A Little About My Current Home

Jovenes en Camino is a boys home in El Zamorano, Honduras. Located about 25 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa, El Zamorano is known as being one of the safest areas in Honduras. El Zamorano is surrounded by mountains on every side and is home to an international Agriculture school that has students from all over Central and South America. Unlike other universities in Honduras, it costs roughly as much as it costs to go to school in the U.S. Jovenes is on a long, skinny piece of land amidst plenty of large properties and farms. 

Jovenes currently provides for 55 boys, maximum capacity being 60. They are split into three houses: Casa amarilla (yellow house, the youngest boys), Casa rosada (pink house, middle school age boys), and Casa verde (green house, high school age boys). I live in Casa rosada! This can be fun as middle school age boys are prone to poke fun a lot, but I just poke fun right back (in a nice way). Each house is the home of a house parents. The boys refer to them as tio and tia (aunt and uncle). Casa amarilla has a family of three. Tio Elvin and Tia Mari. Their daughter, Shelly, is in pre-k at the bilingual school and has big blue eyes. The parents of Casa rosada just found out that they were expecting! Tio Marvin and Tia Sarai. My awesome dorm parents. Their baby should be here at the end of the year. Casa verde is home to a family of four. Tio Santos and Tia Maria. I have a lot of respect for them because of how patiently and lovingly they raise 20 high school boys and their own daughters. They have two daughter, Genesis and Sara. Both of them go to the public school that the boys go to. They also go to an English class in Tegucigalpa every Saturday. 

School in Honduras is set up differently than in the states. The elementary school (1/4 mile down the road) is where most of the boys go. They get up at 5 in the morning, eat breakfast at 6, and are on their way to school at 6:30. They return by 12 every day for lunch. The high school (1 mile down the road) begins around lunch time and ends at 4. There are 6 boys that go to a bilingual school attached to the university in El Zamorano. The school was made for the faculty of the school, but kids from the community can attend. It is about $2,500/year per kid. 

My days are never the same. There is always something different happening. Currently, our mornings are pretty uneventful since most of the boys are at school or working. Today is the last day for the bilingual boys to go to school, so we will spend mornings working with them and tutoring them in english. Most of them are already able to get around a conversation in English and rarely decide they want to talk to me in Spanish. In the afternoon, I help kids with  their homework. Lots of writing and math and reading!! Then we have free time between then and dinner. This time is usually consumed by soccer or other outdoor activities, sometimes movies. My house (casa rosada) eats dinner at 6:30. The younger house eats before that, and the older house eats about 7 or 7:30. I try to hop houses every night. Most of our after dinner time is spent in the oldest house (casa verde) watching movies or playing games or just talking. We have really connected with the older boys. It's sometimes harder to spend time with the other two houses, which is the opposite of what we expected. 

Minus thousands of flies, cold showers, and constant jokes about how I need to hook up with different girls, my first week has been incredible and eye opening. It is hard to wrap my mind around being here for 7 more weeks, but I know that it will be over before I know it and I will want nothing more than to be back. Thank you to my family and Leah for being great through this time and for being there to listen when things are difficult here. 

Que Dios les bendiga!!