I'M HOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe
the flight was good. it was sad saying goodbye (to my family and my calvin friends)
Jeremy and I had about 45 min to get through immigration and customs but we made our flight back to LA fine.
love ya'll mucho!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
foto shoot
me and my friend kenya were playing around and taking photos the other day. enjoyyyyyyyyy. (thanks photoshop) lol.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Highlights from this week
- Tuesday we talked about micro enterprise and loans and if this helps the poor or not. I think it does and I am excited to learn more about this topic. Basically, private donors give a loan and get paid back with interest months or years later. Way cool. Then with the money you donate, poor people are giving loans and are given a chance to get out of poverty. We visited an organization IDH and got to talk with two ladies about their loans and their businesses. It was really cool. I liked the work they were doing because they were also having classes teaching values. The class we sat on they focused on forgiveness. One lady took her loan which usually about 500- 1000 dollars and started a tortilla business and the other cosmetics like Avon products.
-Café Paradiso (this cute coffee shop which we all love because of the people and wireless internet) showed the movie Trade (http://www.tradethemovie.com/) which is about sex trafficking and was amazing. I strongly recommend watching it.
-Wednesday we visit a prison to learn about literacy. At the prison, most of the inmates have only completed up till 6th grade. The program seems like a great success and it was very interesting to see how the imamates have responded. They are eager and grateful. The prison its self was interesting. It is like a mini village. It was all men; there was a cement soccer field where the guys can play. There are little restaurants which are run my inmates to earn money. Some guys make hammocks, have garden and sell vegetables, they have their own kitchens so they can cook. The only food they are given are rice and beans which come in a huge bucket- something you would feed an animal. They don’t have a uniform. Visitors can come and go when they please, and women can stay overnight. They have a pretty big area where they are able to roam around. Then we went to the ex gang members part. This was as big as a normal house. They hardly have any space to walk around. One thing else I notice was that they get treated without a lot of respect. They are looked down upon because they are ex-gang members. They were so friendly though. A lot of them knew English, or street English because of being in gangs in the States. One guy lived in Anaheim and Jeremy and I told him we go to school in La Mirada and he was so excited and like oh cool we are like neighbors. Haha. It was funny. They showed us their rooms which consisted of two bunk beds, so like four guys on top of each other. Some had TV’s and cell phones which aren’t technically allowed but they still had them. They aren’t allowed to leave, ever. A lot had tattoos, like this photo. At first, it was a little intimating but once you talk, they are people just like you and me. They just have made diff choices with their lives, it doesn’t mean they should be treated worse, I think.
- Thursday night was Brian’s birthday so we went to this amazing pizza place and hung out for a while. It was such good pizza. Almost everyone was there too, minus four girls, so we had a blast. I love our group. We walked around downtown Tegus and got ice cream afterwards.
-Because we had a four day weekend, we thought about traveling to the beach (Almapala) but since we didn’t plan ahead all the hotels were full. It turned out it was feriado there that weekend which is kinda like celebrating the town or a town fiesta. Por eso, everything was packed. I was disappointed but it was ok.
-On Saturday Karen and Anna and I wanted to go a hike so we decided to head towards the mountains and hike for the day. We packed PB and J sandwiches and had an adventure. It was really fun but I so sore today. Haha. It was a long day, we left at 7am and got home around 4pm. We prob spent 3 hours total the bus but we differently walked and hiked for a good 4 hours.
-Saturday night, Lauren and I had a date at Chiles. HAHA. I know! We talked about going there, all cute for a girls night out before we leave and we did it. It was a lot of fun. I got the most amazing BBQ chicken salad ever. Hah. I miss salads…. We hung out and watched ESPN and had a blast. It was interesting to see though, the other families who were there diff upper class. Even though our bill was super cheap compared to a Chiles in the States, it still in expensive for Honduras. We also saw a couple other Americans, we think they worked for the Embassy or on business because they didn’t look like tourists.
