Family Photos *Week 21*
On Monday I had to say goodbye to the three remaining members of the volunteem. But before I did that, I took them up to Papí and Mamí’s house so that they could see the most precious view of the orphanage. After that, we walked back down to the girls volunteer house where Luis was waiting for the volunteem. As Olivia was standing around, kind of just taking in her last moments at Emmanuel, I snuck one of my bracelets into her backpack for a reason I’ll go over later. After that, we all said our goodbyes and gave each other hugs and wished each other the best. As soon as the volunteem left, I started writing them letters over text since I didn’t have pen and paper to do so. Then, I had nothing other to do than to go to work, so my day just kind of continued as normal. On Tuesday morning, I realized that the small girls flash drive that I had bought had slipped off my key chain somewhere around the orphanage. This made me lose my mind because I don’t have a lot of time to buy a new flash drive and re-download the movies before I leave next Saturday. But the day had to go on. So after making a quick stop at the small girls house to tell the leaders what had happened, I went back to work with Maestro. Our job for the day was putting up some new wooden railings on a gazebo at the team house and then painting those railings white. When my day ended, I was heading home from the wood shop when Naomi, a girl about my age, stopped me behind the girl's yard and had a weird looking face going on, so I just instinctively asked her if she found my flash drive and she asked me what it looked like and where I might have lost it, then she showed it to me and it was in fact my flash drive. She told me it was in front of the high school in the grass. I’m not sure how she even saw it, but I was so happy that she found it that I promised to take her to the tienda for some chips and a drink sometime later.
On Wednesday, I got a call from Moncho who needed me to exchange some more of the $1000 that I gave him back in early March. So, in the afternoon we headed out to ‘Espresso Americano’ where I could pull money out of the ATM. While I was there I pulled a lump sum of lempiras out of the ATM for a special event that I’m planning for my last week here. Then after getting my money, Moncho dropped me off at the Dispensa where I bought some groceries, then made my way next door to Bigos for a nice lunch by myself. Unfortunately and totally stupidly, I forgot that it was Wednesday and realized I missed church when I got back to the orphanage. I had totally forgot, but according to my mom, Tammy Young gave the sermon and my mom said she did a really incredible job. On Thursday, I was sent to go pick up two teams, one of which being John Perez’ team. I’ve been told about John Perez before. According to my mom, John lived here for five years starting in 2008(same year my mom started coming). And since he lived here for five years starting in 2008, he met my older brother Andres. My mom went on to tell me that John is to Andres as Jordy is to me. This really excited me because I already knew that would mean he’s a really cool guy. When we got to the airport, I had to buy myself a new lanyard because my lanyard broke a couple hours after I lost my flash drive, which made that Tuesday even worse. But I got myself a new lanyard and then sat down to eat the same spaghetti meal with a smoothie that I had back when I was waiting for my mom to get here. Then the first team(from California) came, but we still had to wait for John Perez’ team(from Tennessee). After a while, John’s team arrived and we were ready to head off. I was pretty nervous to talk to John because I’m a big fan of his and I didn’t know whether or not to bring up who my mom and brother were right away, so I decided I wouldn’t initiate a conversation until we got to the orphanage. However, as we were loading the bus, John looked up at me and asked “who’s this handsome man standing in front of us,” and I got all blushy and told him my name and we had a super brief conversation before it was time to depart. So, I got off the bus and headed towards the little green van that took the volunteem to the orphanage back in May, because I would be riding with three of the team members in the van this time. I sat in the front again for this trip and I didn’t really talk much because they didn’t really talk much, but the driver did, so I got to talk to the driver a couple times during the three and a half hour trip.
During the trip, we stopped at the usual rest spot, the one that has the Bigos. However, I didn’t get Bigos this time because I got out of my van to have a longer conversation with John(still didn’t bring up my mother or Andres). When the two teams were done buying what they wanted, I made my way back to the van where I saw Milton out of the corner of my eye. Milton did not come with me to get the teams so I wanted to know what he was doing at the rest stop. As I walked up to Milton I walked right past Wade, who flew in through the San Pedro Sula airport with his family. Wade is an American that worked for the orphanage for 14 years, then got married, had children, and left. Wade was here for the first three summers that I came with my mom, so I remember him very well. One last fun fact about Wade is that he was Papí’s second in command for years, and if anything would’ve happened to Papí or Mamí back then, Wade would’ve taken over. So it was such a pleasure to be able to see him during my trip and I shook his hand and reminded him who I was. After that incredible reunion, we all got to the orphanage safe and sound. As soon as I got back, I went down by the small girls house to say good night to my two girls and the rest of the house as well. But when I got there, I heard Erika crying from inside. So I asked the leaders through the window what happened and they told me that it was Erika crying because she was in trouble. I asked what she did and the leaders told me Erika had refused to shower and was ignorantly sulking all day because she thought I was leaving for good when she saw me leave on the bus in the morning. The leaders went on to tell me that she had been crying for quite some time because Erika saw me in the bus when it left the orphanage in the morning and she thought I was leaving for good. So I got the key from the Tia and went inside to give Erika a hug and lay her down in her bed.
