer courts by the boys' homes. The activities lasted until midnight - with games and a massive bonfire (marshmallows were roasted before it got too hot to stand next to) to keep us warm on an already fairly warm evening.
This morning the kids woke up to open their presents and had a typical breakfast. It is Ranch tradition that the children walk to a nearby town on Christmas day to give away games, toys, clothes, and even food, to families that otherwise probably didn't get Christmas gifts. This walk is always my favorite thing about Christmas here. Even though our children don't have it all, they have what they need, and a little bit extra that they are able to share with their neighbors.
Unfortunately this year, Casa Suyapa (the home our littlest ones live in) was left with their toys and extra things locked up. The caregivers forgot to leave out the gifts to give away before leaving on Christmas vacation. So we didn't go to the villages with them, but stayed home and hung out watching movies all morning and played some games in the afternoon.
Tonight we will celebrate the Christmas mass.
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and I wish you all Peace in the New Year!! Annie
Well friends, it's true - I've made it into one of the two main newspapers in Honduras yet again. This time however, it was my face (in 2 photos) and not just my feet. Last weekend Monica and I went to the fair in Zambrano with two great friends, who are university students from NPH. Zambrano is a town located 36 kilometers from Tegucigalpa, the other direction from the Ranch. It is the town that Denis is from, and he invited us for the weekend to stay with his sister and her family.
The photo in the upper left corner is of the 4 of us playing a game, and on the right page is a terrible photo of me after being completely freaked out - read on. The evening proved to be quite eventful - we rode a Honduran Ferris Wheel. Sounds hilarious that we were all quite scared to get on it (for reasons other than the simple fact that it was put together in Honduras). Denis and Jairo had never been on one before. While watching it before getting on, we all 4 at the same time said "wow, it's going really fast!" I know it sounds like an oxymoron to say that a ferris wheel was moving quickly - but seriously, the seats would whip around once they reached the top. We all got off feeling a little ill. But GREAT experience. (photo to left - Jairo holding onto the Ferris Wheel for dear life)
We followed that up by going to see the main attraction at the fair - the "spider girl"!! Oh, it was hilarious. It was front page news the next morning. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life, and I have absolutely no idea how they did it. It looked completely real - her face was exactly like a human face. Jairo actually touched it and said it felt real. I'm sure it was somehow a machine, but I just can't figure it out. So it was this human head, with a spider body. Once we were inside, we were all given the opportunity to touch it - I was the last one. I for some reason was feeling bad about laughing and freaking out about it, almost like I was momentarily believing it. I felt wrong about touching her face! Haha!
Anyways, so I ran out of the little shed where she was kept, and of course the reporters were RIGHT there waiting for me, taking my photo and asking me why i was so scared. haha, so hilarious.
So it was a fun weekend. Friday night I stayed at the Maya (fancy Honduran hotel in Teguc - pool, "luke-warm tub", saunas and all) and spoiled myself, then a group of us went out for a night on the town. Saturday we went to Zambrano and stayed at Denis's sister's house, which was the nicest home I've ever been in down here! Her and her husband built it themselves. Two story, beautiful home. Sunday we went back to Teguc and I stayed another night at the Maya with Monica (nice because that way we split the cost of the room!!) Monday we ran around and got Christmas shopping done, and got back to the Ranch early afternoon.
I arrived back to Central America the day after Thanksgiving - just in time to arrive to the home in Honduras for Quinceaneros, a yearly party for all boys and girls that turned 15 within the past year. Two days later I had the priviledge of traveling to NPH Guatemala with two soccer teams (boys and girls) from Honduras, for the Annual NPH Soccer Tournament. The purpose of my travel was actually for work - I met up with another member of the Medical Services team, with the goal of working on preparations for our Annual Medical Workshop, which is to be held next April, in a town just outside of Antigua, Guatemala. I am proud to announce that the Honduras boys team brought home the Cup (photo above), the girls finishing in third place (out of the 5 Central American countries that were able to participate). The week was a lot of fun - reuniting with some friends and kids that I met in Guatemala when I was there last year, and also reuniting with friends from El Salvador. The kids really like getting to meet kids from other homes, and learning about the other countries and their homes.
