Day 3 - First full day at the Ranch

How many more times can I say Honduras is beautiful? This is our view of the surrounding mountains every morning. The sun rises around 6AM and it is completely dark by 7PM. Most folks at the Ranch are in bed observing 'quiet time' by 10PM and even the most hard core night owls are in bed by midnight.
The view to the left is from behind the guest house. It overlooks some fields where crops are grown to help feed the residents and the remainder is sold in town. The Ranch itself is relatively self-sufficient. They have huge areas of crops, livestock, and fruit trees.

Today we had breakfast at 7AM. The volunteers generally eat about an hour earlier than the residents to allow the Tias/Tios (sortof like big brothers/sisters) an easy entrance and exit from the kitchen. Breakfast today was Corn Flakes, milk, and this delicious bread that looked a lot like a muffin top. The milk here is obtained directly from milk cows on the ranch, and evidentally they collect and boil the milk in the morning. Our cereal today was made with hot milk. It was also about as much whole milk as you can get, I suppose. At any rate it was delicous and extremely filling. Lunch consisted of spaghetti with red sauce and boiled chicken. Dinner tonight was Tamalles with rice and mantequilla. In Spanish, Mantequilla means butter. Here, however, it is sweet-ish sour creme. Mixed with rice, it was wonderful.
After breakfast we toured the ranch. Apparently we got the extended version which took about 4 hours. The boys and girls of the Ranch are separated by some distance for obvious reasons. Each group of 30 or so has their own house which is overseen by a Tia/Tio. They are all immaculately clean (it's one of their 10 rules) and most have very interesting art on the walls. Some examples follow:

After the tour and a quick siesta it was time for Mass which was held at 5PM. It was a beautiful service and was very upbeat in the true latin way. They even mentioned 'los dentistas' as guests of the Ranch!
Dinner was next at about 6:30 and after a long day we decided to eat back at the guest house. Tomorrow is our last free day before we start dental work. Monday is a day in which the locals can come in for treatment, so I'm guessing we'll see some interesting cases. The rest of the week will be spent working with the kids. I'm excited to get started working. The atmosphere here is such that everyone works. Even the smallest ones have some job/chores to perform on the Ranch. I'm itching to do dental work, but also ready to do my part for the Ranch.