Honduras Volunteer Journals

Hello friends and family!
Sorry it´s been a while since my last post. All of the volunteers went to Utila to go diving and take a break over the weekend.  I did my advanced diving certification while I was there. 5 dives in 2 days it was really intense but I loved it.  Since it´s my last full week here I´ve been really busy with working on the houses and with the kids, trying to fit in time for my host family and getting to know the volunteers.  We are putting the roof on one of the houses right now and [...]

Monday afternoon I went to IHNFA the child care center from 1-4:30.  The kids there are very much in need of attention and by the end of my day there I was completely exhausted.  The kids here know absolutely no discipline and it’s really a shame.  They are constantly hitting/ kicking each other, they don’t know the meaning of share, and don’t listen to us or the caregiver.  It’s very hard to see kids around the age of 2 who are already cussing and hitting other children, it’s sad knowing the usually there are no volunteers at this care center [...]

Hola! Como esta usted??? So my Spanish is getting a little better, although I still wouldn’t feel comfortable being completely on my own with out someone semi-fluent.  So Honduras… I love it here. The weather is wonderful depending on the city anywhere from 75-90 with very little humidity.  It is very mountainous and everything is green because it is winter here or their rainy season.  The only bad thing about it is the sun is up at 5:30 and down by 7 everyday so my sleep schedule has changed greatly.  We usually go to bed around 11 and wake up [...]

I first must say the computer keyboards here are different so writing this update will be quite difficult.  I had a great flight Monday and arrived in Honduras around noon.  Nick the Honduras director picked me and Sonya the other volunteer up at the airport.  We drove around Tegucigalpa and saw the city it´s not as impovershed as I had expected.  We headed out to our hotel around 2 and ate a huge lunch then went Sonya and I went into the town of Valle del Angeles and walked around for about 2 hours.  We went back to the hotel [...]

Hola!
So i have offically been here in Honduras for 6 weeks.  It is amazing how fast time goes by..
My last full week, last week, was a lot of fun.  At work we continued building the support structures for the roof and made cement for the tops of the windows. The house is looking more and more like a real house now, the walls being completed and the roof in close site.  Also, our volunteer coordinator will be coming into town today from Tegucigalpa so he and i will run around the hardware stores here buying supplies for the washroom´s completion. [...]

I’ve been in Honduras for exactly 2 months today. Hard to fathom the fact that I’ll be home in a week. Mixed emotions. Excited to go home and see everyone, sad to leave everyone here. But I suppose it’s time.
We’ve actually started to use real concrete for the house. Had to use it for window frame stuff. Pretty cool! Wow. I only have three days of work left. And 250 pics left to take.
Last weekend was again spent in La Esperanza. I like this town so much and our host family so much that my desire to “get out” on [...]

I am officially leaving for Honduras tomorrow morning! My flight from Omaha leaves at 5 am and I will arrive around 1130 there.  I don’t know how soon after I arrive I will be able to update but hopefully I’ll be able to let everyone know I’ve landed and what my plans will be!  Keep me in your prayers
Autumn Rose Shapland

I got to the airport this morning for my 530 am flight and found out my flight from Altanta to Honduras would not be happening today.  The Tegucigalpa airport in honduras is currently closed down due to exiled president trying to reenter the country.  At this point my flight and trip is rescheduled from July 13th to August 6th pending the airports reopening.  I’ll keep you all updated.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

It´s been about two weeks since I´ve last written, I think. You can´t blame me for the silence though. Between the presidents forced removal from office and Michael Jackson´s death, it´s been a difficult two weeks. The tears are just now drying up…
In truth, life here in the mountains has continued as usual regardless of the historic goings-on down in the capital. I haven´t seen any commotion in La Esperanza, and I wouldn´t be surprised if some of the smaller farming communities in the hills outside the city have no idea what´s going on. For the record, I am safe [...]

So the fourth of july and all its excitement are over and now all I can do is get ready for my trip!  I leave in less that 30 hours and I’m starting to get really nervous.  I know many of you are really worried about me being in Honduras with everything that is going on politically right now, but we have been assured that everything is still safe for us.  The people there still need my help and so I am still leaving as planned.  I wont be in a big city or the capital where most of the [...]

Happy Fourth of July!
So it has been a while since my last post, but this time I have an excuse. Since I last wrote, myself and 6 other volunteers went to the beautiful island of Roatan in Honduras’s Bay Islands for the weekend. We ended up trapped in the Caribbean during a revolution.
So, we took off for Roatan for a weekend get-away in the Caribbean. I was really excited since it was the first time that I had been to the Caribbean. Roatan is actually a very cool place because is it considered the most under the radar [...]

