Arrival at Rancho Santa Fe - Tegucigalpa

So the 7 hour bus ride from La Ceiba to Tegucigalpa (Tegus) was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was prepared to spend most of the trip reading and studying my spanish. However, I never opened a book. I was consumed with looking out the window at the countryside and various living conditions. It was very eye opening. The road was lined with huts, shacks and cement block homes flanked with Hondurans of all ages. Everyone was dirty and sparsely clothed. The kids were playing soccer and running along the busy highway. I don’t think I saw any with shoes. The terrain was mostly mountainous and I prayed for my life as the bus sped around every corner in the drizzling rain. (Ahhhh!) Surprisingly, I made it to Tegus alive. During the trip, we stopped at a rest stop for food and a bathroom. During this stop, it became obvious to me that I was on a different bus than planned. I had boarded the bus at the Cristina bus station in La Ceiba as instructed, but the name on the bus was Kamaldy. As we departed the rest stop, I noticed another bus with the name Cristina on the side. Hmmm, that could be a problem on my arrival to Tegus.

So, I arrived at a bus station in Comayaguela (a section of Tegus). I searched for anyone that may be looking for the only white girl getting off the bus. Nobody was looking for me. After everyone had left the station, I attempted to call Cate, my boss. The call would not connect. If this had been my first arrival in Honduras, I would have freaked out, but after a month of missed meetings and late arrivals/departures, I was barely phased. After a very rough conversation with the station attendant, I learned that I was not at the Cristina bus station where I had told Cate I would be arriving. Eventually, my phone rang and Laura, the person responsible for picking me up, asked where I was in a slightly panicked voice. I explained the situation to her and luckily the boy driving the car knew exactly where I was. So, it all worked out in the end.

I arrived on the Ranch in the evening, so I wasn’t able to see any of my surroundings. I joined the other volunteers in San Vincente (our housing) and dropped my things in the dorms where I will be living with the other new volunteers over the next month. There are a total of 6 of us (4 girls, 2 guys). Ule is an older woman from Germany who will be working as the visitor coordinator. Ana (Brooke) is 23ish and just graduated from DePaul in Spanish and French. (She is originally from Valdosta, GA) She will be teaching English to the older kids. Vincent is 19 and from Germany. I guess he is doing some sort of mandatory service here for the year and will be the PE teacher at the school. Ben is 23ish and from North Carolina. He has been working in Guatemala for the past few months. I believe he will be working in the social services department. There is one other new volunteer, Marta, from Spain, who is a nurse and will be arriving this weekend. Everyone seems very nice and it is great to have Ana here to reminisce about Chicago.

Orientation is going to be 2 weeks filled with speakers and visiting the various homes on the ranch and in Tegus. The day typically begins at 8 am with a 2-3 hour lunch break and ends at 8 pm when we return from the hogars (the homes where the kids live). One objective during this time is to chose the hogar that I will spend the rest of the year helping out and building relationships with the kids. We will be visiting all of the Hogars in the evenings over the next 2 weeks. At this point, I am leaning towards San Francisco, which are the 8-10 year old boys. However, I have really enjoyed all of the homes and could be assigned to any of them.

Before leaving the states, I received a lot of information on the Ranch through brochures, packets, videos and my friend Hilary, who worked here in the past. However, nothing could have prepared me for what I have seen. The Ranch is an amazing place full of extremely caring adults and hardworking kids. It is amazing to see how the kids care for the ranch and everything on it. It seems they are always doing chores and they clean their living areas several times a day. It is very strange to see 7 and 8 year olds washing their own clothes by hand, which they do almost every day. They have very few possessions and take pride in what they do have. However, they are acutely aware of the things that they don’t have and constantly ask to borrow or to be “gifted” the personal things of the volunteers. It is difficult to say no, but we have been told that it is forbidden because obviously we can not give something to every child. Another strange phenomenon is that, although these kids have everything they need, they tend to rummage through our trash for any desirable objects we may have thrown away. We even have “special” trash cans for those things we may throw away and don’t want the kids to see. For example, beer cans, liquor bottles, cigarette boxes, etc.

Today we visited the agricultural area of the ranch. Almost everything we eat is produced on the farm including all of the vegetables, fruit, chicken, eggs, milk, etc. The kids help out with the farming as well. Each of the homes has an area where they are responsible for growing fruits and vegetables. They give half of their crop to the ranch and half is for them to do with whatever they want. We were told that they will typically try to sell it to us. It is like the Rancho Santa Fe girl scout cookie time :)