Honduran Student Visit to California

As you might have guessed from the name of this post, recently a group of nine of my former Honduran students (Alejandro Cubas, Jonathan Vindel, Alex Vindel, Carlos Osorio, Cristian Donaire, Arleth Garcia, Diana Andrade, Nemesis Alvarado and Alba Flores) plus chaperones Peggy McQuaid and Mario Ramos, made the trip from Juticalpa, Honduras to California for a visit to my current high school, Sonoma Academy (SA), and then to San Francisco.

As soon as I started working at SA I had always wanted to merge the world of my past, Honduras, with my current one, but with the violence in Honduras, the idea of sending SA students to Honduras was too risky. After my dad suggesting that the Hondurans came here over a year ago, the idea was born and porque Dios queria (since God was willing) the trip became a reality.

Here's a run down of how the visit went:

arrival at SFO

Past OAF teacher Jessica DeLeuw volunteered her parents' house for the group the first night since it was right near the airport. Alex represented the group's feelings: happy to have arrived and feeling right at home.

The next day we headed to SA where students and teachers were curious and excited to meet the Hondurans. I had been building up their coming for months.

The Hondurans students got to sit in on classes, talk with teachers and see what education in the US looks like. Padre Ricardo also accompanied us for the first couple of days and got to see what "hippie California" was all about.

The group didn't spend all the time visiting classrooms though. They saw the Redwoods...

visited the coast (a little colder than their warm beaches down in Honduras)

and got to know some of California's history. Here they are at one of California's Spanish missions in the city of Sonoma.

It wasn't all about the kids though. On the Saturday Anne Simenc and Jess joined Mario, Peggy and I for some of Sonoma County's famous wine tasting and a picnic.

After a wonderful week in Santa Rosa, we headed south to take on San Francisco!

We secured accommodations at wonderful hostel at Fisherman's Wharf/Ft Mason where you could see the Golden Gate and Alcatraz Island simply by stepping outside the door.

Here's the group stretching their legs with some soccer after car ride down from Santa Rosa.

That same night we went back to Jess's parents' house where her whole family had a BBQ waiting.

Oh, and the students thoroughly enjoyed the DeLeuw's hot tub.

The next day Jonathan led the charge into SF to hit all the tourist spots.

We chaperones (Carol Dale second to left) enjoyed being tourists as well.

We shopped near Union Square,

while the students left their hearts in SF.

We got a personal explanation of the Mission's District's murals from a Salvadorian artist.

OAF volunteer James McBryan dropped some knowledge on us too, lol.

People just came out of the woodwork in the Mission to talk with the visiting Honduran students. Here a stopping guard talked to our group for half an hour about coming to the USA from Nicaragua and her life in San Francisco.

The group braved the cold weather in the late afternoon to see Pier 39's sea lions.

And following a beacon on the horizon...

we made it to Little Italy for pizza,

and other old OAF friends (John Monley - third from the right- and Mary Monley second from the right in previous pic.)

The next and last day for the group, we went to Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park,

yikes!

and took a tour at Autodesk's (maker of AutoCAD) San Francisco Gallery. Here our guide, Gary, who is coincidentally Honduran, led us on a tour of some of the latest technology in computer imaging and 3D design. The students were very proud to have seen uno de sus paisanos (one of the countrymen) working in such a respectable and interesting career.

Also by coincidence that final night, Honduras was playing Panama in soccer. We headed back to the Mission District to El Paisa, a Honduran restaurant, where the students were surrounded by fellow Honduran aficionados (fans), to watch they game and eat comida tipica de Honduras.

This experience of a lifetime - learning about US education at Sonoma Academy, living with host families in Santa Rosa, seeing past volunteers, and touring San Francisco left a good taste in everyone's mouths.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible!!!