Realizing we were already late for breakfast, I got out of bed and brushed my teeth, not bothering to change my clothes. I went to the girls bedroom, knocked on the door, and went inside to check on how everyone was doing. They were all still asleep and I went over to check on Emily (I was trying to protect her name, but there should be no shame in what happened, and it makes writing a whole lot easier).
She was hungry, but knew she shouldn't eat much. I sat on her bed and let her wake up for a minute. And then I told her she wasn't going to be able to go to the village today. I told her I would stay with her and take care of her. I'm thankful that she felt so tired and weak that the news didn't hit her as hard as it could have.
Having to tell her the bad news, knowing that it was bad news for me too, was terrible. I'm still not sure how I told her so calmly and firmly. I don't know what I would have done if she would have started to cry.
I gave her some antibiotics, made her drink a little water, and put her back to bed. After we asked the doctor if it was okay for her to eat, one of the girls had gotten her a couple pieces of watermelon and a couple dinner rolls to try. By the time her plate of food arrived, she was already back to sleep.
The next 45 minutes were grueling for me. Watching everyone else change their clothes and pack their backpacks to get ready for the last day of work and the fiesta that followed was like torture. I asked one of our guys, Max, if he would play guitar for the song we were going to sing and he agreed.
As the morning went on, I learned that one of our other guys, Mackenzie, wasn't feeling so well either, so he was going to stay at the ranch as well. Merritt, one of our female youth would be staying along to take care of Emily in case she needed something that I (a man) couldn't take care of.
This act of friendship can not be overstated. Merritt's care for Emily both the night before and throughout the day on Thursday was amazing. If Emily needed anything, Merritt had it for her before anyone else could even think about where it was, no matter what it happened to be. Words can not express how thankful I was to have Merritt by my side on this day.
As everyone boarded the vans, I stood on the porch and watched them get inside. Since there would only be 11 people from our group traveling to the ranch, everyone piled inside of our cozy blue van. Seeing Ubaldo, Ali, and David smashed together in the front seat was funny. Before they left, I leaned my head in the door and told them to work hard.
My heart broke as they drove away.
After they were gone, I made sure everyone was okay. All three of them were asleep, so I went to the porch and attempted to sleep in my favorite hammock. Staring at the bright morning sky, I couldn't help but be filled with sadness and anger that I wouldn't be there to say goodbye to my new friends, especially Carlos and Alex. We had only worked together for two days, but the bond I felt with them can not be put into words. I miss them.
After an hour of overthinking my current situation, I went into my bedroom and hoped the cool breeze created by the strong ceiling fan over my bed would put me to sleep. Thankfully, it did. I slept for more than an hour and felt refreshed when I woke up. I checked on my youth again and they were all still asleep, so I took my shower for the day and returned the porch.
Tara had been thoughtful enough to leave me a book and a magazine to read throughout the day. The book was about Honduras and the magazine was about cooking and clothes. I read through most of the magazine, noticing the small note that sleeping in hammocks is 20% better for you than sleeping in beds and a small paragraph about a new ice cream chain that had recently come to Nashville.
By the time I was done flipping through the final pages of my magazine, it was almost 11:45. Lunch would be in 15 minutes and I wanted to make sure anyone who wanted food had a chance to eat. Mackenzie was not in his bed, so I assumed he was okay (yeah, I'm a man), and the girls were still asleep.
I woke Merritt up to see if she wanted lunch, which she did. I woke Emily up just to check on her and see if she wanted anything. The kitchen had offered to make her soup, but she didn't want any. She ate a little of the rolls that were left from breakfast and drank some Sprite. The rest of us had fried chicken, rice, and tortillas. It was nice to sit on our porch and eat lunch for a change.
After lunch, I offered to take a mattress onto the porch for Emily to lay on, hoping some fresh(er) air would do her good. She came outside and laid behind my hammock; Merritt and Mackenzie sat in rocking chairs above us. We all sat on the porch and enjoyed the afternoon together.
Merritt and Mackenzie were both listening to their own iPods and Emily had brought out the girls iPod dock and was listening to one of the Harry Potter books. Having never read any of the books and having been forced to watch a couple of the movies, I still don't get the fascination with Harry Potter, but on this day in Honduras, the man who read from the pages of that book had my full attention. Well, my full attention for the 15 minutes before I fell asleep.
Ron was having his first practice with the quiditch (spelling? I refuse to look it up.) team and his robe was from someone with broad shoulders, but it fit him well enough. And then Harry saw a face in the fire. And then I fell asleep.
When I woke up, Emily had gone back inside to her bed and I could no longer hear the British voice that had been reading to me before my eyes closed.
It was almost 2pm by now, so the rest of the group would be back within a couple hours. I sat in my hammock until they arrived. To get to our drop off location, you have to drive by the back porch where the hammocks were to the front porch. Seeing that van drive up was both great and terrible. I either wanted to hear every detail of their day or hear nothing at all, hoping that meant I hadn't missed anything.
I met the vans before they had a chance to open the doors. The youth piled out like any other day and walked to their rooms. One of them stopped for a moment and gave me my gift from the villagers, a small clay pot with a house on the outside. This made my day.
