Dad Duty *Week 20*
Sunday of week 19 was Father’s day in America, but it wasn’t Father’s day down here. So I talked to my mom about when we would make a call home and she told me she would call home around one-ish to talk to my dad. That morning at church I decided not to take any of the small girls to church with me. This being because the last Sunday I went to pick up two of the small girls to take to church, the whole house was begging to go to the tienda with me and not asking to sit by me in church. One of the worst mistakes you can make down here is forming a relationship with the kids through the tienda, which is why I didn’t start taking kids to the tienda with me on Sundays until late April-ish(with the exception of my two brothers, who I’ve already formed healthy relationships with). While sitting in church I got to ‘hi’ to Morgan who came with the most recent team which I was super excited about. Morgan also gave the sermon which really hit hard as she spoke about cutting people off if they’re holding you back from achieving God’s plan for you. After church, Olivia took both my daughters to the store since I wasn’t planning on doing it and because she wanted to spend time with the two girls. After talking with Anna and Olivia in the yard for a bit, they left for the store and I followed soon after, I just didn’t take any kids with me. While I was there Lorena and Erika spent a lot of time with me while Olivia danced with Anna and Genesis(a Grandecita that I know very well that John brought to the tienda). After our little party at the tienda I went back home for a little bit, then after lunch my mom texted me saying she was going to call home to talk to my dad. So I made my way over to the tienda, but on the way I passed Rosa(one of the leaders of the small girls house) who told me to “ask Lorena how she's doing” which I thought was really weird. So as I was walking, I passed by the yard and saw Lorena with her head down crying. As I walked closer to her I realized she had a giant goose egg on her forehead. Apparently she had tripped, and it wasn’t the first time this had happened either(according to the ladies in charge of the house). I tried to ask her what happened but she wouldn’t talk so I just walked over to the tienda to talk to my dad. I tried to keep the talk with my dad short because I wanted to take Lorena to my house to put some bactine and ice on her head and also give her some ibuprofen. But, while talking to my dad I told him there was a present from me on the way to our house back home and then caught up with him a little bit about my trip. After talking to my dad I headed back over to the yard where I found Elsa holding a bag of ice on Lorena’s head. Lorena was crying, like really loud so I just decided to sit next to her and hold her hand. We sat there for about two hours before Elsa took the bag of ice off of Lorena’s forehead. With about an hour left until dinner, I chose to stay and play with Lorena and Erika until Lorena was feeling better and smiling again. By dinner Lorena was feeling fine(still had a goose egg though). After dinner, John and I made some popcorn for the Mayores and then made our way to their house to watch ‘Get Out’, which is definitely my third favorite movie now.
Erika and I
On Monday night after dinner, I went to the special needs boys house per usual. But this time, as I was walking back home, the Grandes and the Mayores were playing volleyball in their yard and so naturally, I went and played with them. We just played for a while and didn’t really keep track of score. But after about 30 minutes of playing, the boys had to be inside their house, and I had a team dinner to attend to. It was a pretty usual team dinner, except Anna, Olivia, John, and I sat in the gazebo outside of the team house by ourselves for a little bit. However, a little later in the night my mom and a couple team members made their way to the gazebo and my mom and I had the other volunteers and team members try to pronounce cities in Wisconsin. This made for a lot of laughter for me and my mom since no one knows how to pronounce Wisconsin cities except for Wisconsinites. As the night progressed Anna and Olivia left John and I alone in the gazebo, and while we were there a 13 year old(born in 2011 apparently🤯) came and sat down by us and started ripping on the two of us about our accents. This kid, who the kids down here call ‘Gordito’(little fat guy), probably had one of the most disgusting accents I’ve ever heard in my life and yet he still made fun of me for the way I said “Wisconsin” but it was worse for John, because John has a much stronger accent than I do, so the kid just kept making fun of him literally every other word. It was kind of funny at first, but then he just kept dragging it on. And then there were times that I’d be in the middle of a sentence, while talking to somebody else, and he would interrupt me to ask me if I could “just say a couple sentences so I can hear what your accent sounds like?” Like dude, I’m already talking, just listen. He did the same thing to John, more than once. Kids these days, am I right?
