Reunited once again

After a tiring day of flying and driving for hours we finally reached our hotel and filled the entire lobby with bags loaded with donations.  It was a sight to see, let me tell you.  I knew we had quite a few donations but this was unbelievable; I was completely overwhelmed and ecstactic at the amount we were giving to HHK.  Poor Nikolas (our bus driver), had to unload and load those bags far too many times than initially anticipated but I´m sure he was more than happy to climb up on top of the bus and chuck bags at us.

Once we were showered, cleaned-up, or decided to ¨bathe¨ by swimming in the pool, we loaded up and headed out the the Hogar.  Those of us who went last year ran to see all the kids who were so difficult to leave a year ago and the reunification even brought tears to some (Erica...).  We handed out gum, candy, and whatever else we brought for the kids and in the middle of passing everything out, there were intense games of tag and phooseball going on.  It was so awesome to see all the smiling faces of the children again and what I really enjoyed seeing was how easily all the ¨first-timers¨ jumped right in and interacted with the kids as if they had known them.  Rachel, if you´re reading this, Lula has her heart set on you and only you.

As the children meandered into bed, David brought us to the backyard of the Hogar where he gave us a little speech that we did not receive last year.  He went completely into detail of the living situations for the typical Honduran family, explaining that the sexual offense rate in Honduras is 40% and most of the time it is from family members.  He told us that many of the kids at the Hogar suffer from PTSD and depression due to a multitude of reasons that brought tears to our eyes.  He continued to explain to us that the majority of the time sexual crimes are not reported because they often lead to the victim or their family being targeted by the offender and thus they get away with everything as it is too much risk to the family to even bother with bringing the assault to the attention of the courts or police.  It was heartbreaking what he was telling us.  It´s so hard to accept the reality he was explainging to us.  No one wants to hear the fact that people walk away with such crimes without any for of punishment.  And after feeling like David had just run over my puppy, he began to thank us for the multitude of dontations they received and told us they had never had so many donations at one time.  I just wanted to thank all the travelers, parents, and those who donated for helping this amazing cause; it´s unfortunate that you wont be able to see the positive effect your donations have on this community but I promise there will be extensive documentation.

All in all, we have arrived safely, no one has gotten sick (knocking on wood as we speak), and we have ordered a pizza meaning it´s time to go.  Thanks for following us!

P.S. I apologize for any typos - I never realized how much I appreciate the squiggley red line under misspelled words.