Upon arriving in El Pital, it was clear there was much "work" to be done. A few tree trunks, a big, white building, and two sort-of half latrines, was all that was in view. That, and just about the whole village. I can't speak for the other teenagers on our trip, but I know that the main reason I was on board was because of the children. When Mel came back last year and told me about her adventures and all about how the kids just were the cutest things and that they jumped all over you I had to see it for myself. And it's really something that you can't fully comprehend unless you witness it. While most of the adults jumped right into projects like building a swing set out of tree trunks, painting the mural on the kinder school, or building the outhouses, most of the teenagers just hung around with the little kids. The oldest kids were around 12 and 13 they told us, although you never would have guessed from their appearance.

While Mel was assisting in the swing set building, Brad was out back working on bathrooms, and some of us were testing our artistic side in mural painting, a few raindrops started falling, nothing major — we thought. I think it was about mid-brush stroke when it literally felt like the skies opened up and poured down. With so much ahead of us, a few started getting aggravated and stressed. Everyone, and when I say everyone I mean the 12 of us gringos and half of the village of El Pital, crammed into this one-room kinder-school house, which was lacking electricity on this particular day. And I can tell you, it felt like we were armed with so much more than a flashlight and a limited Spanish vocabulary. One group member sat down all of the kids and started teaching math in spanglish, while Brad was over by the window with a kid on each arm, with dictionaries looking for "thunder" and "lightning" in English. And it seemed like every other person had at least one kid on our laps. Since I was there for the kids, there were two instances that both coincidentally happened this first stormy day in El Pital that essentially made this trip for me.

The first was a 12 year old girl named Alicia. When we first got there Alicia seemed to shy away compared to the rest of the children. However, once we started painting, and countless soccer games later, she opened up. I was sitting on a desk as Harvey, a fellow group member, was attempting to teach the children math, and through very little words, Alicia sat on my lap and we shared laughs as I would whisper the answers in her ear and she would yell them out to Harvey. She was so adorable. It was like we had our own little game going on. She was standing soaking wet next to the desk, and I tapped my lap with both hands, and through motions she told me she was wet and I said I didn't mind and she just climbed on top of me. It's amazing that with so little words spoken you can feel that connection with someone.

The second instance was my interaction with Elvia, the kinder teacher, and Anthony, her 8-month-old baby. Elvia is a very strong woman, she made this very clear. She also had a way of communicating with very little, if any, words. She clearly had a lot to handle while trying to control all of the kids and balance Anthony on her hip; she started to look a little stressed. I was talking with her in my very broken Spanish, and finally just held out my hands to her and with a "Gracias" she put Anthony in my arms and turned away to talk with some kids. It was so amazing to me that someone you just met maybe a half hour before trusted a stranger enough and just handed her baby away and had so much trust in someone. I think the Honduran mindset is different from here. I think that here, people think that there isn't a reason to trust someone so it's automatic distrust until you prove something. In Honduras, I think the mindset is automatic trust until you prove yourself not trustworthy. That moment with Anthony is something that I'm going to have for the rest of my life. Within like 2 minutes of me holding him, he fell asleep on my shoulder and I walked around for about 45 minutes just holding him while he slept, and I literally started getting teary. All I could think was, this is what I'm here for. I'm in Honduras holding a little kid, whose mother trusted me, and she doesn't even know me. I just kept thinking, I'm in Honduras with an amazing group of people. Working with a brand new group of people, life doesn't get much better. And Elvia and I really did make this bond, she invited me back to El Pital to stay with her and help teach English, and I really am interested in taking that up with her. Those are the kind of bonds that you form with these people. Lasting ones that you're never going to forget.