Photo to the right - when I was in El Salvador last October, I had made a bet with Irma (university student from NPH). I bet the Honduran girls would win, and she bet on the El Salvador team. The loser had a wear a jersey from the other country - the original bet was that it had to be worn for a week without washing it. As you can see by the photo, Honduras won! I was nice on her and didn't make her wear the jersey the whole week, however she did have to wear it during the Honduras vs. Salvador boys game the next morning. I figured that was harsh enough. For the record, the Honduran boys won that game as well.
Photo above - me with my Salvadoran girls.
Photo at right - Tony (house director El Sal), myself and Barrasa (coach for both Salvador teams) showing our support for El Salvador
24.11.08
Hello friends. This is just a quick update regarding my position on the Medical Services team of NPHI. A couple of weeks ago I was offered a new position as Regional Medical Coordinator of Peru and Bolivia. This is the same work that I am currently doing with Honduras and El Salvador. I have accepted this position, and have left the position as Communications Coordinator for the medical team. I am pretty excited about this new opportunity to work with the clinics of these two fairly new homes.
I take off this week to head back to Central America for a few months. One week in Guatemala, followed by a month in Honduras, another in El Salvador, a week in Nicaragua for the NPH International Board Meeting, then a week or so at our home in Haiti. Yes a lot of traveling in my quite near future. Let's hope it all goes as smoothly as possible.
For those of you that I wasn't able to meet up with in my quick trip home, hopefully we'll be able to get together next time around.
My last week at the home in El Salvador, I was invited to join a group of fellow Americans who were visiting their sponsored children at NPH El Salvador, on an excursion.They had a trip into San Salvador scheduled, and since I’ve been to El Salvador three times now and still hadn’t spent any time in the city, I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity.
**WARNING - there are some details here that might not be appropriate for all readers. Proceed at your own discretion**
The day was pretty much dedicated to visiting important historical sites from times of the war, the war that ended just 16 years ago, that killed 75,000 Salvadorans, a war that was largely funded by the US. Our day revolved mostly around the life and tragic death of Archbishop Oscar Romero.The day started at the home where Romero lived the last couple years of his life fighting for the rights of the poor, followed by visiting the church where he was shot and killed on the altar.The vestments he was killed in have been preserved in his home – a chill came over me when I walked into the room and saw them hanging up, and saw photos of his assassination and funeral. We stood from the very spot Romero was shot from.
We finished the day off visiting the Central American University (UCA), a Jesuit University in San Salvador, where 6 Jesuit priests were killed for their dedication to serving the poor, along with their housekeeper and her 15 year old daughter, in 1989. In the museum, the clothes they were killed in have been preserved. They have on display an album of the photos taken as they were all found that morning. I was a little hesitant to look at the photos - I've never had such a knot in my stomach. Most of them had been shot in the head - most of their faces completely deformed, unrecognizable. Their brains literally "blown out" - a photo of one of the victim's brain laid in the grass several feet away from their body. I've never felt such an intense emotion in my life as I did that day, being present at these sites and seeing the pictures.
(for article see http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/WPnov16.html)
As I walked through the museum at UCA, I read a bit about the Massacre at El Mozote, a largely forgotten about massacre here in the US - but the largest massacre in modern Latin-American history. We unfortunately were pressed for time, so I didn't get the full history. In the display cases were bullet shells, military helmets, bones from various victims, skulls of children. It wasn't until my last evening at the home, as I was chatting it up with one of the older girls, I will call her "Luz". She is 20 years old (22 years old based on her papers, which she said are incorrect since she was born during the war, it was impossible to get legal documentation of births), and since she was one of the girls put in charge of making my stay at the home a pleasant one, I got to know her and her 2 good friends fairly well. That night, I had no idea that I was about to get a history lesson by a young woman...a story of her family's history, her childhood, that would share with me many of the incredibly disturbing details of the Massacre at El Mozote, and the painful history of her life, as recounted to her by her father.
