An Unfinished House

before they learn how to dress themselves they know how to use a gun and by the time they're 8 they know how to assemble and operate bazookas

So here's a gripe I have with this country of Honduras. Goodness knows education doesn't come cheap, the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere and in the U.S. it comes out of the pockets of taxpayers. In Pennsylvania, how wealthy and deep a tax base a school district has determines the level of education it can offer. The system ain't perfect but it sure beats Hondie. Here each family is required to provide uniforms, textbooks, gym uniforms and a list of school supplies that boggles the mind (do 4th graders really need 6 notebooks, markers, pens, pencils, caligraphy books, crayons and colored pencils?). For a family with more than one student this can turn into an expense of hundreds of dollars. Not to mention that for high school if you want your child to learn anything other than how to buy and sell drugs and lessons in petty theft you need to enroll them in a private school which means tuition fees and even longer lists of school supplies and required textbooks...

So one of the kids that we're closest with, Sergio, turned 15 last Saturday and we decided to treat him and 3 of his closest friends with a trip to the mall and a meal in the Foodcourt. A real treat I know, walking around the mall and eating fast food - but that's what our little buddy opted for. Anyway, we (Sergio, Duke, Bairon, Cristian, Konrad, Becca and Myself) ate at the mall and then spent the afternoon hiding from the rain in my apartment. It started tranquilly enough but quickly devolved . our birthday boy, checho mall rats duke grew so exhausted from walking the mall that he just threw himself on the floor and had to be drug to the exit. chinese food in honduras with a bunch of gringos going up playing cards, it's kind of taboo here...what isn't really this is where the trouble began, duke began to wrestle with konrad... which led to biting?!? which led to duke being clobbered and a freeforall between the whole lot of us... and that broke my bed frame. ...

Yet another cold/rain front settled over Honduras last week which kind of put a damper on our activities in Los Laureles. We weren't able to hold our devocionals or game days, instead we sat on porches, drank coffee, chatted with people, tied up some loose ends that had been left untied for far too long and occasionally joined the kids as they played in the rain. the garbage men/boys working in the rain one of my next big projects is to build the recycling center a shelter so that sorters don't have to work out in the rain or glaring sun and by sorters i mean children having fun in 2 inches of water konrad giving out free rides and feeling the sorrier for it apparently they chicken fight here in the streets, it's more fun without the protection of a swimming pool dopey konrad kept complaining that he couldn't reach chita with his arms...i told him to kick but he declined...thus the children beat us. ganadores water fight a fight between 4 brothers the oldest a...

I've mentioned before that we recently formed a soccer team of about 35 kids that will begin playing in a local league here in La Ceiba starting in March. A very generous and beloved donor sent us a significant amount of money so that we could purchase uniforms, cleats, balls and sundry other necessities; without this aid we wouldn't have been able to get off the ground. I found a coach from the community who agreed to train the kids on a voluntary basis and we began practicing about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately the field that we have in the dump, if you can call it a field, is pitifully small and thus not well-suited to training in upwards of 40 kids at a given time. The Mennonites here though have a massive field about 25 minutes away that often sits vacant so we decided to make the trip out there about once a week to give our kids a feel for playing on a full-size field. This past Sunday after church we made our first trip, we loaded 35 kids onto a public bus and made our way ...