Robert in Honduras

July 19, 2009

Weekly food for the kids

Brayan with this weeks food

Thanks to those who donate money, each week we go shopping and buy essentials for the kids. You can see Brayan with the bags we bought up today. Me and Brayan only have so many hands so we cant carry too much up each time, but those bags have the following:

4 bags of sugar
10 pounds of spaghetti
Big bottle of mouthwash
Big bottle of bleach (for washing floors etc)
Big bottle of cleaning liquid
2 bottles of cooking oil
4 large tomato paste sachets
3 bars of soap
2 cans of spaghetti/pasta sauce
and something else i cant remember nor read from the hand-written receipt
Total cost: around NZ$70

The list i made while at the kids home today of things that they need is as follows:

Toilet paper
Milk powder (for Heidi) – flippin expensive at around NZ$35 for a large tin that lasts around a week
Purified water (thanks to Carol from Canada we supply purified drinking water each month – otherwise they drink dirty tap water which comes from a river and comes out of the tap brown… everyone who can afford it drinks purified water)
Maize (the main food of their diet is corn tortillas, from donations we buy 100 pounds as often as possible – 100 pounds lasts around a week) costs around NZ$35
Beans (the second part of their primary diet is beans – they need lots)
Chicken stock (a big jar of chicken stock only lasts a week)
Chicken meat (they rarely get to eat chicken)
Mince meat (ditto)
Eggs
Cheese
More soap
Corn flakes (a treat)
Coffee
Bread
Gas bottle refill (around the same price as in NZ)

Last week we also bought some cake mixes that are simple to whip up which will be a treat for the kids. We usually bring up a bag of lollies once a week too.

The kids never have enough good food. The supplies we bring up are to supplement the basics of corn tortillas and beans but as you can imagine with 40+ kids it doesnt last long. Something else they dont get enough of are vegetables.

We could really do with more constant donations for the food supplies. If a few more people could donate around $10 (or more or less) per week then it would mean we could bring up more food during the week, and make sure they regularly have things like vegetables and meat. All the bank account details are on the donations page, if you have online banking it should be really easy to set up an automatic payment.

Rafaél needs an operation

Rafaél with his mum and twin brother Gabriél

Rafaél is a 5 and a half year old boy who lives with his mum, twin brother, two older brothers, and older sister at the orphanage. He is the one on the left in the photo here – the smaller of the two boys.

He has a pain in his jaw and last year the local doctors told him he needed to go to the hospital to get it checked out, so I arranged for them to go to Chiquimula (Guatemala) which is just over the border about an hour and half away from here. There, the doctors removed a tooth and thought that was the end of it. Since then he has still been experiencing pain and often doesnt eat because of it.

A couple of days ago Marivél (his mum) took him to a medical brigade that was in town. They checked him out and told her there is something making his glands grow larger than they should be (not having any medical knowledge besides putting on a plaster im not sure if something was lost in translation… i dont know if its something causing the gland to swell or if something is making the gland be bigger than its supposed to be). The doctor doesnt know what is causing it and thinks there could possibly be some sort of tumor behind the gland – on his left jaw – causing it. The same thing is making hearing out of his left ear very difficult.

The doctor recommended he go to a specific hospital in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) ASAP to get tests done to find out what is causing the trouble, and to get it removed or fixed. The sooner the better.

We are unsure of the costs at this stage because we dont know exactly what it is, but for now, the main cost will probably be the trip to the city and lodging while in the city.

If you are able to make a small donation to help us fund the trip and hospital fees then please do so. All the information (for both NZers and people from other countries) for transferring money to the bank account can be found on the donations page.

Any help would be much appreciated. Please specify that the donation is for “Rafael” if possible. Thank you very much.

July 15, 2009

Lots of undies

Mum was over here for a couple of weeks. She just left yesterday. It was wonderful to have her here.

One thing she bought with her was a whole lot of brand new undies for the kids in the home. It took a while to get them to the kids because of some issues with access lately, but we got them to the kids on the weekend and they were so pleased. They ran around with them on their heads, some kids were very protective to make sure no-one else would take away their beautiful new pair of undies. Unfortunately due to new rules about photography there are no photos to show you, but im sure you can imagine it.

We also bought up lots of food supplies. If you are able to help with supporting these kids then please do so.

Ellen in Honduras

Ellen is a friend who lives here in Copán Ruinas. She does a lot of work helping out those less fortunate. Have a look at her website at http://projectschoolsupplies.org

June 8, 2009

Carol in Honduras, the sequel

Carol from Canada arrived on Saturday evening here in Copán Ruinas. She is here for around 10 days promoting health care among other things. Tomorrow she and Carol (Dobbe) will be going to one of the kindergartens to give fun health some presentations to a few classes.

She has begun her daily blog again while she is here: http://carol.hogarangelitosfelices.com/
Its worth reading, and certainly has more information than I seem to write!

A couple of updates:

The girls from NZ unfortunately are leaving in a couple of weeks.
Heidi the baby is doing much better – thank you very much to the people who have donated money to help support her health. (Carol has a photo of her on her blog)
We had another earthquake last night.
Carol Dobbe arrived last Monday, she is enjoying herself.
My mint plant seems to be looking a little un-healthy, whats wrong? I thought mint grows like a weed.

