One year ago today, Elizabeth Carmichael got on a plane bound for El Progreso, Honduras. She was going to volunteer at Pronino, a nonprofit organization that seeks to address the needs of street children, frequently addicted to drugs, living in Honduras. She was joined by Faith Galonski and Laura Long, two other students from Saint Francis University, a Catholic Franciscan school in Loretto. Elizabeth spent time at both of the organization's centers. She began at La Montana, the center where the children hope to advance to as they progress in the program. For the second half, she worked at Las Flores, the first stage in the rehabilitation process. During her nearly six months in El Progreso, she kept a journal of her experiences. The following are selections from that journal. (The names of the children and employees have been changed in order to preserve their privacy.)

---

In Miami, Faith and I board the flight to San Pedro Sula. Finally we understand why our tickets were so expensive. We've accidentally booked business-class seats. How embarrassing. Here we are, off to spend six months volunteering with street children, and we are the only passengers in this section with plenty of leg room and chardonnay. I pull my hat low over my face.

The plane leaves the tarmac of Miami International and, terrified, I change my mind. I do not want to do this. Would the plane turn around if I asked politely? Does sitting in this section give me more authority?

I stay seated and turn to Faith, my mind screaming, Goodbye! Good luck! You're on your own! Instead, I hear my own voice ask: "Did you pack sheets?"

---

The director has assigned Miguel a job: Arrange a pile of cinderblocks in a circle around a mound of gravel. No questions asked, he gets started, his tough 11-year-old shoulders hauling blocks of rough stone. Awkwardly, I shuffle back and forth from being in his way to trying to help. I pull on a block, turn it end on end to move it closer to where he's working. He lifts it up out of my hands and offers me a consoling smile. I can do this work, he seems to tell me.

His bare feet, tough and broad, scramble and slip on the gravel. He never falls. Pushing and pulling those blocks into perfection, he smoothes out gravel chaos. Then he jumps back from a block. Looking again, he calls me closer and smiles. Un sapo. A frog inside the cement hole.

Finished and sweating, he sits down on one of the blocks.

"Miguel," I say, "you are never lazy." He smiles his shy, crooked smile.

"Yes, I am," he tells me. "I like to sleep a lot."

I ask him how long he has been at Pronino. And then he tells me how he ran away from the center once, that he doesn't have friends here, that he doesn't like the sea, he's afraid of the waves, that his family hasn't come to visit, and how he misses them.

His head is down, never once looking at me. Stone in his hand, he traces a circle in the dirt. When his tears fall and leave dark splashes, he buries them into the earth with his stone.

My legs are shaking. My throat is burning, with rage, sadness, and love for his raw sorrow. I'm wandering around a vocabulary made for computer classes, soccer and vegetable vendors.

I have no words for this.

---

The boys are always asking for things: my watch, gum, shoes.

They get a small allowance each week and sometimes they give the volunteers a few lempiras to buy them chips or a juice. Other times, they just ask, or demand. Some of them are clever about it: "When you leave," they ask me, "will you give me your watch ... to remember you?"

Pronino provides them with the things they need. But after years of groups visiting and bringing them armfuls of gifts, they've come to associate a white face with money and handouts.

More than once, I've tried to explain that no, you cannot have my shoes because I need shoes to wear to work, I need shoes to play soccer with you every day. Patiently, I can only do this so many times. The other day I reached my limit.

"Bet, buy me a CD."

"Give me your money, and I'll buy you a CD." The truth is I would love to buy him a CD, but practically I cannot. After bringing him a CD, I would need to bring 45 more for each boy at the center.

"You have money," he tells me.

"Why do you think I have so much money?"

"Because all Americans have a lot of money." He explains this as though he's speaking to a small child.

"That's not true."

"Do you have a car?" he asks.

Ha. Now I'll show him how wrong he is.

"No, I don't," I'm quick to answer. I'm winning this battle. I am single-handedly defeating all Honduran stereotypes about gringos from the States.

"Do your parents have a car?" Uh oh.

"Yes." Fine, I concede one point. That doesn't mean I'm wealthy.

"How many floors is your house?"

"Two."

He sees my embarrassment flooding my face. Luckily, the argument has distracted him. He doesn't ask again for the CD.

