(fair warning: this is going to be a long post...it was a loooong day. in fact, the day just never ended and flowed right into saturday. so the post might do the same!)
How does one sift huge piles of dirt in Honduras? Let me tell you. You throw shovels of dirt at a 5ft x 3ft wooden frame with a mesh screen inside of it. You get approximately 4 tablespoons of good dirt for every shovel of rocky dirt, and you do this until you make around 25 wheelbarrows full of good dirt. I will admit though, as annoying as that job was, the cement that was made from that sifted dirt was clearly better than the other stuff...so I guess they knew what they were doing :)
anyway, that was a pointless tangent. the moral of the story is we made so much progress by the time we left and felt so good about what we were leaving them with.
When we got there, Classroom 1 had a floor, a roof, and half built walls with no support columns. When we left the walls were 2 or 3 rows away from being finished, and the cement columns were all poured. (That left wall is going to be windows!)
Classroom 2 had a roof and a floor when we got there, and when we left the walls were starting to be laid out.
Classrooms 3 and 4 were non-existent. There was just the ground and a giant tree in the middle. Now the tree is gone, the trenches were dug, the cement was poured into the foundation, and the materials to make the floor are there and ready to be put into place.
In addition to all of that, all of the cinderblocks have been hauled into the school grounds and are positioned close to where they need to be, and all of the materials that they need to finish the project are right there for them. I'm hoping that they send us a picture when all of the work is done! I'd love to see it finished.
Before we left, the kids all took turns at a pinata that Sam brought. When it finally broke it was a chaotic, happy mess of kids clawing each other for candy - but they were all so happy! We took a picture with all of the SHH'ers from Maryland with some of the kids (above!), and when we were all getting situated for the picture, a little girl that I loved named Yessenia told me to "wait a minute" and ran off. She came back with two ripped pieces of paper and a pencil and told me to write down my phone number, and she started writing down hers. It was so cute :)
I went around and said goodbye to all of my favorite workers, and to some of the women who cooked for us everyday. They all said thank you a million times (and probably a bunch of other things that I didn't understand) and the director of the school cried. They had us all sign this book and write a little note - if (when) I go back to visit, it'll be fun to find my name in that book again! It was hard to leave, but it felt good to know what we were leaving them with.
Later that night, we went out to dinner with all of SHH. All 110-ish volunteers and group leaders and Shin (the founder of SHH) were at tables eating and laughing and drinking, and then after dinner they put on a slideshow of pictures from the week. After that Shin got up to speak and thank us for coming and tell us about how SHH started and how amazed he was at how far it's come. I hope I'm not completely screwing what he said up, but I think I remember that he said there were double the amount of people on our trip than there were on the same week last year, and that to date, SHH has raised and donated $1 million dollars to Honduras. A lot of people stood up after that and said a few words - either about how grateful they are for SHH or thanking some particular people/group leaders/bus drivers/etc... I got up and thanked Sam on behalf of our group, because really it was all of our first trip (all 10 of us!) and he was the driving force that got most of us to go. His passion and enthusiasm for all things Honduran is what inspired me to go outside of my comfort zone and do something like this, and I'll always be grateful for that!
It was at dinner that I realized exactly what felt so amazing about this trip. Of course it was great meeting all of these people (American & Honduran), making connections and speaking Spanish and playing with babies and hearing Waka Waka every day - I loved all of that. But I realized why this was different than just those things.
I feel like this past semester I was really brought up to speed on some of the major problems in US Education system. I would leave class sometimes feeling so discouraged and down, because I knew these problems existed and I knew that I would have to deal with them one day, but I also knew that there was very little I'd be able to do about it. Classroom teachers don't have very much say (aka they don't have any say) in educational policy - they just kind of have to take what's given to them and make it work for their students. Anyway, the point is that this semester I realized that one of the worst feelings in the world is knowing that there's a problem out there, one that you're passionate about, and feeling like there's nothing you can do about it.
Well this week, I learned that the best feeling in the world is the exact opposite of that. To feel like I am leaving Las Flores, or Villa, or that little baby girl at the orphanage, or anyone I met this week, a little bit better than they were before I got there is, without a doubt, the best thing I've ever felt. To know that I, with my own two hands, helped to solve the problems in their lives and actually make a difference in their world is arguably my greatest accomplishment.
I don't mean to sound arrogant, or like I did it all by myself, because obviously I was just a small part of a huge picture. I've seen how these people face problems that you and I have never even thought about - huge injustices and hardships that have always existed, and that groups like SHH can't swoop in and fix with some money and good will. But what we can and are doing is giving them hope and resources and places to learn so that one day they can fix the problems that are plaguing their communities.
Imagine if all of the children in the four communities SHH was at this week, Las Flores, La Nunez, Rio Chiquito and Villa Soleada, got a complete education (which they can now because THEY HAVE CLASSROOMS!). That would make about 1,000 young adults who have the knowledge and the skills to go out there and do something good for their community and their country. That is what the goal is, and that is what I feel like I contributed to.
And to be in that room on Friday night with all of those people who worked so hard all week to contribute to the same thing - you could just feel the love and the pride and the passion in the air. That feeling is what I'm going to be chasing after for the rest of my life.
After we all got mushy and deep and emotional, we had to do something with all of that pent up energy. So obviously, we went to the club next door and went crazy. All of us Terps were in our element because this place was basically the Honduran version of Turtle (R.I.P.). We danced and partied allll night....literally. I'll let the rest of this post turn into Saturday :)
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