Well it's February now friends. I’ve made it to the halfway point and am a week out from my parents getting here. Not much has changed since my last update - actually scratch that, a lot of small things have happened. I’m so much more confident in speaking Spanish, I sang a solo at church and we started a completely new schedule. It's hard to really summarize everything that's happened because many little things happen everyday. I suppose I started this off saying nothing is new because we haven't really had a big thing happen, but in reality the collection of little things a big thing. So, as I was saying, we started a new schedule and although I was nervous about it at first it's proven to be way better than I thought it could possibly be. With this new schedule we spend the night at the orphanage on Tuesday giving us the opportunity to spend more quality time with the kids outside of the classroom. It’s been an adjustment because, as you would assume, after a full day of crowd control (or as some people call it “teaching”) I want to do nothing more than sleep for 24 hours. It's definitely not all bad though, any annoyed feelings I had during the day disappear when a kid hugs me goodnight and tells me they love me. This past Tuesday was probably one of my favorites. The curriculum we use requires you to burn the material after a certain amount of time (yes, literally burn the book. Like in Fahrenheit 451) We had the idea of turning the book burning into a treat for the kids, and bought two giant bags of marshmallows. The kids were all super excited to eat marshmallows and throw paper balls into the fire. We played music and danced and that got some of the older girls involved too. My absolute favorite is bedtime (I mean partly because the kids are absolutely insane during the 3 hours or so between dinner and bedtime. The kids all lose their minds. I’m not sure what it is, but they all go from a manageable 6 to an out of control 10) especially with the little ones. Some of them are still young enough that they fall asleep while we're carrying them and we have to take them to their beds. I always try to go to each room so I can say goodnight to everyone, from the youngest boy Issac to the oldest girl Brenda. About two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend the day with some of the older girls. We spent the day trying on clothes in the city and eating pizza. Despite the fact that they make fun of me all the time, I’ve gotten brave enough to talk to them as much as I can. A lot of my story overlaps with things that have happened in their lives. It’s been cool to be able to build trust with them by explaining pieces of my life and how I’ve moved, and continue to move, forward from the things the girls and I struggle with.
Speaking of being brave, I sing at church now pretty much every week! People that know me know I am not a shy person at all. I love public speaking and it's pretty much what I’ve decided will be my career one day as a politician. I’ve always been the girl people have to tell to shut up for being loud, but for some reason I am absolutely terrified of singing in front of people. I started singing with the worship team at my english church during my first month here with my mic just barely audible so that no one could hear me. This has slowly led me to the present, where I’ve led worship twice and sung a solo. I really like singing and I don’t think I have a bad voice, but something that I’ve learned is that worship is just that- simply worship. It’s not supposed to be the Christina show. It’s just me helping lead others to praise God with my voice, which is really something I should be doing 24/7 anyway, even if it's not by singing.
The last thing I wanna talk about is a little bit edgy, and I honestly have rewritten this again and again. I thought about whether this was even worth mentioning, but I feel like I have to talk about it. Ok this is it: STOP FREAKING COMPLAINING AND SAYING AMERICA SUCKS! I honestly can't stress enough how infuriating it is to me to hear people in America complain about, “Trump did that” and “America is the worst” and bla bla bla. I really try to ignore it, I truly do, but after experiencing life here, it makes it that much more infuriating. I mean where do I even begin? First of all America does not have a rape culture Honduras does. I have never felt so absolutely disrespected and objectified until I came here where women are treated as objects no matter how old, married or single. Countless times I’ve had men yell inappropriate thing at me, and it’s normal! Among Hondurans, I’m thought to be the odd one because I am bothered by it. I don't even wear shorts when I go certain places because I’m scared of what might happen! Thats rape culture guys. Another thing that irritates me, is people saying that the US government is oppressive. I'm gonna flat out say it's not. Yes, I’m aware we have some corrupt officials, but at least are allowed to say that they are corrupt! Combine that with the fact that you can protest pretty much anywhere you want, and you have a picture of a pretty non-oppressive government. Try having a protest in Honduras, and see if you don't get tear gassed or potentially even shot by cops. Lastly, I wanna briefly talk about immigration. As many of you know, there was a huge caravan headed to the US that left not to far from where I live in Honduras. Since I arrived here, I’ve been so enlightened on what is actually going on with this immigration crisis. All of the people that I've talked to about immigrating and going to the US know that they can enter legally, but choose to go illegally because it's easier and faster. I know a family that has been broken up by immigration. No, not by getting caught, but by not being caught. The father left with one of the children, leaving the wife and other children behind. Now the wife is planning to meet him in the US, but only bring one of the remaining kids with her. Leaving the two tween girls to grow up at the orphanage. Personally, I know of two other cases like that, but I know for a fact that there are more. Guys, the US has a problem. We’re separating families, not with the detention centers at the borders (I’d argue that there's some good coming out of those feel free to direct message me if you want to here my opinion on that), but by leaving our borders open and unprotected. We are letting mothers and fathers (who can besame time be gang members) choose one child to go across illegally, leaving the rest of their family behind. I just can't sit by and watch this happen. It is not OK. I encourage everyone to do the only thing we can right now: pray. Pray for America, pray for our leaders, and pray for the families that have already been seperated by our open border. And that's that on that my friends.
Until next time.
-Christina H
