I'm alive. This blog isn't abandoned. I was just in Honduras for a month. Sorry I didn't announce it beforehand (for those who don't know me personally). I've actually been home for almost a week, but I got sick as soon as I got home. Still not better. (cough, cough)
But Honduras was amazing. It was way more than worth all of the time spent fundraising and all the pain getting shots. And it was not fun having to sell sugar to my classmates twice a week for a year. And the shots really hurt (for two weeks). But back to the amazing part. We were working at a nutrition center for malnourished kids. The kids would come recommended by the hospital, grow healthy at the center, and hopefully go back home with their parents after a few months. But several of the kids who were there had been there for three years already. Without wanting to completely bash the people who work at the center, it is very poorly run. If it were in the US, it would not be open (but it's probably still better than where the kids came from). The ladies who work there are overworked and underpaid and, for the most part, uneducated. So we come basically to love the kids as our own for a month. To give them the attention and care they normally never receive. All day, every day (almost). And the few days we took off to be tourists felt really worthless compared to what we were doing the rest of the time. I couldn't imagine flying to Honduras to walk on some ruins that have been put back together and then go home. There were 17 kids in the beginning. 14 when we left: two went home and one went to the hospital. The oldest was 8 (that's why he went home) and the youngest was 6 months (now 7).
It's still hard for me to talk about this stuff, my experiences, because leaving felt like losing really good friends. Even though I know they're still alive and we're all better for having knowing each other. I'll be talking about this trip for a while. But this is all for tonight (I'm still recovering).