This young woman grew up in a town near El Mozote, right near the Honduran border. She told me about all of the people of her town being killed - all of those that weren't able to flee in time. Apparently one woman her family knew well survived this massacre, said she's never been the same since. The woman hid in the nearby river, as everyone in her town was murdered by the military. She witnessed them burn her husband and children. Their town was left deserted. The only native people there now are those that were lucky enough to have fled to Honduras before the military came in, and have since returned.
Before the raids and massacre, many people buried their valuables, and marked the site somehow, to allow for it to be found later. Upon the return of those who fled, the poor would go to these sites to dig up those valuables that were left behind. However, often times when they would dig out a site, they would find body bags, filled with those who had been killed. These sites had also been marked - the mass burial sites - and often times it was difficult to distinguish between where valuables had been left, and where bodies had been laid to rest.
Luz told me of a time she went with her father to dig up a site. She said all they found were green bags, filled with decaying bodies. She'll never forget the smell.
Luz's family had lost their home to the military three times. Each time as it was destroyed and burned, her family would live in the streets, and her father would rebuild. Finally after the third time, they gave up and building and lived in a field to wait things out.
Her brothers were 11, 12 and 13 years old, and were forced to fight in the war. Her mother was dying of cancer, and her father dedicated himself to taking care of her during this time. Her father would lend their home (when they had one) to both sides - to the military as well as to the guerrillas. He did so to keep from getting killed. Things got ugly when the military discovered he was a traitor - they took him from his home, ripped his shirt off his back, tied it around his head as a blindfold, and led him off to be killed. Several of his campesino friends arrived just in time to save his life, as they killed off the few military men that had captured him. After this his friends took Luz's family and hid them in a cave, knowing the military was still after him to take his life. She has no concept of how long they stayed hidden there, hidden in caves with so many other peasants hiding from the military.
After the war was over, many of the people from those villages had a difficult time moving back home. They had fears of their villages being haunted, after the massacre that had taken place. Her father however did go back to their village to build a home for his family, but everywhere he dug he dug up decaying bodies. All the land in their town had been left as a mass burial ground.
When I return to El Salvador in January, we will hopefully go visit her father in their village. She hasn't been home in 5 years. The last time she was there with her sister, they only spent one night, as it brought back so many horrible memories of their past. However, she expressed desire to go back, and invited me to go along, to show me that piece of her life. Her father had strong feelings about what Romero was trying to defend and protect. He attended his masses, was actually present at the mass he was killed at, and attended his funeral, and witnessed the killing of another 30-50 of the 250,000 there to mourn his death. We hope to find Luz's father when we go in January - I'm sure he has some amazing stories to share.
To read more on Archbishop Romero, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero
I can hardly believe I have less than a week left here at NPH El Salvador. The time has just flown by - there's much to be done, but some of it might just have to wait until my next visit in January. There's a group from Friends of the Orphans, Northwest, visiting the home now. It's a group of sponsors to children here. They took their god children to a nearby partk today, and invited my boss and I to go along with them just to get out for a bit. I was thankful for the distraction - it got me out of a little bit of work on this fine Saturday. It was kind of a bad day to spend at the pool, however, we took full advantage of it anyways. We immediately jumped in, then went right on to playing some mud volleyball. The photo above was taken after my team completely dominated. Just FYI, my team consisted of the girl in the pink shirt on my left shoulder and the girl in the front wearing yellow. Rina and Mercedes. Our team was "las mamis" and the other team "las flores" - the three of them are sisters, last name being "flores".
Although it was cloudy, we were at least thankful that it stopped raining just as we arrived, and didn't start again until we had left.
