Today was a whirlwind of a day waking up at 10:00PM (pre-spring forward) yesterday to shower and pack, meeting the bus at 12:45AM. Currently it's 11:22PM (EST). Travel here was an adventure beginning before the sun was up and with flights delayed in Dallas at least 3 times. Landing in Tegucigalpa was both breathtaking and horrifying as it is one of the world's shortest and most dangerous runways. The plane literally drops out of the mountains onto a runway that is sunk into a valley lower than a good 2/3 of its surroundings. Even more scary, there are homes about 100 yards from the runway, less distance than from a freeway in the States.
(sunrise over Indianapolis, plane engine in corner)
(very close to the mountains in Honduras)
(houses even closer to the airplane)
The sights on the way to the Global Brigades compound were equally as breathtaking and horrifying. It took minutes to get outside the nicer area of Tegucigalpa and the infrastructure just ended. Homes were makeshift...
structures, sometimes of brick, often with tin roofs, often with visible holes into the mostly 2 room structures. The one lane of road was windy and dangerous, there were even some parts where the road had been lost in a landslide so a new path was dug into the mountain to create a temporary passage, again along the cliff's edge. The worst thing witnessed was the death of a donkey. Being lead by its owner through a field, just before making it to the road the donkey just gave up, fell over, and died. This didn't bother the man who simply dropped the animal's rope and continued on his way. This image of the donkey, who fought until the literal end, while I drove by in a van taking pictures has stuck with me all day. The realization of how easily life can come and go here is a harsh welcome to my first 3rd world country outside of Detroit.
Nuevo Paraiso Orphanage
After lunch at the compound it was off to a local orphanage. Among this community of tin roofed brick buildings with dirty floors was more happiness than I believe exists in the entire United States. We pulled up to the orphanage gates and young children pressed their faces against it, yelled, and waved their arms in excitement at having visitors. We ran around playing tag between buildings, getting schooled at soccer by kids half our age, and testing our Spanish on our new friends. A young girl named Sandy that i met was determined to keep me close at hand, constantly yelling "Daniella! Amiga! Ben Aqui!" when she wasn't holding my hand. One step away from Sandy and she would yell, grabbing your hand, to make sure you didn't leave her. And when her little sister Tatiana walked by she was sure to introduce myself and her other new friends to her. (Later we realized Sandy called all of the young girls "sister," showing the unique bond these special kids have.) I picked up Tatiana, "Tati," for short, who looked about 3 years old to give her a ride on my shoulders and from then on, she was glued to my shoulders complaining at each of my attempts to put her down and give my neck a rest. Though Tati was too young to speak much and I didn't understand much, each person walking by commented on how adorable she was and how ecstatic she looked, this proved my discomfort was worth it.
Aside from our IU group present there was a group of NYU Brigaders who had decided to bring chocolate for the children. Within 2 minutes of opening the bags all of the chocolate was handed out & kids lucky enough to get some dispersed to consume their winnings. "#21" a little boy wearing a 21 soccer jersey who never did tell me his name was perfectly content to eat his chocolate while I pushed him on a swing, until a chocolate-less friend came by. At this point he insisted on stopping the swing to get the chocolate to his friend. Though chocolate was beyond rare for this boy he knew how rare a treat it was for his friend as well and insisted on sharing. The kindness and happiness of these children, in such terrible situations, is incredibly moving and will motivate me to work hard the rest of the week.
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