I'm really Here!?!

I had planned to rest up until Wed and get to work on Thurs BUT I unpacked fully on Sun and rested Mon. On Tuesday I just couldn’t imagine waiting another day and went to the CDI (Centro de Desarrollo Infantil/ Children’s Development Center). Just so you all know for future posts, I am living with Jamey and Lesley, two missionaries from Virginia. I will be helping Lesley at the CDI and Jamey (a water engineer) with a small part of his water project.

I have had three full days of work under my belt so far! It has been great; I love love love the children and I’m very excited to get to work with them. I hope my Spanish is sufficient to be able to teach them what they need to know. The first day I just shadowed Lesley, one of the missionaries that I’m living and working with. She has really been helping me get acquainted with all the kids. We even went through pictures before my first day so I could have an idea of who is who at the CDI It was awesome being able to know many of their faces before my first day. There are 26 kids in total and they are split up between the morning and afternoon depending on their school session.

The Honduran school systems decides if your child goes to morning school that ends around 12pm or afternoon school that begins a little after 12pm. Because of the split schooling, the CDI is here as an after or before school program for the children.

So far, the biggest difficulty has been my Spanish. It I shard enough trying to tutor someone in English and switching to Spanish has been hard for me. I have to think of ways to explain math while making sure that I say the correct number. I am hoping and praying that each day gets a little easier with my language acquisition.

Tomorrow I will be going to a bible study for “jovenes” (young people). I think I may be one of the oldest people there but I am very excited to be able to meet the younger members of the church that are closest to my age. One of my goals while I’m here is to be someone that the teen girls can come to for anything really, from life problems to bible questions. We’ll see how that goes J

Before coming here, all of my knowledge about Honduran life was from my week-long visit and from others’ stories but now I am getting more familiar. The biggest thing I need to work on is my pointing. It is considered rude here to point with your fingers at someone or at something that’s close. They either point with their eyes or with their lips by pursing them. As some of you know my lips are… thin… and that means my lip pointing is not very easy to recognize. I haven’t been lip pointing much because I keep forgetting and pointing right at everything before remembering my faux pas. When I get back to the states and continue my lip pointing, please know that I have not developed a twitch, I may just be used to it by then.