The group was a true band of dynamos, accomplishing an incredible amount of work in what amounted to about four days. Most impressive in terms of overall accomplishments would have to be the new Susan Seitz Memorial Preschool Room that is located in the new water treatment facility at Tierra Santa. When we arrived, the room was there, empty and ready to be designed and readied for children. To see the before pictures alongside the after pictures is a pretty amazing thing. From the paint crew to John and Geovani constructing the shelves to the
crew that found perfect preschool furniture at a store in Comayagua, everything turned out fantastically.Today we needed to finish and paint the shelving, then organize the toys and teaching materials prior to welcoming the kids to their new school room. Santiago and Bob said a few words about the importance of the room and dedicated it to Bob’s wife, Susan. Following that, all the Tierra Santa kids packed into the room to see Bob and Santiago hang a ceremonial photo of Susan on the wall. Both Santiago and Tahire said several words of thanks to our group from Minnesota, as well. It was a very moving experience, and a fine tribute to a wonderful woman.
The rest of the day including Tricia and Lisa baking over 200 sugar cookies with a group of eager girls, Rose doing haircuts in the courtyard, and the distribution of ball caps, soccer socks and hand-created pillow cases to all the kids. There were big smiles all around, including, of course, on the faces of all of us from Minnesota.Saying goodbye at the end of the day was difficult, but I must say, not as difficult as the last time I was here. I think I now see the reality of myself returning to Tierra Santa often, and the fact that I know I’ll be coming back in March probably doesn’t hurt. The children are so awesome, though, that spending just a couple months away from them will be tremendously difficult. Part of me wishes I could just pack up my entire family and live in the Villa. But service trips from time to time will probably have to do for now.
This trip was a great one. On the list of unexpected things, were the new relationships I formed with a few of the children at HTS. On my previous trip, I spent a lot of time talking with kids, but much of it was laughing and joking around, nothing real serious. But on this trip, I spent quality time with two children in particular, both of which I barely spoke with last time. Those two kids were Kenia and Nancy. Kenia is 21 and is the child Tricia and I sponsor, and I only really met her late into the trip last spring. This time around I talked with her a great deal and really got to know her on a personal level.
Nancy is a girl who I just connected with on this trip, I’m not sure exactly why. She is such a sweetheart. She is 14 years old and in her second year at the secondary school in the Villa. For the first couple of days here, I kept wondering why she constantly looked at me in a confused way whenever I spoke to her. But eventually I figured out that she is slightly hearing impaired. She and I just clicked for some reason and seemed to always have something to talk about.Last night gave us even more time to interact. Last night we stayed at HTS until about 12:30 p.m. so that we could take in the New Year’s celebration with the kids. Let me tell you, it was really a highlight for me, dancing with the kids, eating with the kids, lighting a stuffed artificial man on fire with the kids (that’s another story). But the best part of the night for me was just sitting and talking with Nancy for a very long time.
For a long stretch, Nancy, Kenia and Argentina sat in the courtyard. The girls practiced their English. Tricia and I practiced our Spanish. We counted, we sang songs, we practiced the alphabet – we did it all.
I guess to wrap up, this experience matched or even exceeded my first experience at Tierra Santa for the simple fact that I got to know the kids of HTS that much better. They remembered me, I remembered them, and we built on the foundation that was created last spring. I can’t wait to continue building on that foundation even more in the years ahead.