On Tuesday I went into town to get some cash since Luis robbed me last week. At first Chino took me to an ATM that was nearby, but it didn’t work. I recognized the error that the ATM gave me and I was so scared I was going to have a ‘Cancún’ situation again. But Chino had the idea to go to an ‘Espresso Americano’ down the way to try the ATM there. So we went and the ATM actually worked, so I took out a couple thousand lempiras and then went to buy myself a drink since I was at ‘Espresso Americano’. While I was ordering, the baristas poked fun at my Americanness, not because I sounded American but because I looked American. So after I established that I know how to order a drink in Spanish, I played around with my English just the way Maestro taught me by saying “muchos thank you’s” when they gave me my order, and they got a kick out of that. On my way out of the store I saw some Hershey’s bars and my eyes opened wide and I told Chino all about s’mores and he told me he had no idea what they were. So I explained it to him and I explained that I have wanted to do s’mores ever since seeing Hershey bars in the gas station that Leah and I stopped at on our way to Comayagua. So Chino took me to a store he thought might have graham crackers because I didn't know where to look. He took me to a place that had Hershey’s and what I thought were graham crackers and so I bought a lot of both of them. Then we made our way to the Dispensa(my usual grocery store) where I bought some marshmallows. Then our last stop was at a place that copies keys so that I could copy my house key so that John and I wouldn’t have to share my lanyard anymore. After waiting about 20 minutes we got the key and made it back to the orphanage before lunch. I stopped in my house to put my groceries away, then I gave the graham crackers a try just to make sure they were actually graham crackers. Turns out they were actually more like Ritz crackers, so I’d have to look for actual graham crackers during my next trip into town.
After lunch that day, I headed back to work at the wood shop and while there, I told Maestro I needed his help quick. He asked me “with what” and I told him that I needed to make sticks for s'mores and I explained the situation and exactly what I needed. And he decided to actually help me this time. Usually when I ask him whether or not I can do something, he just lets me and watches me learn, but this time he kind of walked through it with me. I showed him exactly what I needed for handles, and since he isn’t allowed to use lumber for personal projects, we looked through the pile of scrap wood and found a couple pieces of wood that eventually turned into 25 s’more stick handles. He helped me cut the wood, shape it, and sand it smooth. Then he called a place that sold metal rods, since we neither had enough, nor had permission to use the metal rods that were already in the wood shop. So he ordered some metal for me, and I paid for it at the gate and took it to the wood shop. After the metal came, I went to the big boys house(Los Grandes not Los Mayores) to watch “Get Out” with them. It was a blast and they loved the movie too, and truly appreciated that I came and watched movies with them.
On Wednesday I spent all morning making s’mores sticks in the wood shop. Maestro had me cut the metal rods in what would become 21 s’more rods. Then we drilled holes into the handles and then hammered the rods into the holes. Then I cleaned all the rods under a spigot. Then I grinded the tips of the rods down so that the gridded part of the rods wouldn’t touch the marshmallows because the tips were dirty and the marshmallows wouldn’t have slid off as easily. So I spent a long time grinding them down and finally finished just to realize that the tips were really rough and gritty. So I asked Maestro if there was a way to sort of sand the metal down and he gave me a hand held metal sander thingy. So I used that on the tips of the rods and finally finished them up right before lunch. After lunch I made my way into town for real graham crackers. However, my first stop was obviously Bigos, and then after I ate, I went to the Dispensa and found actual graham crackers. And now I was finally ready to do s’mores, I just had to talk with Raleigh about what day would work best. On Sunday night I went back to the Grandes house, with chips and sodas, to watch their last movie with them, “Cocaine Bear”. Cocaine Bear was a movie that I had went and seen with my best friend back last year and we absolutely loved it, so I knew that the boys would love it too.
