It’s Sunday morning when I’m typing this. So far we haven’t had any Internet access and really not time to wander to an Internet café. So, no blogging for now. We’ll be going to a hotel on the coast later this morning that will have access.
Things have gone great to this point. Friday was our big travel day. We had two 2 ½ hour flights followed by a 4 hour bus ride from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. It all went off without a hitch. We had been told by several people not to take one of the more inexpensive buses from San Pedro. Not because they are dangerous, just because they are slow and hot and uncomfortable. We had a fantastic time. The bus was slow and it didn’t have air conditioning. But we cranked the windows open and enjoyed every little stop in which locals would jump on the bus and try to sell you fruit or tortillas or tamales. It was a fun cultural experience that would have been much different had we taken an expensive, air conditioned express bus. We paid 4 bucks and were better off for the experience.
In San Pedro we wandered a bit but finally were able to meet up with Kenia, Margarita and Senia. These are three girls that used to live at Hogar Tierra Santa. I have sponsored Kenia in the past and really wanted to see her while I was here. I was equally happy when she wanted to have Margarita and Senia join her. They took a bus up from another city in central Honduras. After meeting them we were greeted by David Ashby who drove to pick us up at the bus station. David is the president of Helping Honduras Kids (HHK), the organization we came to visit in La Ceiba. David then took us out for dinner where we were able to talk about our week and begin to understand the workings of HHK. The best treat of all was when David left to pick up the HHK children from church and then brought them back to the restaurant to meet us. The kids greeted us with smiles and open arms, immediately wanting to interact and tell us their names. After a long day of travel it was good to be reminded why we had taken this journey in the first place.
After dinner, David dropped most of our group off at the volunteer house in La Ceiba where we would be staying. He then took me back to the children’s home to pick up some water. I didn’t stay long, but it was great to see the home right away and have some of the kids show me around, showing off their bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, etc… They clearly were excited to have a visitor. Of course I had lots of mixed emotions, having made a relationship with another home, Tierra Santa. I miss those kids with whom we all opened our hearts to on three previous trips. It’s not easy to just transfer that energy and emotion to a whole new group of kids. It will take a bit of time, and probably another trip or two, for me to be able to fully embrace this new group of children. I miss the Tierra Santa children, but just seeing the smiles and feeling the hugs of the HHK children makes me know that building new relationships with these kids will not be difficult in the end.
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