Everyone's back now!

Hello...from Emma and Nic, we're back too! We had an amazing last week in Roatan, SCUBA diving and getting quite sunburnt and eaten by mosquitos. We travelled back on Friday and were very lucky to stay with Marisol on Friday night before taking the long ride home to England.

We'd all like to take this opportunity to say the most enormous THANKYOU to all who have been involved in our project: people who have sponsored and supported us at home, friends and family who have put up with many changes of plans and us galavanting off for the weekend, Diana and Charlotte for believing in GOLD Honduras and letting us finally go, all the other GOLD teams for their banter/sympathy when our project was cancelled, Sarah Staight - still part of the team, and of course EVERYONE we met in Honduras whilst on project, both those running the organisation and everyone in our workshops. We have had an unforgettable and wonderful wonderful project, muchas gracias.

GOLD Honduras 2010

Nicola, Carrie, Emma, Hannah and Nic xxxx

Day 21 – Returning home (part 1)

This morning the GOLD team had to separate, with Nic and Emma staying on for another week of scuba, snorkelling and relaxation in the Bay Islands, and Carrie, Hannah and Nicola returning back to the UK. It was almost as sad as saying goodbye to the Guias to Honduras. After the final drive through the Tegucigalpa traffic we arrived at the airport laden with bags - mainly full of dirty clothes and gifts! (one gift in particular would go on to cause a few problems...more later about that). On arriving in Miami, Hannah was somewhat interrogated at customs but eventually allowed through to collect bags before getting ready for the onward flight to London. As we boarded the flight we started to dream of what we missed the most - real milk, tea and wholemeal bread! The flight was quite bumpy and at one point Hannah had to make a quick decision - should the wine go in me or on me?! She decided that in was better than on and quickly downed it! We finally arrived at Heathrow, safe but tired and a bit confused about what time it was in which of the 3 timezones we had been / were in. We waited at the baggage hall for our bags...and waited...and waited...until all the bags had come out, except for Nicola's! Turns out that it never made it onto the flight in Miami...maybe that last minute gift wasn't such a good idea?!
We said our goodbyes at the airport, not sure it's sunk in that Honduras GOLD 2010 is finally over for us. What will we do without refried beans / DEET / our international neckers / Oooogo and the never-ending bus journeys and last but not least all the amazing girls and women we met in Honduras?! At least we have lots of photos and memories to keep us going until debrief in September!

Day 20 - An end to GOLD Honduras

Today we visited the Vally of Angels, where we had a chance to be last-minute tourists, before heading back for our evaluation with the Guias de Honduras. We had a great opportunity to evaluate all 5 years of the GOLD project in Honduras, as well as getting some feedback on this year´s work. Afterwards, we went to dinner in a typical Honduran restaurant for our farewell meal with lots of members of the Association.
In true Honduran style, the heavens opened and it threw it down with rain, so much so that the power went out. We looked extremely stylish with headtorches to the forehead, as we gave our gifts, including a 5 year photobook from all the GOLD projects. The Guias de Honduras gave us a lovely gift of a bag each, and we handed everyone out our Sexambassadors badges and cards that we didn´t get a chance to use. It turns out that one of the translations on the ABC messages we had translated to something INCREDIBLY rude, and we all had a good laugh and hoped they wouldn´t forget it. After lots of hugs and sad goodbyes, singing Old Langs Eyne (?) and doing our favourite ´aplauso´for the last time, we shouted ADIOS (still in the dark) to our friends here, and waved goodbye to an amazing and unforgettable experience.
Tomorrow we leave Tegucigalpa; Hannah, Carrie and Nicola for London; Nic and Emma for Roatan in the Bay Islands. To everyone who has been involved in this GOLD project, both at home and here in Honduras, we want to thank you so so much for making this trip incredible. We have made friendships that will always last, and experienced things here that we will never ever forget. After 2 years of planning, and 3 weeks of some truly GOLDen moments, we say goodbye to a country that we all can now call home.
We came to Honduras with 980 condoms, lots of Wasabi peas and much dyrolyte, and came back with so much more than we could ever have hoped for. ¡Muchas Gracias Honduras, we will miss you dearly!

Day 19 - WHEN WE WERE ON TV!