On Thursday I got to play volleyball with the team and the Grandecitos. My team was undefeated until the last game, so we went 4-1. It was a lovely night though, and I got to play my favorite sport with my favorite people. On Friday, I helped Maestro put up some doors in the bathrooms of the hotel, which took all morning. However, all day, I was thinking about and planning on doing s’mores with the small girls, but the percent chance of rain that day was 99%. It hadn’t rained all day, and after dinner, it still wasn’t raining. The weather was perfect for s’mores, but Raleigh unfortunately broke the news to me that he had a meeting he had to attend and we wouldn’t be able to do s’mores that night which really sucked. But I decided that I could go and watch my last movie with the Mayores. We watched 'Cocaine Bear' because the Grandes and the Mayores share the same flash drive. After the movie ended, I gave my brother Maycol the flash drive since I was finally done watching movies with him and his house. He was very thankful for the gesture and that I spent so much time watching movies with his house. On Saturday I went to town with my mom, John, and the new volunteer Nora. We just stopped for groceries, but I didn’t need anything. So while the others were shopping, I went to Bigos right next door. Then, while I was waiting for my food, I went to a different grocery store to buy a lot more Hershey's, because the ones at home were all broken into pieces because they had melted in my bag and didn’t form together that well in my fridge. Then after buying like 30 Hershey bars, I went back to Bigos, picked up my food, then went back to the grocery store where the others were checking out. After they were finished, we started making our way back to the orphanage, but John forgot to do something in the square so we turned around for him. My mom and Nora waited in Matilda’s with my chocolate while I took John to the store he wanted to go to. John wanted to buy a bracelet for his brother back home and another one for one of the staff's kids back in the orphanage. I helped John translate what he needed and I tried on some sunglasses that weren’t really my type. But we finished up and made our way back to Matilda’s for some chocolate covered bananas, then finally made our way back to the orphanage. Saturday night, after dinner, I wanted to do s’mores again but this time it actually did rain so we couldn't do it once again, so I just went home.
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On Sunday morning I got to meet Tammy Young who was here visiting the orphanage. Tammy is like a legend down here. She runs the horse project for the orphanage and visits every so often to manage the horse project. It was such a blessing to get to meet her and she shared some very interesting and encouraging words with me. For lunch, Anna and Olivia were planning a birthday party for Valeria. They decided to bring Valeria’s sister Rosario as well. Before the whole ordeal happened, Anna and Olivia had me order the food over the phone and I surprised myself with how easily I was able to do it. After ordering, I went and waited at the gate for the food(which I asked to be ordered at 12, we called at 11) And it didn’t come until 12:20. But we got the food and I brought it up to where we were going to eat it. The girls were waiting for me when I got there and as soon as I got there, we prayed and I started eating. But while I was eating, the two girls refused to eat their meal. We were so confused because Valeria said her favorite food was chicken and that's exactly what we ordered(it was really good chicken too). I felt so bad for Anna and Olivia, and since I paid for the food I assured them not to worry about paying me back, then I got up and took the girls boxes of food, since they didn’t want it, and I walked away. Once I was out of sight, Olivia ran up to me and said that the girls really wanted their food now, they just didn’t want to eat in front of me. So I gave her the boxes and I walked away. The rest of my Sunday was just a lot of resting until after dinner, when I was finally able to do s’mores with the small girls. I set up a table and put all of the ingredients on it and also finally brought the hat that I(meaning Leah) bought for Rosario in Comayagua. When the girls came, I had Rosario close her eyes and I put the hat on her head. I was so scared she wasn’t going to like it because she’s clearly picky(won’t even eat in front of me remember). But when she opened her eyes my mom snapped a bunch of pictures of her quickly before she took it off. Then Rosario took the hat off to see what it looked like and she smiled so big and she actually really loved it. And the hat has flaps on it so she kept pulling the hat down over her eyes and then I would flip a flap up so she could see and she would laugh so hard, it was like peek-a-boo and it was so adorable.
A little later, Raleigh came by and told us how to start the fire and what to be careful of, then walked away like he couldn’tve done that two days prior before he had to be at his meeting. So after he walked away I sent the girls to find leaves and sticks to get the fire started. After the fire had been cooking for a bit, I dished out the sticks. The girls had never done s’mores before, so before I could even say anything they were sticking their sticks into the ground and playing around with them. After we fixed that situation we started putting marshmallows on their sticks. Anna and I could barely keep up with opening the materials for the s’mores and actually making them. However, the night was still so much fun and all the girls had the biggest smiles on their faces, it was incredible. The night was so beautiful and I got to walk through making s'mores with my two girls just as my father did before me and that was such a surreal experience. After we were done with s’mores, I walked back to the house with the small girls, but Lorena wanted me to carry her home, so I did. While I was walking, Lorena fell asleep in my arms so when we got inside I laid her down in her bed and said ‘good night’. Then I left with Chino to help him put out the fire and to take my materials back home. After everything was taken care of, I walked back to the small girls house where I heard them all wailing from pretty far away. As I got closer, I knew they were crying for Anna and Olivia since they’d be leaving in the morning. So I walked inside and gave Lorena, who was awake again and crying, a big, long hug. Then Anna and Olivia left the house and I followed shortly after and the party was all over. To be continued…
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