Exploding into a Million HIV Particles *Week 16*

Week 16 starts on Tuesday morning at the airport. I found my gate with ease and got myself some food. In the middle of my terminal was a big souvenir shop so I decided to try and find some new earrings for one of the leaders of the small girls house that lent me an earring so I could swap my SIM cards while in Mexico. I found her a nice pair of butterfly earrings and decided to keep looking around. I ended up stumbling upon a pretty tea cup and decided it was exactly what I was looking to give Mamí. When I got to Panama, I boarded my plane immediately but after sitting in the plane for 30 minutes, we all got kicked off. The problem was that Honduras has been shrouded in smoke for about three weeks now so the plane couldn’t land safely. Nothing a two hour delay couldn’t fix though. So we re-boarded the plane and were off.

After baggage claim I walked up the stairs to see my friends that had come to serve at Emmanuel with me. John was the first one to see me and immediately ran over to give me a hug. Anna and her sister Liv(who I hadn’t met yet) and Leah followed right behind him. As I was catching up with the team of volunteers, I realized that Tori wasn’t with them. I immediately tossed up the idea of surprising Tori and the others loved it. So I went and hid around a corner but then I felt like I should just stay by everyone else, so I went back over and just planned to sit in Tori’s spot with my head down. But just as I was about to sit down I saw Tori out of the corner of my eye. She was already looking right at me so I was never able to surprise her. But after Tori ran over we all chatted really quick and then tried to find our bus driver. As soon as we found him, we were headed back to Orphanage Emmanuel.

The bus ride back home was one of the greatest road trips I’ve ever been on. We all got caught up with each other and the ‘sing sisters’(Leah, Anna, Tori, and Liv now too) even started singing some hymns and other beautiful songs. When we got back, John and I helped the girls move into their house before we went to ours and I also showed the girls around their place(my old house). After we settled down a bit about being back, John and I made our way to our house and crashed for the night. The first thing I did on Wednesday, our first whole day back, was visit the small girls house to dish out some of the seashells I had collected and to give one of the leaders of the house her new earrings. After that, I went to breakfast in the Comedor just to talk to some people. Then after that, I stopped by the wood shop to say ‘hi’ to Maestro and I asked if he had any work for me to do. All he needed from me was for me to put some termite poison on some wood for Chino’s house. I finished what he asked for then he told me he didn’t really need any more help so I went back to my house to unpack. I finished packing with a little time to spare before church so I rested for just a little bit then headed off to church. At church, the sing sisters sang one of their incredible songs for us and after, us volunteers were invited to Dunia’s house for tortillas. While at Dunia’s house, Tori and I sat at the kids table with Dunia’s two kids: Natalie(9) and Bryan(6). Sitting at the kid’s table is such a hoot! Eventually me and Natalie got into a heated game of golf. She decimated me but I enjoyed every second of it.

On Thursday, Maestro and I worked with Raleigh pretty much all day. In the morning we had to put shelves up in the school(Raleigh is in charge of the school so he helped us), then in the afternoon Raleigh brought a bunch of older boys and a trailer full of lumber to the wood shop for later use. After dinner on Thursday, us volunteers hung up lights in a pavilion behind my old house(the girl’s house now) and played a questionnaire card game with one another. For whatever reason, the ladies think it's better to get energy from sleep rather than energy drinks, so they went to bed after a few rounds of the game. John and I weren't quite finished with entertainment for the night. So we went home and busted out ‘Once Upon a Time’ which is an extremely creative storytelling card game that I highly suggest for family and/or friends. We played a couple rounds and told a couple stories but the winner was definitely a banger of a story about an imprisoned fairy that was going to break out of his jail cell and save the fairy people from the evil witch that had full control over their community. The whole story was flowing great until John decided that for some reason all of the fairies had to explode into a million HIV particles. It was very random and definitely against the rules but he had to do it in order to win the game(you have to buy the game to know what I mean).