---

Outside the grocery store, Faith holds our bikes together as I weave the lock through the spokes. We pass the armed guard at the entrance and turn in our drawstring backpacks.

Shopping is an adventure and our eyes are bigger than our carrying capacity. We begin practical: milk, bread and peanut butter. Soon I'm craving baked potatoes, yogurt and avocadoes. Faith is skeptical:

"Are you going to carry all of this?" she asks.

"Yes." I move on to the eggplant.

Unlike most of the Honduran bicyclists, neither of us have baskets on our bikes, just backpacks. The most valuable purchases go inside them: wine, olive oil, chicken, spices, cheese. Everything else is carefully arranged in the plastic bags. The weight is the key, and we shuffle tomatoes and milk back and forth between the bags to achieve our balance.

I can navigate the streets of Progreso one-handed while holding a broom. Faith expertly avoids the lethal spinning tires while a bag of eggs dangles from the handlebar. Watermelons and pineapples present no obstacles. Grocery shopping is less a chore than a challenge. Long baguettes dare me to take them home.

---

When I heard that Teatro La Fragua would be performing "Honduran Folktales," I arranged a field trip for some of the kids at La Montana. With a donation from my grandparents, I purchased 22 tickets for the Friday morning show.

The morning of the performance, I biked to La Montana to make sure the kids were ready. The staff directed them to the common area and explained the privilege of going to the theater. One by one, they called the names of the lucky ticket holders (rewards for good behavior). The boys hurried off to get into their dress clothes. Emilio tearfully informed me that he couldn't find his best pants. Trying not to smile, I told him that the pants he had on -- 4 inches too short -- looked fine.

I followed the group until the bus stop, then headed to the theater by bike to hold a spot in line. Waiting outside the tiny theater, I check my watch again. The kids are nowhere to be seen. I'm surrounded by pressed, bleached white, button-down uniform shirts. The daytime performance is packed full of identical, giggling children on school field trips. They take turns sneaking out of line to buy sodas and chips. Bored, they play with their cell phones.

A flash of bright, mismatched colors appears at the gates. They're a bit dusty and disheveled, but they're all here. Usually rowdy, my kids are suddenly shy and uneasy. In the sea of bright white and navy, they are painfully aware of all that separates them from the other students.

Eagerly, they hold out their palms as I hand a ticket to each. At the doors, we are greeted with surprise.

"No, no," the manager explains to me. "We understood you were coming tonight."

We cannot come back tonight.

"I'm sorry," he says. "But there is no room for any more people in the theater."

It looks like a disaster. But the manager finally agrees to let the kids sit on the floor. They file in and squeeze together. No one complains. The play begins. The actors are engaging and the kids are all smiles and giggles.

After the play, the white and navy sea descends upon the kids and, wide-eyed, they panic. The younger ones rush to the staff and cling to them. They are comfortable on the grounds of the center, even comfortable on the streets.

As they leave, they are still singing the catchy tunes from the show.

---

I told Ana, a Honduran staff member at Pronino, about my search for Honduran authors and their writing.

"Did you look at the bookstore?" she asked me.

"What bookstore?"

I have lived in El Progreso for five months and am leaving in a week. I have ridden my bike hundreds of miles around this city, been lost countless times, discovered restaurants, shops, and favorite routes. I have never seen or heard of a bookstore. Ana has agreed to take me there today.

She arrives on the back of a friend's motorbike. Change of plans, he will take me instead.

We speed through the streets of Progreso, passing the secondhand American clothing shops and street vendors.

Minutes later, inside the small, bright shop, I move among three free-standing shelves and two against the wall. My arms tingle with goosebumps.

Here in this new and unfamiliar space, I am free to act on an old childhood habit: I run my fingers over the spines of the books. I take one slim copy from the shelf and pull the other to the right of it to mark its place, a valuable skill taught by a children's librarian in Erie.

When my hands are full, Ana's friend looks at my selections.

"Ramon Amaya Amador. The best," he assures me. Then he looks up and nods towards the corner of the store.

"There is his son."

I have never read Amador, Honduras' famous author, but I am star struck.

I pay for the books, using every last lempira I've brought with me.

On the back of the motorbike, I feel the weight of the books in my bag. Off we fly into the evening, down dusty streets. I imagine the two of us as scheming partners in crime, conquering Progreso with the books in my bag.