On Friday, we had another big circle in the yard which has become an on and off thing now. Wade spoke about the truth of America and how we aren’t all made of money the way some of the kids see us as. Then Andi sang and we were dismissed. After dinner on Friday, I went to the small girls house(that Olivia used to work in remember) and gave all the small girls and their leaders bracelets that matched mine and Olivia’s. Then I sent a video of the girls saying ‘hi’ to Olivia with their bracelets on their arms. On Saturday after lunch, I wasn’t feeling the greatest, so I went home since Maestro leaves at 11:00am on Saturdays. After spending about two hours at home, Danielle called me and asked me if I could stop by the office to talk to a visitor that’s looking for a good place to volunteer for three months. I shared some positive experiences and I also shared about the absolute pain of going home and what that all entails(I’ll explain that in my blog next week). While in the meeting, the visitor’s mentor asked Danielle about the application process and after Danielle explained to them that it only takes about two days at most to get all the paperwork done, I shot her a glance and we exchanged a quick, hidden smile, because it took me five months to complete my paperwork😭(my fault completely though). After the meeting, Danielle took the visitors on a tour of the orphanage and I decided to stop by the gym to see what the team was doing in there. I knew they were doing activities for every house all in one day. When I got there I realized they had been doing cotton candy, popcorn, and sports with the kids. Unfortunately I missed my special needs boys by like 5 minutes, I saw them leaving the gym as I was walking up. But the next group in was the Mayores and big boys, who I got to play volleyball with! We played for about 30 minutes until dinner came and we had to leave. The only house that the team hadn’t played with yet was the Grandecitas. So after dinner, I went back to the gym to play with them. While we were playing, Genesis decided she wanted to talk smack to me. So when I got my opportunity, I hit her in the head during the game(with the ball of course). Naturally I didn’t swing at 100% because I didn’t want to hurt her, so I gave her about 40% and I accidentally gave her a bloody nose. But she’s a tough kid so she just went to the bathroom, wiped everything away, and came right back out laughing. When she got back on the court she showed me that she hadn’t learned her lesson by talking more smack… so I hit her in the head again(this time a little lighter).
On Sunday I had planned out a morning with my two brothers and my two daughters for family photos. I wanted to take my girls to church with me, but Lorena had been misbehaving in school recently, so I didn’t take her with me, and since I wasn't taking her, I decided not to take Erika either. But after church I still planned to do photos, so I got Maycol and Olvin together and made my way over to their houses to get them changed. Being teenage dudes, they didn’t really like doing a fashion show for me(much like my feelings toward those fashion shows my mom made me do when she wanted me dressed up nice). After I finally got the boys changed, I left them with my mom and went to get the girls changed. That went a lot quicker because Pito(another leader of the house) knew what she was doing, and the girls weren’t groaning about the fashion show either. After the girls changed I met up with my mom and the two boys and we started moving around the orphanage taking pictures. We took some decent photos before my mom pointed out that I was squinting too much because of the sun. But we kept walking and took some pictures in the campo. While in the campo, I took a picture with my daughters lifted off the ground in my arms, which turned out really nice. And then after those pictures, I waved my brothers over and told them to hop into my arms too as a joke, but Olvin thought it was a funny idea and played along but Maycol wasn’t having it and refused to leave the ground. After like 10 seconds of trying to pick them up, the two of them ended up picking me up and we took a couple funny pictures that way. Then shortly after, the boys got sick of walking around taking photos(much like I did when I was younger) so we headed over to the tienda where I bought the boys and Erika a drink, but I wasn’t allowed to buy a drink for Lorena, nor was I going to, because of her recent behaviors in school. Then on the whole walk back to her yard I could tell she was holding back tears. So when we got back, I gave her a really long hug while Olvin and I explained to her that there are rules in school and in the houses, and that those rules are pretty good rules. As soon as I gave her the hug she let her tears out and started crying. I held her for a while, then lunch came and I took my family to the comedor to eat.
After lunch I made my way over to the special needs boys house to watch my movies with them. I saved my boys for last because I wanted to spend my last week right where I started my first week. The movie went all the way up until dinner, where I didn’t eat because one of the teams was planning a team dinner. After dinner in the comedor though, I gave Lashawn the flash drive to the special needs girls house and a plastic bag with many bags of chips in it and then another with two 3 liter soda bottles. Then I made my way to the team dinner where I was invited to stay for their devotion after eating(much like the Union team did) and while there, they all prayed for me since they found out that I would be leaving in less than a week. I was very thankful for the loving prayers, and the evening slowly came to an end just as my trip was going to. To be continued…
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