We have a little more than a week left. I know it is going to fly by....I love it here but I am ready to come home. My semester here has been so different than in Ecuador and I think I keep comparing them and thats not good. I miss Ecuador though....
- Tuesday we talked about micro enterprise and loans and if this helps the poor or not. I think it does and I am excited to learn more about this topic. Basically, private donors give a loan and get paid back with interest months or years later. Way cool. Then with the money you donate, poor people are giving loans and are given a chance to get out of poverty. We visited an organization IDH and got to talk with two ladies about their loans and their businesses. It was really cool. I liked the work they were doing because they were also having classes teaching values. The class we sat on they focused on forgiveness. One lady took her loan which usually about 500- 1000 dollars and started a tortilla business and the other cosmetics like Avon products.
-Café Paradiso (this cute coffee shop which we all love because of the people and wireless internet) showed the movie Trade (http://www.tradethemovie.com/) which is about sex trafficking and was amazing. I strongly recommend watching it.
-Wednesday we visit a prison to learn about literacy. At the prison, most of the inmates have only completed up till 6th grade. The program seems like a great success and it was very interesting to see how the imamates have responded. They are eager and grateful. The prison its self was interesting. It is like a mini village. It was all men; there was a cement soccer field where the guys can play. There are little restaurants which are run my inmates to earn money. Some guys make hammocks, have garden and sell vegetables, they have their own kitchens so they can cook. The only food they are given are rice and beans which come in a huge bucket- something you would feed an animal. They don’t have a uniform. Visitors can come and go when they please, and women can stay overnight. They have a pretty big area where they are able to roam around. Then we went to the ex gang members part. This was as big as a normal house. They hardly have any space to walk around. One thing else I notice was that they get treated without a lot of respect. They are looked down upon because they are ex-gang members. They were so friendly though. A lot of them knew English, or street English because of being in gangs in the States. One guy lived in Anaheim and Jeremy and I told him we go to school in La Mirada and he was so excited and like oh cool we are like neighbors. Haha. It was funny. They showed us their rooms which consisted of two bunk beds, so like four guys on top of each other. Some had TV’s and cell phones which aren’t technically allowed but they still had them. They aren’t allowed to leave, ever. A lot had tattoos, like this photo. At first, it was a little intimating but once you talk, they are people just like you and me. They just have made diff choices with their lives, it doesn’t mean they should be treated worse, I think.
- Thursday night was Brian’s birthday so we went to this amazing pizza place and hung out for a while. It was such good pizza. Almost everyone was there too, minus four girls, so we had a blast. I love our group. We walked around downtown Tegus and got ice cream afterwards.
-Because we had a four day weekend, we thought about traveling to the beach (Almapala) but since we didn’t plan ahead all the hotels were full. It turned out it was feriado there that weekend which is kinda like celebrating the town or a town fiesta. Por eso, everything was packed. I was disappointed but it was ok.
-On Saturday Karen and Anna and I wanted to go a hike so we decided to head towards the mountains and hike for the day. We packed PB and J sandwiches and had an adventure. It was really fun but I so sore today. Haha. It was a long day, we left at 7am and got home around 4pm. We prob spent 3 hours total the bus but we differently walked and hiked for a good 4 hours.
-Saturday night, Lauren and I had a date at Chiles. HAHA. I know! We talked about going there, all cute for a girls night out before we leave and we did it. It was a lot of fun. I got the most amazing BBQ chicken salad ever. Hah. I miss salads…. We hung out and watched ESPN and had a blast. It was interesting to see though, the other families who were there diff upper class. Even though our bill was super cheap compared to a Chiles in the States, it still in expensive for Honduras. We also saw a couple other Americans, we think they worked for the Embassy or on business because they didn’t look like tourists.
We have a little more than a week left. I know it is going to fly by....I love it here but I am ready to come home. My semester here has been so different than in Ecuador and I think I keep comparing them and thats not good. I miss Ecuador though....
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