One of my first memories of Talanga is waking up for the first time in my hammock and seeing the sun rise over the mountains. It was astounding. I get to see this almost every morning.
February is all squad month for us. This means that all 50 of us are lodging at one place. You’d think life would be a little tight, but it has been fun. Our house is a ranch style house, called La Casarita. There is a ginormous porch that runs the length of the house. We fondly call it the Happy Honduran Hammock Hotel, with over 20 hammocks strung up. It gets pretty dicey to walk when you have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
The house is a little over a mile from town, in the country. Our walk to town includes passing herds of cows and bulls, men on horseback, or a cart pulled by 2 cows. Cowboy hats are standard wear. In the valley where the orphanage is the cattle and horses wander freely. Sometimes 4 horses randomly gallop up the driveway. Twice in 1 day the bus slammed on the brakes because a horse crossed the road in front of us. My new normal.
Our 7 teams are split up between 3 ministries. 2 teams stay with our hosts, Aaron’s Mission Outreach. 4 teams go to Heart of Christ Ministries. My team goes to New Life Children’s Home.
Here’s what a typical day looks like for my team:
6:00 wake up, get ready, eat breakfast
7:00 get on the standing room only bus to go into Talanga
7:20 get off bus 1 and hop on bus 2 that takes us to Los Izotes
7:45 arrive at Los Izotes and walk until the truck meets us, then ride in the back to the orphanage (7km from the bus stop to the orphanage)
8:30ish arrive at the orphanage
10:30 snack time!
1:00 lunch
3:30 or 4:00 reverse trip back to La Casarita
6:30ish team feedback
7:00 dinner
8:00 something with the squad
9:00 quiet hours commence
It’s a pretty full day that we have. I love it.
