After a day well spent at Pronino, we start reflection tonight by discussing all of the things we want to bring home with us that we have learned from our time here in El Progreso. We started out our day at the local high school getting a tour from one of the student advisors and the president of the PTA. Here we learned how truly lucky we are when comparing the classroom sizes, the computer labs, and the library to our own. We’ve come to realize our privileges at UWO throughout our time here, but today really hit home for most of us. The high school that we visited today hosted about 3000 students, where some took class in the mornings, afternoons, nights, and some even on the weekends. Most of the rooms in the school were locked up because it was just orientation day, and school is not in session yet, but we still learned that the library had approximately 200 to 300 books to share between the 3000 students. One of the high notes of this tour was learning that this was the only school in all of Honduras that was home to an Olympic sized track, that both the students and community could occupy as a safe workout place!

From the tour of the high school we set off for our final day with the Pronino boys, one that we knew was going to be tough one! The boys who at first didn’t show their interest in us being there were now some of the closest to us! Both the younger boys and the older ones continued to ask us for pictures, beg us to play games, and still thought it was the greatest thing in the world to paint our hands to draw on the wall. 

We’ve never seen more smiles from the simplest of things!

Today we brought all of our donataions to Pronino, and seeing how grateful they were for everything we brought them helped us realize how the simplest things we could have done were the biggest things to them! With heavy hearts, both tears and smiles we said goodbye to all of the boys and will always cherish those memories. We then played soccer with the OYE kids at a field in town, and although they let us join in, most of them were running circles around us!

Another scholar and her family had us over for dinner tonight, not only did they cook for us, but her mother showed us how to make the meal and let us help! The families are so welcoming here, it’s hard to not feel like one of them.

Tomorrow we head to the Botanical Gardens and the beach in Tela, check back tomorrow for an update!