And the Journey Continues...

Mitch's reflections, thus far....

We have been very busy since arriving in Honduras. The first adventure was navigating our way from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. We chose the $6.00 cheapy bus ride and it was great. It took a little over 3 hours and was just fine. I have no idea why anyone would need to take the $25.00 ride... but maybe we got lucky. Not a chicken, goat, or any other livestock aboard! That night we connected with three girls from Tierra Santa (they are spending part of the week with us), met the founder of HHK (David Ashby) and had dinner with him.
Yesterday we had the chance to help out with an HHK fundraiser. We spent time with the kids holding signs and asking for donations from passersby on a very busy street. It was fun, but the kids ended up working at this from 8:00am-4:00pm. We did not. Instead, we took a break from this to go over to the hogar (home) to play with the younger kids who were too young to be on the busy streets of La Ceiba. We played soccer on a very tiny "field" on the side of the yard, read with kids, played hide and seek and a very clever spin on Rock-Paper Scissors the kids taught u.. it goes something like this.... Mickey Mouse, Micky Mouse, Mickey arriba (up) Mickey abajo (down) Mickey aqui (here) Mickey alla (there)... then shoot your rock paper or scissors. I'll teach you the rest when I see you but I will say that it involves holding your opponent's ear! :-)
Later, David took us up to the jungle school for a tour. I don't know what I had in my mind, but it wasn't what I saw. This place is incredible. We (Global Connect) have already sent money to help with this which has helped to start construction on another classroom. But as it is, they have now run out of money and the project is sitting waiting for further funds.

Today we came out to a hotel on the beach and spent a few hours on a boating and snorkeling expedition. This was fun and a very new experience for the Tierra Santa girls. After snorkeling a bit we went to a tiny island that holds a Garifuna (sp) village. The Garifuna are descendents of African slaves in the area and live mostly by fishing. They live a very simple life on their own tiny island... yet they somehow were able to gather around a small TV to watch the world cup finals. Here on this island we ate a great meal of fresh fish (head, tail, the whole nine yards!), beans and rice, and fried plantains. It was great and quite reasonable... about $3 or $4! We rested the rest of the day and just finished up with dinner.
We will go back to the jungle school tomorrow while the kids are in school to see it all happening. Some of these kids walk 2 or more hours each day, one way, to get to the school... some even have to cross the river to make it. Amazing! We are also hoping to go further up the mountain and deeper into the jungle to see where some of these kids are coming from and where HHK has further outreach projects in these little jungle villages.
Honduras is a beautiful place. We are nestled between the northern coast and the mountains. the water in the ocean is beautiful and warm and the mountains are green and dense with vegetation and the tops are almost always shrouded by the clouds. This creates what is known as a cloud forest which is, for all intensive purposes, a rain forest. The kids of course are awesome. We had fun hanging out and playing silly games and just lovin' on em! Totally possible even when I don't speak Spanish.

Well, this pretty much covers most of what we have been up to so far. I'd like to include more and tell you more about the girls from Tierra Santa, but I think I should hold that for another time.

Peace, grace y Buenos Noches... Hasta la Pronto-

Mitch