As I recover from Chikungunya (fun to say, not fun to
have!), I thought I would use my prescribed bedrest to attempt to summarize the
highlights of the last two months.
The beginning of April brought an awesome group of
volunteers from York House School in Vancouver (Fellow Canadians! Woo hoo!).
We went to tour Virginia Sapp, the girls’ high school. It was great to see the girls in their
element and the school facility was beautiful…
It was much nicer than the high school I went to! (Sorry Aldershot!)
The following weekend I spent a weekend with the girls in
Santa Lucia, teaching piano lessons and helping study for their English
exams. We went on a number of walks
through the town and a few of us rented boats and paddled into the lagoon in
the centre of town.
The girls’ residence in Santa Lucia is a beautiful
property. I was grateful to wake up to
such an amazing view and to see the property come alive with the 15 teenage
girls who were there that weekend. It
was way less daunting than it sounds!
On the day that “my” team (aka the team from St. Luke’s that
included my parents) arrived, we took all the kids to Parque Obrero for the
day. The park was about 40 minutes away,
just outside of Valle de Angeles. There
was swimming, games, soccer and horseback riding. Doña Alejandrina and Profe Martha cooked a
traditional Honduran lunch. It was so
much fun that I hardly felt guilty that the campus was empty when my team
arrived!
Lots happened the week St. Luke’s was here. We took a bunch of kids out for lunch after
church to our favourite (or most visited…) local fast food restaurant…
My mom and Ros were busy coordinating an art project where
El Hogar’s most talented artists painted over 70 canvases that will be used as
a fundraiser in Toronto in the fall.
They even let me create a masterpiece…
It was also the week of the school presidential
election. The two parties – Movimento
Lempira and Movimento Futuro de Honduras – participated in a political rally…
A presidential debate...
And finally the election.
The volunteers sat in at each polling station as international observers
and watched the incredibly organized and official process of voting.
We also celebrated Earth Day! The night before, the director asked us to
produce 100 green and brown shirts from the bodega for the kids to wear. Miraculously, we did, and with these they formed
a tree!
Here are some more fun times in April...