June 2, 2009

Bake sale

Ms Younge and her class

Ms Younge and her class from Dalton School in New York City had a bake sale last week to raise money for the orphanage. They managed to raise a huge US$300.26 (it actually worked out to be NZD$519.91 – which was more than expected). This will be a huge help for the kids, and is greatly appreciated.

There is more information on their class blog: http://blogs.dalton.org/younge/

Thank you Younge House!

April 27, 2009

Jandal photos

Kids with Jandals

Here is a photo of the kids with their new jandals.

Celeste is the lady sitting down on the right-side of the photo – she organised all the jandals/flip-flops/chancletas/whatever for the kids, over 100 pairs! We still have a a couple of bags full of jandals for when the kids need more. Im only putting the photo up now because i had forgotten to get a copy from Celeste earlier.

Celeste left early this morning and will be missed.

You can view all the photos from the jandals day here.

April 25, 2009

Quick update

With support from some people in NZ who are donating money, we bought some things for the baby who has been very sick. Heidi is her name. She was brought to the orphanage about 8 weeks ago, very sick and on the verge of death. She was 6 months old but looked like she was 2 weeks old. She had numerous hospital visits and has been staying at the home of the owner of the owphanage for the past few weeks so she could have better care. We have been buying milk powder (which is flipping expensive here, NZD$30 for a tin), and nappies, medicines and other things for her the last few weeks. Last week we also purchased some baby toys and dummies for her. She is doing much better now and has gained a little weight.

This morning we paid for some new school shoes for a girl closely linked to the orphanage – but who doesnt live there – whose mother recently lost her job. The old shoes were old and too small and giving her blisters every day.

Thank you very much for donating money. There are many more good causes that need your donations.

April 13, 2009

Jandals for the children

Celeste arrived from Florida on Friday with a suitcase full of jandals for the kids. She had actually mentioned to me a month or so ago that she was going to try and bring jandals with her when she comes, but i had forgotten and was getting ready to get shoe sizes from all the kids and get them some new jandals. Thankfully I hadnt gotten around to it!

The kids generally have one pair of shoes. Usually black, plastic, hot, sweaty, extremely poor quality shoes that they wear every single day at every moment unless sleeping. Their feet can get pretty gross as you can imagine. Especially when like right now there is no water (most of the town hasnt had water for the last 2 weeks – including the orphanage) – thats water in the pipes, not drinking water – so they dont get to wash themselves very often or very well.

Celeste bought over 100 pairs of jandals. We laid them out upstairs, took 3 kids up at a time and fitted them with a new pair and wrote their names on them. The rest of the jandals are in bags here at my place where they are available for when their jandals break or get lost. Celeste took photos of the event so I hope to put some up in the next few days.

Other news: I made hot cross buns on Sunday. Yum. You cant get them here, nor easter eggs. The bread here is quite different, sweeter. Marmite on toast isnt nearly as enjoyable on sweet bread as it is on the bread we have in NZ.
I saw Anchor butter from NZ, about NZD$10 for the same sized block you normally buy butter in! I went for the local butter.
Made Mango Float and am eating some right now. They fed us Mango Float until it was coming out of our ears in the Philippines. I’ve made it a few times in NZ but the mangoes are never as good there – over here they are delicious. It still tastes amazing!
Finally got an oven (the old one didnt work, landlords couldnt get replacement parts so put in a new one, a gas one thankfully as the power is out quite often).
Its been very hot the last few days.

April 11, 2009

Easter in Copán Ruinas

The past week (Semana Santa – Holy week) has been a holiday for all the kids in town. Many adults were also on holiday all week. Friday, the whole country closed down (almost everyone was on holiday, most people go to the river or somewhere to swim on the Friday) – a lot of people had trouble with transportation because the buses werent running. Thankfully, someone told me before Friday that all the shops would be closed so made sure I had what I needed beforehand.

The Thursday night, two streets were blocked off (one being mine) so the cars couldnt pass, and people make massive ‘carpets’ out of sawdust. First they lay down the plain sawdust and flatten it out, then use templates out of cardboard they had made to make beautiful designs out of coloured sawdust. The people work late into the night and most of the next day in the beating hot sun to make the designs. They see it as a sacrifice, hoping that God will be pleased with them because of the time they spent in the hot sun, making beautiful designs. They really do look amazing.

Friday night, there was a parade were they carried a statue of Jesus lying down, and some others were carrying a few Mary’s. It was beautiful to watch. They stopped right in-front of my place and read from the Bible. I have some photos and videos of the sawdust carpets and the parade.

A little earlier on the Thursday night, my neighbours made a smaller ‘carpet’ and put a big red heart in it, and the words ‘Casate conmigo’ which means ‘Marry me’. Later that evening, the intended couple came up the street and the boyfriend got one one knee and proposed. Most of the street was out watching, and cheered when she said yes. (There are a couple of photos of that too, but the power lines in front of my apartment get in the way).

Photos and videos are here.

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