Early start this morning as Angie had organised for us to appear on ´Cafe caliente´, a breakfast show like GMTV in Honduras! Very very excited, and a little bit nervous about appearing live for 20 minutes, but the presenter guy was so nice, and I think Emily, our translator was the most nervous! At about 8.50am we all piled on the sofa with Marisol and Emily and chatted about our work here, about the Guias de Honduras, and whether we liked the food (because we just LOVE refired beans!) It was another true GOLD experience, and one we will never forget. Emma and Nic will be picking up the DVD when they´re back in Tegucigalpa next week, so everyone at home can witness our moment of glory.
Later we had a tour of the museums of Tegucigalpa (where Nic asked whether a video of some Mayan people playing football was a remake), visited an NGO that also works with children, before a quick turnaround in our hotel and another journey back to the Children´s Home. On the journey there, Hannah met her hilarious Honduran banana man again who had been blowing her kisses before, and he declared more love for her in the heaving traffic jams of Tegucigalpa.
The girls did some amazing dances for us, and it was all going wonderfully until they asked us to dance for them. With no Spice Girls music to back us up, we jumped into the centre of the room and danced like no-one was watching, and oh yes, the sweat started pouring. The girls looked a bit bemused as to just how rubbish we were, so much so that the proceeded to turn the lights off!
Forget army barracks and last minute workshop changes, the most difficult part of this project was last minute dance routine choreographing. Still, the girls laughed a lot and eventually saved us the embarassment by teaching us some of their moves (with minimal success.) Afterwards there was a lot more photo taking, hugs and goodbyes, and we were really sad to leave one of our favourite groups of girls that we have been privileged to work with here in Honduras.
We said our farewells and piled in the bus again, but not before Nic realised that someone had managed to delete ALL 3 WEEK´S worth of GOLD photos on her camera. Noooooo :(

Day 18 - last workshop! : (

Yesterday we went back to the Children´s home in Tegucigalpa to deliver our last ever workshop to some more girls there. After a bit of a misunderstanding with timings, and Oogo getting a bit cross for having to wait around for ages, we arrived an hour and a half late for the workshop, but still raring to go! There were 25 10-13 year olds who we ran our girl-aimed workshop for, doing games and activities on self esteem, what it would be like to have a baby, STI´s and introduced the use of condoms to them. The girls were absolutely amazing, again so responsive and so keen to get our autographs at the end. It was really lovely at the end too when some of the girls from yesterday´s workshop gave us letters, cards, photos and bracelets filled with thanks for the fun they had in their workshop.
The home was a really wonderful place to finish our last workshop, the girls are incredible and we have all had a really special experience there. We are sad to have pinned up baby related activities on a washing line; stuck ´STI´stickers on each other; whispered rude words in the ears of girls and watch their faces light up in mild horror, and blown up condoms in front of lots of giggling girls for the last time, but we will never forget the fun we have had during our workshops.
In the evening we had the amazing opportunity to go to Angie´s (one of our translators in Copan) house for a party! It was so so nice to see her and her cousins again, and we had a delicious home cooked meal and the most impressive birthday cake ever! We were all extremely sad to say goodbye, but hope that the centenary necker we gave Angie will remind her of the 5 years of the GOLD project here.

Day 17 - workshop 6 in Tegucigalpa Children´s home

Today we piled in the bus once again to head off to the ´Hogar de niñas´in Teguicigalpa where we were greeted by a very bouncy group of 25 14-25 year olds from the centre´s Guide group. All the girls were leaders, or wanted to be leaders. We ran the workshop from 1pm-6.30pm, covering leadershipo ckills, HIV and AIDS, pregnancy and how to put on a condom. The girls were great fun, really competitive and participated a lot during our activities. They did our chat up line activity, which encourages girls to say ´no´to sex, with much enthusiasm, with some hilarious impersonations of men.
The girls already seemed to know a lot about the topics covered, and we left feeling confident that they could go on to teach other girls the same things. We ended the workshop with a LOT of t-shirt signing and hugs, and Hannah made the mistake of allowing one of the girls the use of her camera. In true paparazzi style, and hundreds of photos later, we managed to prise ourselves off the girls before getting back in the bus, Oogo slightly perplexed at so many screaming girls. Tomorrow we´re back to the same centre again to run our workshop with the younger girls there :)

