Behavior & Sanctions
Since many of our children are pubescent and prepubescent, we had to introduce a method to be able to control them. Thus, we now complete a feedback for every child, every day. A total of 25 aspects is being evaluated. Those include:
1. Body Hygiene
2. School achievement and diligence
3. Behavior at the dining room
4. Obedience
5. Attention with things
6. Bedroom tidiness and cleanness
7. Fighting
8. Performance of little chores
9. Vocabulary
10. Punctuality
11. Not walking around shoeless
etc....
All the educators evaluate every child and the feedbacks are filled in together. For items not accomplished, crosses are assigned. Evidently, the goal of the month consists in receiving as few crosses as possible. In order to eliminate the crosses, the kids have to perform tasks such as wiping, cleaning, collecting wood, etc.
Vacation at Santa Rosa de Copan
On June 29, the saint of the city, San Pedro, is commemorated. Due to this fact, the children were on a holiday during that week. We spent the week at Santa Rosa de Copan, at the coffee plantation. This time, many of the children had to eliminate their little crosses, which turned the holidays into “cross-chores” for them. Apart from that, everyone enjoyed swimming, which, delightfully, almost everyone masters. In Santa Rosa, the children also enjoy their unlimited freedom of the likes of walking in the woods. Furthermore, the fresh air is good for them.
Corn Field
I am happy to announce that our corn plants are growing rapidly. The highest of them reach a height of about 2 metres and little corncobs are growing. It is great for everyone to see our little green spots in full corn-bloom.
Brayan, desperate student
Our Brayan is a very special boy with lots of good properties, but unfortunately, school is not among his strong points. He is going to first grade for the second time and I found out that he had strong learning difficulties. He suffers from dyscalculia and dyslexia. Unfortunately, his teacher is too busy to give special care to him, which is fair enough, considering she has 42 first graders in her class. Therefore, I now playfully educate him every afternoon, so as for him to be able to understand letters and numbers to pass first grade. Sadly, there is no remedial teaching or teachers in Honduras, which leaves weak students with little opportunity to learn things.
New volunteer Marlen
Since the beginning of July, Marlen Künzli from Savognin is here with us and helps us with anything. She looks after our 6 little ones with affection and responsibility. During their siesta, she sews shorts, colors white towels, crafts decoration etc. She has been received with open arms by all the kids and the staff.
Power- and water outage
Unfortunately, we had many power and water failures during the last couple of months. Blackouts amount to sauna, for sleeping without fans is barely endurable. Water shortage is pure horror for me. With 33 kids, it is a great challenge to live a day without any water supplies. One Sunday, we didn’t even have a drop of spare water; we couldn’t cook, nor shower, nor even flush toilets. I was so desperate that I called the fire department, who luckily came here and filled our water tank.
Fish Farming
The aid agency “Bolsa Samaritana” has set up a fish farm for us. They provided us with the necessary equipment as well as supplies of fish food. Currently, we own 100 tilapias, who will be ready to eat in 4 months.
Visit from the States
Since last year, we’ve been in contact with a young group of the Gran Commission from the States. Last year, they visited us for the first time, and they came back for a week this year since they enjoyed it so much. The group is formed by 5 adults and 3 youngsters and they played with the kids, painted a picture of Noah’s ark on our wall at the soccer field and even took us to the beach on their last day. Even though our visitors speak English only, they got along really well with our kids and built cordial friendships.