The people of El Rodeo had thrown a true fiesta for the people of Nashville, Tennessee. They had cake and Coke and sang songs and gave us gifts. David quickly got out his camera and showed me videos of the children singing and the Honduran youth who had dressed up in masks and women's clothing. There was a video of our group singing "Light the Fire" and another of some of the families thanking us for our work.
Tara told me how hard it was reading the letters that Emily, Merritt, and I had written for her to read to the village. They asked me how my day was and the only thing I knew to tell them was, "It was long."
I went back to the porch and sat with the few youth who were there. I asked them to tell me about their day, but they were all excited about the ranch store being open and were anxious to get there quickly.
After David and Tara had showered and changed, the three of us walked over to see what we could find at the store. The store sells handmade crafts from the neighboring villages. As we walked, they told me about the day and the work they had done. One group had constructed another mud wall for a home and another had dug a ditch to bring water into a home. They said the work was exhausting this day. I felt bad that I couldn't have been there to help.
Once we arrived at the tiny store, we all started to pick out trinkets for ourselves and gifts for our families. We made sure to get a few things for Emily since she was still in bed. I bought a hand-carved Christmas ornament for my brother, a bracelet made with hand-made wooden beads for my sister, and a woven bracelet for myself.
As we started to leave the store, it started to rain, so we stood on the porch with several people who lived on the ranch. One of the men from the other group staying with us was on the porch painting the faces of the children. Earlier in the day, this man had probably been carrying 75 lb. buckets of concrete and this afternoon, he was carefully painting a ladybug on a little girls cheek.
The rain eased and we began to walk back to our dorm. We were surprised to see Emily awake and sitting on the porch when we returned. One of the other girls in the group, Annie, had taken Emily's camera to the village to take pictures for her and they were looking at them together. It was so nice to see these two girls looking at pictures together, with one explaining all of them to the other, knowing how badly it hurt for her not to have been there to take the pictures herself.
With Emily feeling slightly better and wanting to eat, the entire group headed to dinner. We were once again greeted with a fantastic meal of chicken, rice, beans, and tortillas. Since we had not been able to be at the fiesta, the group and everyone in El Rodeo had been careful to not cut one of the cakes so it could be sent back for us. So after dinner, I got the first piece and we ate cake.
David, Tara, and I were in charge of leading the devotion this evening and they had asked me to plan it since I had a day to myself. I had spent most of the day flipping through my bible hoping to find the perfect passage. And somehow, I had.
As our devotion started, we went around and had the group share our highs and lows for the day. My low was not being able to say goodbye to my friends and my high was seeing Merritt's friendship towards Emily. It was great to hear the entire group echo my sentiments. Once we had all shared, I started to read from the bible.
As I read, the entire group was quiet. After I finished reading, the entire group was quiet. I asked for comments and after a few more seconds of silence, Max just said, "That's pretty much perfect."
I'm not normally a biblical scholar, but it made me feel so good to have found the passage that fit our week perfectly. I wanted to be so angry and sad. I wanted to be jealous, but this group and this bible wouldn't let me. They pointed me to this passage in Matthew that helped show me what was important. I'm very thankful that I had this day to find this passage; it made all the difference.
After a few other comments were made, Tara read a prayer that one of her friends had given her before the trip. I passed out letters from our pastor and youth leader, Jeannie, and our evening continued.
Emily was feeling better and the group was excited after their fun day at the village. We all stayed up until about 11pm this night talking and laughing together. We had to be up at 6am the next morning so our bags could be loading into the vans for our return trip to Tegucigalpa. We made sure everyone was 95% packed before we headed to bed.
We also prepared a sign for the ranch's sign post tonight. The ranch has three posts along one of the walkways between the dorms and the dining hall that holds an arrow for different groups that have visited over the years. There was only one other Presbyterian church on the sign post, so we were excited to put Second Presbyterian's name up for all to see.
Figuring out how many miles we were from Nashville was more difficult than it seemed though. We had a wireless internet connection at the ranch offices next to our dorms, but no GPS or Google Maps service could locate our position. This was a nice reminder of how far we had traveled and how far away from home we were, even if we did have access to local election results and sports scores.
After we had finally figured out that we were 1540 miles from Nashville, Carolyn, one of our seniors and a fantastic artist, wrote our church name on the sign along with the PCUSA logo. We all signed the back to commemorate our experience. In the morning, one of the men who worked at the ranch nailed our sign to the post.
Once we had finished our sign and finished packing our bags, we all headed to bed. We were nervous for our six hour journey in the morning, not knowing what vehicles we would be in or how bumpy the roads would be. All we could be at this moment was glad to be in our beds and thankful to have been able to make such a magnificent trip.
In four days working in El Rodeo, we put concrete floors in three homes, roofs on four houses, walls on one house, brought water to two houses, built latrines at two houses, and installed chimneys at two houses. And that is only the physical labor that we did: we also spent endless hours playing with children, laughing with everyone, praying with one another, and thanking each other.
These four days changed our lives, all 15 of us from Nashville and, I hope, all 75 people from El Rodeo. We became friends and we became family.
"Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith? Therefore, don’t worry and say, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:25-34 (Common English Bible)
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