Final Presentations

7:15 a.m. My alarm clock went off and I dragged myself out of bed. I made a full pot of Honduran coffee to wake me up so I could get to work. Tonight we are presenting our final reports to the SHH staff so we set aside this morning to work on our reports. My first project was to compile photos and videos from our time being here and make a slideshow of them. It was a nice walk down memory lane as I sorted out photos from our first days here. Time has gone by so fast yet we have done so much every day. As I added the finishing touches to the video, my computer froze, of course. I stepped away from the situation and decided on my next plan of action. I began to write about English classes and Kid's camp. I looked over our beginning goals and ideas from the first few days here and reflected on what we've been able to accomplish. Our reports will be important for future reference by SHH. At lunch time we went to Villa Soleada for our last official English class. Attendance was about normal and everyone was eager to ask any last questions of “How do you say…in English.” It was a great game and overall, we feel that we have met our goal of increasing communication between the workers and volunteers that will continue to come. They have the basics, and we encourage future fellows and volunteers to continue building on the vocabulary they know thus far. Next week, we will have a graduation ceremony for our two classes to recognize their attendance, participation, and knowldege of English words and phrases. After class, we again helped with Kid’s camp. I have really enjoyed working with the third graders at camp. When I think of my future class, I have always imagined myself teaching kindergarten or first grade, but now I think I would also be interested in second or third. Our final value lesson today was about compassion. Compassion can be a very difficult thing to explain to kindergarten through third graders, so we broke it down into three categories: helping others, comforting someone when they are sad, and being nice/caring/generous to others. For each category we had volunteers show how they can act out each. When we got home from the day’s activities, we were surprised by a delicious dinner catered by Sopa y mas, local restaurant. I don’t even know the names of the food we ate, but it was delicious! After dinner, we finished our final preparation for our presentation. Everyone in the apartment sat around as we presented about our seven project areas: collecting recipes from the women of Villa Soleada, orphanage visits, school observations, English classes, kid’s camp, information gathered from our surveys, and collecting information on possible souvenirs that members of Villa Soleada could make in the future. Our presentation went very well, and at the end we had a Q&A time. One of the questions being, “How likely are you to return to Honduras to continue to work with SHH on a more long term basis?” When I first got here, I didn’t think I could last more than five weeks because at times I feel so much out of my comfort zone, but what’s funny is that outside of my comfort zone is when I feel like I’m being the most real me. I’m ready to come back as soon as possible, and if anyone wants to join me this winter, check out the SHH website to learn about trip dates and cost. This is my calling to serve, and as long as the door remains open to come to Honduras and serve I will; these people are not just a group of families building new homes for themselves, these people are my family.