Day 15 - as if more could possibly go wrong

After dinner in Pizza hut last night, we continued our Honduran dining experience in Wendy´s hamburger grill this morning for breakfast. There was, in fact, nowhere else to eat, so we munched on some pancakes before heading to the beach on the South coast, instead of delivering our 3rd day of camp. The sea was amazing and Emma had bought us presents from the UK of bat and ball and a bug identifying kit (intended for camp, but there were still plenty of bugs!) We saw pelicans and read our books in hammocks, which was so nice to do after the weekend´s events. We left at lunchtime to drive to the hotel, have a quick shower and then drive back to Tegucigalpa. On the journey back, something went BANG, and there was a lot of shuddering from the bus. We arrived at the hotel whilst Oogo went on a search for a mechanic (on a Sunday.) With no-where open still, apart from Pizza Hut, we completed our great dining experience with another trip there, with the same waitress as last night, who looked at us in mild interest as to why the British girls were back for more.
Oogo replaced something on the van, and we were on our way to the Capital by half 4. BANG. BANG. BANG. Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaape. BANG. Black smoke pouring out of the exhaust, we slowed down more and more, with people overtaking, beeping and hurling abuse at us as to why we were driving so slowly. Yet we did not stop, poor Oogo just kept on driving, determined to get us back. We drove all the way back at around 20 mph, with frequent bangs, and at times, especially when we were driving uphill at less than 10mph, it was touch and go whether we would make it. However, at 8.45pm we finally made it to our hotel, to the poor lady running it, who, once again had no idea why we had turned up at her door a day early. Someone definitely spoke too soon when we noted that we hadn´t yet had a ´proper´GOLD experience; nothing could have prepared us for this weekend!

Day 14 - what they don´t tell you at INTOPS

Saturday morning, 4.45am. Hannah and Nic wake up, eager to help the army men milk the army cows at 5am as promised yesterday. We actually spent the hour waiting and wondering where, in fact, they had got to, and watched the sunrise instead over the already hot Honduran morning. They did finally turn up at quarter to 6 but it was too late - 6am was exercise time! We ran around the football field getting very muddy and doing stretches before breakfast, of more refried beans! Our workshop was due to start at 8am, and, at 7.55am we were delivered more bad news that unfortunately no more leaders would be joining us. It was decided to still go ahead with todays workshop, training the existing leaders until 4pm and go home early. After some very last minute changes to the programme, to condense it still into a one day workshop, we lugged our resources bag up to the football pitch and ran our programme to 16 leaders in total, with 10 new leaders who hadn´t been to a GOLD session before.
Our workshop was not without battles, mainly of the bovine variety, where we were joined by the herd of cows at the beginning. Ducks and geese came in for a gander too, wondering what we were up to, and we powered on through the noise of the soldiers mowing and strimming the football pitch most of the way through the day.
After lunch, the new leaders made their promise to become members of the Guias de Honduras, and we were very lucky to be able to see their ceremony. We came back to our room for water to discover another giant iguana in our room, who was clearly confused why there were 5 girls in the army quarters. Forget tarantulas, we had our own pet iguana! Afterwards, we had an hour to deliver as many of our activities about condoms as we could, before the leaders had to leave. We quickly packed away our bags, VERY sweaty and a bit bemused, but otherwise pleased to at least done a days workshop.
We arrived in our hotel just in time for the pouring rain, in which we adopted the non-conventional method of cooling off by dancing in the rain and laying in the car park, exhausted from the most bizarre set of events over the past couple of days.

Day 13 - A night in the army barracks!

Friday - we left Tegucigalpa at 9am in high spirits ready for the 2 hour drive to Choluteca where our 3 day workshop would be. We were due to start our sessions at 2, and grew slightly concerned at getting lost and waiting ages for lunch, and leaving the restaurant at 1.40pm. When we did finally arrive we were welcomed into a real live army barracks with men with guns and lots of cows. We arrived to no leaders, and a large room full of army beds, which the army men then proceeded to put mosquito nets on and clean the communal showers. We were very lucky and given the luxury of the Officers dorm, and the Colnel cleared his stuff for us! We waited, and we waited for the leaders to arrive whilst the heavens opened and it proceeded to pour it down with rain, to a point where it was flooded outside our room. Emma and Hannah caught a glimpse of an enormous Giant Iguana creeping round the side of the building and it suddenly dawned on us what these ´dinosaurs´ the officers had been referring to were. Finally, at 5.30pm a bus of 8 new leaders arrived and we found out that the rest of the leaders - the 42 missing- couldn´t get the bus today due to strikes on the road. The workshop for the day was cancelled until the leaders would arrive at 8am tomorrow, so we had yet another team meeting to create a new 2-day leader plan instead. That night we ate in the army canteen before playing some games with the Honduran leaders and retiring to bed (with our own armed body guard outside our door), hoping for some better luck tomorrow.