Sorry it´s taken me ages to write again!!
So this first month has been amazing…  Still working at the infant centre and the children are still as cute as ever, but they CRAVE attention like you´d never believe so they always manage to keep me on my feet!!   I went up to the building site yesterday to actually help build – as opposed to just watching – and it was so much fun!!   Got muddy as anything and when we got home i found out that we had no water or electricity!!  So that was an experience!!!!
Today i went back to [...]

Fourth week already!
Wow it does not feel like three full weeks have gone by, but I guess that is a good thing seeing as time flies when you’re having fun. Last week the new volunteers did indeed arrive in mass. Now we have gone from about 10 to around 30. The ground has been broken on the new building site and the foundation seems to be coming along. I am not working on that house however so I am not exactly of much use to explain the process they are doing now. As for our house, we are making progress [...]

I may have hinted last time that I was going to do Celaque peak over the last weekend. Well that didn´t happen. My travel buddies got sick, and the general storminess of the past week or so means that the trail is probably a waterfall at the moment. I still wanted to get around, though in a smaller group than the Copan trip. So I picked the somewhat nearby colonial town of San Juan as a starting point for the weekend, where there are a number of hikes to do. My travel partners (Tyler, Dave, and Rose) were cool to travel [...]

Hello friends and family. It’s only June 17th and I find myself starting to get nervous about my coming up trip to Honduras.  At this point I’m wishing I’d kept all my cloths from going to Malaysia last year.  So I’m heading to the Goodwill to look for clothes that are cool but cover my knees, elbows and almost up to the neck.  I don’t know how the people in Honduras live in the heat and humidity always in so much clothing.  I got an email from the Global Volunteer Network that I’m volunteering through yesterday! They said that there [...]

Hey there,
Apologies for the slow postings I will have to step up my blogging. The last week or so has been very active. We witnessed two Honduras world cup qualifying matches, the first a loss to the US and the second a victory against rival El Salvador. For the El Salvador match all the volunteers went to the local pub and watched the match on a projector they had set up. We were all decked out in Honduran fan gear due to the convenient exchange rate around here. (At the big Sunday market I purchased three Honduras jerseys and a [...]

One month, exactly, today. Wow. That means I´m half way done. I´ve really settled in well now, which means I don´t really miss any of you anymore. Just kidding. I suppose I should say something particularly grand today to commemorate my one month abroad. Well then, here it is: ¡Vaya pues! That´s the uniquely Honduran way of saying ¨okey dokey¨ or ¨alrighty then¨ or ¨yeah whatever¨ or whatever you feel like it should mean at the time. If you listen closely you´ll here it spoken many times in just about every conversation. Vaya pues.
Last weekend we went to the biggest [...]

I suppose I should finally update after a week or so of silence.
Last weekend was Roata´n, the biggest of the Bay Islands off of the Carribbean coast of Honduras. It was gorgeous, but probably the most expensive trip I will do here. Of course, its still the cheapest weekend I will ever have in a tropical island paradise.
Four hour bus ride from La Esperanza to San Pedro Sula (economic center of Honduras), another three and half to La Ceiba (big coastal town), a four hour wait for the ferry (lots of card games) which was a hour and a half [...]

Arrived here at last after a long journey of 3 flights and 5 airports! Great welcome from Nicholas and wonderful stay in a hotel in the Valle De Angeles.  A pretty interesting bus journey to La Esperanza – but great to be here. First impressions are even better than I had imagined.
La Esperanza is beautiful, very green, loads of flowers. Dust roads. Up in the mountains so not so hot – and some beautiful views.
All the volunteers are SO friendly – lovely atmosphere.
Girls: skirts below the knees are comfy – but it’s ok to wear shorts on your days off.
The coffee is [...]

Hola!
This will be my first post since landing in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday morning.  The hotel we stayed at just outside the city was very nice, even equipped with a hottub, so it made for a nice transition.  The next day we made the 4 hour trek up into the mountains to the town of La Esperanza, where I will be residing for the another 5 weeks.  I would say that I was definately a little culture shocked for the first 2 days, but after getting used to taking showers out of a bucket and picking up a few Spanish words [...]

Yes, again, I am still alive. I did do the waterfall. It was awesome. Allow me to explain.
Friday night I got hardcore sick. As sick as I´ve ever been for a one hour period anyway. So I didn´t think there would be any way for me to get up at 6 the next day and get to the falls. But I felt a bit better in the morning, so I went for it. Besides, I had already made sandwiches for the boys I would be going with. Couldn´t let them miss out on the wonders of PB&J. On the Honduran [...]

