Update from Lydia

Hello! This is Lydia Stephen reporting to you from Siguatepeque, Honduras.
So first, I will give you all a mildly detailed run down of our travels and our trip so far.
We hung out at church for a while and left around 1:30 am.

Once at Pearson airport, we arrived in the wee hours of Thursday morning, and got all our bags checked and issues dealt with.  The plane ride to Atlanta was quite cramped, but luckily short.  As we arrived in Atlanta, it was extremely rainy.  We got through everything very quickly, and only had about an hour or so before we boarded the plane to San Pedro Sula.  That flight was much more interesting as we were flying over tropics and the Gulf of Mexico and the sky was very clear.  We were flying over gorgeous turquoise water and you could see the huge cargo boats all the way down, it was very interesting.
Once we got to Honduras and began to land, we were told the San Pedro Sula airport was congested so our plane would have to linger for a while.  Our plane did one really big circle.  We went over huge hills, some could be borderline mountains if you ask me, one huge winding brown river.  Along with that, we could also see when we went over poor communities vs. wealthier communities based on the roofs and the way they were organized.

We got through customs and everything and met Dave just outside.  We loaded up our bus and got in.  There was a significant change in temperature as you exit the airport and step into the sun.  I believe it was around 35 degrees, which can be a shock after 3 hours on a cold plane.

Once we got on the bus, Dave gave us baleadas, bananas and granola bars as well as some cold water bottles ( much needed).

The ride up to Siguatepeque was very bitter-sweet.  It was originally supposed to be a 2.5 hour ride, but actually ended up being a 4 hour drive.

The bitter part of this trip would have to be the heat.  We had curtains to help keep the bus a little bit cooler with the windows open, but it was still sweltering.
The sweet part was 100% the views.  Siguatepeque is way up in the mountains, so as we drove up the
winding roads, many times we would reach clearings and fantastic layers or mountains would be exposed with the sun shining down.  At one point we passed this huge lake surrounded by the mountains.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  I found myself hanging out the window for the majority of the ride, even as others slept.  I just did not want to miss anything,  The scenery seemed to change every 10 minutes.  At the same time I so badly wanted to sleep but it was just too interesting.

As we got to CEE, the sun was beginning to set.  We got all set up in our rooms, which are just the classrooms in the upstairs of the school.  We hung out for a bit and just relaxed until it was time to go to bed.

This morning we all got up around 7 and ate.  I woke up really sick, so ended up sleeping until lunch.  While I was asleep, everyone was doing small work projects like painting, building or cleaning.  I really wish I could've joined.

This afternoon all of our student leaders from the school joined us!!!!

About 15 showed up and we all started off pretty shy.  We played lots of ice breaker games and everyone eventually clicked.  All of them are Honduran high school students, so it was very easy to connect with them.  We all ended up playing a big game of volleyball after everything was done, and played for hours, eventually moving to soccer.

Along with that, we're having a lot of fun with the bucket showers.  Ema and I had one today.  It was mildly cold, but we enjoyed it.

The food is fanTASTIC, the ladies who prepare it put so much love and care into every meal and it really is evident each time we sit down to eat.