Work in the clinic is going pretty well. There's been a chickenpox outbreak at the home since I've arrived. My whole time here so far, there's been at least 15 children admitted to the clinic at any given time. Here are some pics that I thought we just too cute to not post. The little guy in the middle in the photo on the right is one of my favs by far.
(yes, I realize the photo is of red beans, but same deal, right??)
I never thought I’d get sick of black beans so quickly. But after experiencing the fine cuisine that NPH El Salvador has to offer, after just a week of being here I’ve about reached my breaking point.Beans up to three times a day.I really do enjoy eating beans, but for every meal it gets to be a little much.It takes the delight out of eating them.I guess at least my chances for developing colon cancer are shrinking by the plateful. I use that term “plateful” loosely, as the plates here are rarely ever full.Portion sizes between here and Honduras are like night and day.At least the size of their lunches.Quite honestly I wonder how the kids make it through the day!They must get decent snacks between meals.
That all is made up for though on Sunday.The suffering through the beans is all worth it for the kids once Sunday morning breakfast rolls around.Donuts.They have donuts.I admit that I’ve only actually rolled out of bed in time for the 5:30am breakfast twice now since I’ve arrived.The first time was Sunday (because it’s at 8am), and the second time today (mainly just because I needed my coffee to kick me into high gear for the day).Anyways, Sunday the kids finished their beans, drank their milk, and then they rolled out baskets full of donuts.I was shocked when the kids didn’t completely lose it at the sight of donuts for breakfast.The kids in Honduras would’ve gone absolutely nuts.After a little investigation, I found out they get them every Sunday.Note to self – for a change in pace in terms of nutritious delights, go to breakfast on Sundays.
Another shock to the system – back to taking cold showers.I’ve been so spoiled in Honduras over the past two years with a “suicide shower” as they’re known here.It’s an electrical attachment to place on your showerhead that heats the water as it blows out at you.It really is quite the invention, and it adds a little spice to your life in the morning when you turn it on and you see sparks.But no, not here in El Salvador.No suicide showers here.Straight up COLD water, which normally isn’t too terrible with the heat this country produces.Cold showers sometimes are actually nice.However, the past few days have actually been a little cool – like I’m not sweating sitting in the shade.Today was exceptionally chilly.I had to put on a long-sleeved shirt.The mornings tend to be cool, making taking cold showers not my favorite thing in the world.
Work here is going quite well.I’m pretty impressed by their clinic – they’ve really got it together.It’s much different than my experiences in other clinics.They have a new doctor, who has been great to work with.He’s only been working here for about three months, but is already seeing what needs to be changed and they’re well on their way to success.
I’m enjoying spending an extended amount of time in another NPH home, learning about how it functions as it does, and gathering ideas for improvement in other homes.It’s fun getting to talk to the kids here about how their NPH brothers and sisters live in other homes.NPH El Salvador doesn’t get visitors too often (I guess nobody wants to see El Salvador?? Weird.)So the kids really latch on when a foreigner happens to drop in.They’re really quite interested in what else is out there in that scary world they haven’t met yet.
Today we took advantage of a bus load of small children that was heading into Santa Ana (nearest town to the home).Another visitor and myself rode in with them just to make a quick trip to the grocery store – like I said, can’t take the beans for much longer!Once we got to the central park, we had about an hour and a half until we had to meet back to head back to the home.The other visitor was here for six months as a volunteer, so she suggested we visit the high school students’ homes.So we set out on a mission to find them – she couldn’t remember exactly how to get there.
We eventually wound up at the home where the guys lived.So we knock, and some grouchy man yells back at us “quien?” – he wanted to know who it was.We had no idea who it was behind that door, so we just said we were looking for the NPH guys.He opened the metal door, hands covered in cement.It turned out to be a quite nice older man.The guys no longer lived there, so he tried to direct us to their new home.I don’t think he actually knew where they moved to, but was just trying to be helpful, which people tend to do frequently here in Central America.If they’re clueless, they’ll just make something up to try to help.Anyways, we take off down the road, and knock on a door where we thought the girls lived.Nope.Wrong as well.So then we ask some armed guards on another street corner if they know where the girls lived.They actually were able to point us in the right direction, and we found them after all.So we got to see their houses – man, the guys live in a sweet house.They just moved in this past weekend.I considered moving in myself for my remaining time here!Not really, but it would be a great place to live.
