Our ministry:
Discovery Christian School
Catacamas, Honduras
Church:
Centro Cristiano Encuentro with Pastor Nelson
What we did:
-Taught English and helped in classrooms daily
-Painted food program and future day care site. They currently offer a weekly feeding program and their dream is to host a day care where children of working mothers can come for free. In Honduras there is a lot of poverty and some of the challenge is mothers who must stay at home with their kids and are the sole income provider or a secondary provider in a family where the first income isn't enough to get by. Childcare in Honduras is limited and often very expensive.
-Helped with local feeding program.
-Gave testimonies and performed music at local church services.
Interacting with locals:
-Unlike Guatemala, in Honduras you rarely hear the greeting of just Buenas but instead get the full "Buenas tardes/noches/etc"
-Similar to Guatemala the common greeting and goodbye is a hug with a kiss on the cheek. In Guatemala they kissed the air next to your cheek; here it is fairly common to receive an actual kiss on your cheek.
-Much of what we did at the school was encouraging the kids to work on their English. I was in the K-4 (equivalent to our pre-school) class and often requested "pre gunto en Englishe" or "ask in English."
-The children are working on basic phrases such as:
May I go to the bathroom?
Open please.
Thank you and you're welcome.
May I get water please?
-I also taught them songs and games to help them practice their English. Head shoulders knees and toes and the peel bananas song were particular favorites. We also practiced the English alphabet and numbers. They are expected to know and able to write the alphabet and numbers 1-20 by the end of pre-school. They're even learning cursive! We are working at a private school so that means these kids are getting a bi-lingual education. Public school teaches only basic English (such as months and basic phrases).
Money:
-One USD is equivalent to about 22.5 Lempurahs.
-Things are somewhat inexpensive in Honduras. School lunches cost 45L. 40L was a pretty standard meal out cost. Beleados generally cost 10-15L a piece (2 is a serving for most people). A personal bottle of soda is around 11-15L. A small watermelon is 35L.
Food:
-Beans, rice, and tortillas were our main ingredients for most meals.
-Meat was included in school lunches but in smaller portions than what we eat at home.
-A favorite this month was Beleados. This is a tortilla filled with beans, cheese, sour cream and sometimes other ingredients such as chicken.
-While breakfast foods do exist, people eat what we would think of as lunch/dinner foods at breakfast time. The school cafeteria served Quesadillas, Empandas, and Beleados for breakfast. Kids in my class brought in everything from French fries and fried chicken to candy for their breakfasts.
Interesting things:
-School runs February through November with occasional week breaks in between.
-Schools celebrate a lot of things with full days of play. This month we got to celebrate tree day (similar to our Earth day) and Students day (similar to our field days combined with awards).
-June through September, sometimes October is fall or the rainy season. The rest of the year is their summer and hotter.
-Fortunately public school (other than the cost of books and food) is free. Private school costs 3000 Lempurah a month (a little over $130 USD). Schooling is required by the government. There is the option of going to school at night if a child/youth is working during the day.
-Honduras is a beautiful country with large mountains and tropical plants. It also houses the second largest Jesus in the world in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
-We ran into a woman (Camille) on the public bus to Catacamas and she invited us to come eat with her and learn how to cook from her. She taught us to make pupusas, showed us her non-profit (that teaches women to cook in order to have income), invited us to her cousin's birthday, and cooked several meals for us.
-We also made friends with Camille's nephew, Luis, and were able to spend some time with him and other church members as well this month.
-Honduras is one of the more dangerous countries we went to and as a result our teams were not allowed to leave their housing without a local. We however never experienced anything but kindness from most of the people we ran into and the locals we became friends with were more than generous with their time and helping us with anything we needed it.
Month 10 in Honduras was a busy and great one!
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