On Friday, Maestro and I finished moving lumber with Raleigh and his boys. And then on Friday night, I resumed watching movies with the medium boys. John is assigned to work with the Medium boys in the mornings and at night just as I am with my special needs boys. So luckily he got here while I was still watching movies with the Medium boys and was able to make some connections with the boys while watching movies with us. Once night came, I went to the team house gazebo with the other volunteers and we played ‘Apples to Apples’ with coffee. It was Anna’s first time trying coffee and she trusted me to make her a cup. Turns out I’m a pretty baller baristo(joke for Tori) because Anna told me it was the best cup of coffee she had ever had.. After the girls went back to their house, John and I stayed up once again to play ‘Once Upon a Time.’ Fortunately no HIV explosions this time. On Saturday, I took all of the volunteers, minus Tori, to town for some groceries. Little secret for those that read the blog, when going into town for my first time, I specifically mentioned that I wanted to go by myself and Danielle allowed it because she knew that I knew my way around town. However, my real reason for wanting to go alone was for her to trust me to take others into town if the opportunity ever presented itself, and now it has. On Saturday night a new team of 30 came in. A couple of them had been here before, a few of them were new, and most of them had just graduated high school a couple days prior. However, the most interesting of them all was a little girl that Leah and I immediately took note of. As a quick refresher, both Leah and I have been coming to Emmanuel since we were 11 years old, so naturally, when we found out that she was 11 years old as well, we were stoked and decided at some point we’d have to have a conversation with her. For church on Sunday I decided to bring Rosario and Dunia(one of the small girls, not the staff member) but Erika found her way over by me so she ended up sitting with me as well. After church, I snagged Dunia’s brother and Rosario’s sister and took the four of them to the tienda. We sat there for a while before Leah and John came by with their own kids. Some of the boys that John brought started taking photos on his phone and got one of Rosario feeding me a chip.

Sunday afternoon I had to find Natalie, Dunias kid. Back in April, Natalie told me that her birthday is May 18th; however, by then I already knew that I’d be in Cancun on that day. So I promised her that I would celebrate with her the weekend that I got back. When I got back I told Dunia and Jimmy, her parents, that I would take her on Saturday. However, when the volunteem made the decision that we’d go to town, I completely forgot about my previous engagement. I ended up dropping the ball on Natalie. I felt so bad but made sure to make it up to Natalie on Sunday. In the afternoon I picked Natalie up from the toddler house where her mom works. Natalie asked me if her brother could come with us for her celebration and of course I said he could. The first thing we did was stop at the tienda for snacks, then went up to my house so I could give Natalie her birthday presents. Natalie’s English is really really good for her age and her parents encourage every American to speak English with her because she learns really quickly. So I spent the rest of the afternoon teaching her what a scavenger hunt is. Her task was to find all six of us volunteers. Since I was a day late, I inadvertently made her goal all the harder since now there is a team here to confuse her. First we found Tori and Leah in the Cancha, then walked right past John in the Tienda, but saw him about 10 minutes later. Then the kids ran out of time and had to find Anna and Olivia in the comedor. The deal was that whenever she ran into one of the volunteers she had to tell them that we were doing a ‘scavenger hunt’ and then give them a high five. After talking to Olivia, I took Natalie over to her mom and for the last time, told her to tell her mom what we were doing. She nailed the pronunciation so I gave her my high five and went to my spot for dinner.

Sunday night was my final movie with the Medium boys. I had been saving The Karate Kid for them as their last movie with snacks. After all the snacks were dished out we started the movie… When Chino was downloading movies for me, I realized he downloaded the second Karate kid instead of the first. So I told him what was wrong then he told me he knew which one I was talking about and that he’d fix it. So when I got my flash drive back I didn’t even bother checking if it was the right movie because it was labeled as Karate Kid 1. When we started the movie I came to realize that Chino had downloaded the third movie(which is an awful movie if you haven’t seen the first two yet). Only half of the boys stayed for the whole thing, but half of the half that stayed fell asleep rather than watching the movie. However bad the night was, I am so glad I am back, especially with friends of mine to confide in whenever I may need. To be continued…