After spending an entire morning in the immigration office in Tegucigalpa, which postponed my travels by one day, I’ve finally arrived safe and sound to the NPH home in El Salvador.Wouldn’t you know that when I arrived at the bus station at 5am on Wednesday, and the woman began checking over my passport, she politely let me know that my immigration form wasn’t stapled in upon my entrance into the country, therefore I’d have to go to immigration to clear up my status in the country before they’d let me out.I recall now (just a little too late) that when I entered the country, the customs officer pulled up on his screen that I was a current resident, therefore tore up all of my immigration forms that I had filled out.I wasn’t thinking about my residency expiration date at that time.Well, it expired late August, and it didn’t even dawn on me that I no longer had legal status in the country, since they didn’t staple in my papers.Excellent.
I didn’t want to travel all through Teguc and then stand in lines all day long with my luggage.So, I decided to head to our frequented Hotel Granada 3, to get a room for the night, since there was no longer any way for me to leave that day.Well, wouldn’t you know that they don’t have a single room available at 5:30am on a Wednesday.Weird.I didn’t know that hotel actually fills up on a weekday.I was proven wrong.Luckily though, the man that I had to wake up to open the door for me, was nice enough to let me leave my bags in a storage room until I got things figured out.A taxi that was sitting right out front told me immigration opened at 7:30, and reminded me how the lines get long there very quickly, so he suggested I leave soon.Having experienced those lines, I went along with that, and decided to take off at 6am, to make sure I’d get in.When I arrived at 6:30, I was the first in line.As I sat there for a bit, in not a super nice part of town, with my laptop, passport, credit cards, etc, and I noticed that there was no sign of anybody else, I called a friend to double check the time it opens.Sure enough, it doesn’t open until 9am.Surprise surprise, the taxi driver took advantage of the trusting Gringa, and lied just so I’d get in and go with him so he could make those $6 off of me.
Eh, it worked out ok – I decided to hop in a collectivo which took me to a nearby mall, where I had a bagel sandwich and a badly needed large coffee to keep my eyes open, at none other than Dunkin Donuts.
I get back to the immigration office around 8:15, and there are about ten people in line already.Once finally let in, I fight my way through the “line” (once you’re inside, the line sort of disappears, and it’s every man/woman for themselves).After being bounced back between a couple different women, as I try to figure out who exactly I need to talk to, I was finally sent to THE woman, who helped me through the corrupt system.Once she told me I was going to have to pay a fine of over $100 just to cancel my residency, I nearly broke down – please remember that this was around noon, and I had been up since 2:30am, and was running on just a couple hours of sleep.Now, does it make sense to anybody else that once your residency expires, you have to go to immigration and cancel it?Doesn’t the “expiration” just automatically cancel your residency in the country?I guess not.Anyways, that nice woman just changed a couple of dates on a couple of papers, and bam – no $100 fine.
The postponing of my arrival to El Salvador timed things just right, so my first day here, Friday, there was a huge celebration for Dia del Niño (children’s day), so darn, we didn’t actually have to work.The employees from the office, as well as the caretakers and teachers, all put on a show for the kids, which was absolutely hilarious.Costumes, dancing, and skits.Following the show there was a soccer tournament, and lunch, complete with ice cream bars.I had just enough time to take care of some things in the office before they closed, and make it to the clinic for about an hour to chat it up with the new doctor before he took off for the weekend.
favorite thing about Christmas here. Even though our children don't have it all, they have 
what they need, and a little bit extra that they are able to share with their neighbors.
favorite thing about Christmas here. Even though our children don't have it all, they have 
what they need, and a little bit extra that they are able to share with their neighbors.