Again, I am still alive. The 7.something earthquake off the coast of Honduras shook our house pretty well. But I haven´t seen or heard of any damage done to this city anyway, so all is well. What an unlikely event… I was actually awake for it. The other volunteers (from England and Rhode Island) were pretty shocked. I think it was their first earthquake! Being from California, where we have earthquakes everyday, I just stayed in bed and waited for it to pass. Anyway…
Today marks a week since my first day in construction. I´ve decided to take photos of the site [...]

Hello world,
Tyler Caccavale here, just giving a test run of the old blog spot to get things going for next month.  I leave for Honduras next Tuesday early AM from Richmond and should arrive in capital city Tegucigalpa around 11:00am.  From there the adventure begins and I will make an effort to keep this journal regularly updated. 
I would like to take this chance to thank all of my supporters from home.  Without the generous contributions from every one of you I would not be able to assist the people La Esperanza as I hope to.  Thanks for all your help [...]

My first weekend in the big H was spent in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. It just happened to work out that I started this trip right before the championship game in Honduran soccer. This year it was between Olimpia (of Tegucigalpa, home team) and Real Espana (of San Pedro Sula), the two most successful teams in the history of Honduran soccer. If you know European soccer, this is like a cup final between Madrid and Barça, or Manchester United and Liverpool, or Inter and Milan. This is the super bowl of Honduras. Around noon, the day of the game, a [...]

For the record, I don´t really plan on updating this often. I just figure I´ll have the most to say while I´m still going through all the culture shock… And by the way I found a slightly cheaper place for internet. Around 60 cents per hour…
I believe I wrote just yesterday that there had been no rain. Well it hadn´t until right after I finished the post. Then the heavens opened and dumped god´s fury onto La Esperanza for about 2 hours. The streets of el centro in the afternoon and evenings are mostly mud. No problem. The cool thing [...]

Ok so I am here. Using the internet cafe that costs about $1 per hour. What a deal. There is so much to say for the two days I´ve been here. A quick run down:
Tuesday: Arrived in Tegucigalpa around 11:30. Nicholas, a silly young London guy, was there waiting for me. 3 other volunteers arrived around the same time (2 from vVirginia, 1 from Rhode Island). From there we drove up to Valle de Angeles, which is a relatively nice and small town in the hills around the capital. We actually stayed in a pretty nice hotel, for Honduran standards. Actually [...]

Tonight I leave for Honduras… or technically I leave tomorrow morning at 12:45 am. I’ll be arriving in Tegucigalpa at 11:09 am tomorrow after a 9.5 hour journey. Cool.
I’ve been planning this trip since winter and it’s finally coming to fruition. I’ve been putting off the idea (to avoid dying of anticipation) for so long that it hasn’t really hit me that I will be living abroad for 2 months starting in about 24 hours. I’m sure the culture shock will bring me into reality very quickly…
Yesterday was my last day of work. With the month of work I managed [...]

La Esperanza: Honduras.

Thank you to all of those who have sponsored me, in total I managed to raise about £330, so the children will be in for a treat!!  As a thank you to all of you who sponsored I thought I would keep you all updated via this volunteer blog.
So… It’s now 25 days until I leave, so as can be expected I’m very excited and busy getting everything together for my 3 month trip.  Above I have included a picture to show you all where I’ll be living for the 3 months.  Called: La Esperanza.
I’ll try to keep this [...]

Welcome to Ryan Baldini’s online journal! This is a test run.
I leave for Honduras in 41 days and about 15 hours. I’ll be flying from LAX to Houston to Tegucigalpa (la capital de Honduras), from which I will bus to La Esperanza, where I’ll be living for 8 weeks.
Destination:
Qué bonita, ¿no? I’ll be living here and taking a short truck ride out to the countryside every day to build houses, which should look something like this:
I hope to update every week or so, once I’m out there. Technology willing, I’ll have many a thing to say and many a photo [...]

Sorry I haven’t written in ages! Here is an update on what has been happening lately…
Have made big improvements regarding helping the sick little girl, Reyna. We took her and her sister, Nohelia (who is also malnourished) to a private specialist who prescribed all kinds of medicines and gave us a list of the food they need to eat each week. We sorted out the medicine and got them on it straight away, plus some special baby milk for Reyna, and it has already made a huge difference! Reyna is 3 years old and before we started helping her, she [...]