Saturday, June 19
Finally, back at SBV! It looks just beautiful and the kids continue to be fabulous! After storing our things in the school, we trooped down to “Sala Cuna” – the babies cottage. They have moved the children around so only the tiniest children are there. They have 3 babies – Linda 10mo, Marie Mercedes 9 mo, and Yolani 18 mo. Yolani is blind from birth and thriving at SBV! We launched into an art project that got as much paint on us (yes, my pants are covered as usual…) as on the paper but it was great fun and we have some really cute art to bring home! I discovered that getting hand and foot prints from babies is really hard since they have no idea what you are doing. The toddlers were easier except getting paint on the bottom of their little squirming feet as they giggled was a challenge!
Next was lunch and then a tour of SBV. We hiked up past the water tower to see the site for the boys dorm. This is what we will be working on this week. This cottage is being built using the large stones on the property. It promises to be quite beautiful.
The next item on the agenda was the minute to win it games with the older kids. The grand plan included 3 teams moving in orderly fashion from station to station. Yeah, right. Instead it was barely controlled chaos but truly memorable for all involved, observing or even in the general area. The kids moved on their own from station to station as they wanted. The Nose Dive game was very popular as was “Suck it Up” moving the skittles from one bowl to another. A few brave souls mastered the spaghetti game. Junk in the Trunk was amazing. The first two kids shook the pingpong balls out the box in a matter of seconds. Ha. We figured out the box was too low on their backs. The rest of the kids had a harder (and funnier) time as we strapped the box higher up on their backs. The SBV kids are better than we are in almost any physical activity but I have to say, Alex remains the Master of Junk in the Trunk! (I will upload the video to FaceBook when I get home. Or maybe YouTube for maximum exposure…
By far the biggest hit of the day was Cookieface. Alyssa demonstrated how to move the cookie from her forehead to her mouth to a rapt crowd of all the kids and many adults - team members and Honduran caretakers. The poise with which she contorted her face sitting on a tiny plastic chair in the middle of the courtyard was impressive. Then the kids ran to take their turns. I will let the pictures speak for themselves… Jimy was very zen about moving his cookie carefully down his face! Really and truly we could not have had more fun.
We left SBV to go have dinner at Suzy’s house. It is amazing to be there with ONLY 5 children! The vans had taken us all the way down the um, rustic(?) dirt road. It started to sprinkle and David suggested we move the vans to the top of the hill while we still could. The drivers clarified the suggestion by saying they needed ballast in the back rows to have sufficient traction to get thru the mud. After a couple of attempts, with some ballast moving farther back in the truck we got the vans up the hill. We had pizza (we inhaled pizza) and some roast chicken from Café Sur and then headed home. Some of us picked our way up the hill in the rain by foot while Suzy drove the rest along the flat road in front of her house. There was a rendez-vous to move the ballast, I mean team, from Suzy’s vehicle to the van and we all got back to Erika’s, happy and exhausted as usual.
Everyone took showers…the lucky ones getting warm(ish) ones, the intrepid leaping in first getting the icy showers. (Note to self… the C on the shower knob stands for Caliente not Cold. So even tho the C knob is on the right like the Cold at home, use that one for warm showers…)
We did a lovely, turbo Compline then sang some of our favorite songs accompanied by the playlist Alex put together on his IPod. (Phillip Spofford – we need you!) Then off to bed. Pamm, Courtney and Alyssa had a new roommate – Sallie spent the night!
Wish you all were here. This is such a Spirit filled place.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads out there!
Saturday June 19
Finally, back at SBV! It looks just beautiful and the kids continue to be fabulous! After storing our things in the school, we trooped down to “Sala Cuna” – the babies cottage. They have moved the children around so only the tiniest children are there. They have 3 babies – Linda 10mo, Marie Mercedes 9 mo, and Yolani 18 mo. Yolani is blind from birth and thriving at SBV! We launched into an art project that got as much paint on us (yes, my pants are covered as usual…) as on the paper but it was great fun and we have some really cute art to bring home! I discovered that getting hand and foot prints from babies is really hard since they have no idea what you are doing. The toddlers were easier except getting paint on the bottom of their little squirming feet as they giggled was a challenge!
Next was lunch and then a tour of SBV. We hiked up past the water tower to see the site for the boys dorm. This is what we will be working on this week. This cottage is being built using the large stones on the property. It promises to be quite beautiful.
The next item on the agenda was the minute to win it games with the older kids. The grand plan included 3 teams moving in orderly fashion from station to station. Yeah, right. Instead it was barely controlled chaos but truly memorable for all involved, observing or even in the general area. The kids moved on their own from station to station as they wanted. The Nose Dive game was very popular as was “Suck it Up” moving the skittles from one bowl to another. A few brave souls mastered the spaghetti game. Junk in the Trunk was amazing. The first two kids shook the pingpong balls out the box in a matter of seconds. Ha. We figured out the box was too low on their backs. The rest of the kids had a harder (and funnier) time as we strapped the box higher up on their backs. The SBV kids are better than we are in almost any physical activity but I have to say, Alex remains the Master of Junk in the Trunk! (I will upload the video to FaceBook when I get home. Or maybe YouTube for maximum exposure…
By far the biggest hit of the day was Cookieface. Alyssa demonstrated how to move the cookie from her forehead to her mouth to a rapt crowd of all the kids and many adults - team members and Honduran caretakers. The poise with which she contorted her face sitting on a tiny plastic chair in the middle of the courtyard was impressive. Then the kids ran to take their turns. I will let the pictures speak for themselves… Jimy was very zen about moving his cookie carefully down his face! Really and truly we could not have had more fun.
We left SBV to go have dinner at Suzy’s house. It is amazing to be there with ONLY 5 children! The vans had taken us all the way down the um, rustic(?) dirt road. It started to sprinkle and David suggested we move the vans to the top of the hill while we still could. The drivers clarified the suggestion by saying they needed ballast in the back rows to have sufficient traction to get thru the mud. After a couple of attempts, with some ballast moving farther back in the truck we got the vans up the hill. We had pizza (we inhaled pizza) and some roast chicken from Café Sur and then headed home. Some of us picked our way up the hill in the rain by foot while Suzy drove the rest along the flat road in front of her house. There was a rendez-vous to move the ballast, I mean team, from Suzy’s vehicle to the van and we all got back to Erika’s, happy and exhausted as usual.
Everyone took showers…the lucky ones getting warm(ish) ones, the intrepid leaping in first getting the icy showers. (Note to self… the C on the shower knob stands for Caliente not Cold. So even tho the C knob is on the right like the Cold at home, use that one for warm showers…)
We did a lovely, turbo Compline then sang some of our favorite songs accompanied by the playlist Alex put together on his IPod. (Phillip Spofford – we need you!) Then off to bed. Pamm, Courtney and Alyssa had a new roommate – Sallie spent the night!
Wish you all were here. This is such a Spirit filled place.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads out there!
Saturday June 19
Suck it up game
Cookieface game
Jimi master of cookieface!
Nose Dive game
The boys dorm and our projectCourtney and the beautiful view from the chapel
This is not what it looks like. Geoff was NOT goosing me!
Jan helping Fani put her shoes on the right foot!
