Sorry bout the Lag.....

Soooooo it has perhaps been a while since I last wrote. I may or may not have been hassled continually about by silence by my parents and it has been reported that some of you consider me “just plain lazy” (thank you Benjamin and Ella). Well my retort to such comments is (in the words of Karen Beck) Be Still. It isn’t so much that I am lazy, more that I lack the motivation to write, and to be completely honest, I don’t have too much to write about….that being said, here I go:

Ma and Pa Kettle
I am sure you have all been regaled with endless stories from my ever garrulous mother (my apologies to anyone misfortunate enough to run into her in the grocery store and wind up returning home with soggy peas, ice cream soup, and an intricate knowledge about the Honduran bus system) but I will give a brief summary of their shenanigans anyway. The week before my parents arrival I had a training outside of Tegucigalpa so I got to hang out with all of my friends. Then, the night before their arrival my parents generously paid for my stay in the Marriot in Teguz. After months and months of cold bucket baths, tiny beds, crappy pillows, no TV, etc the Marriot seemed too good to be true. Since I had just come from a training, a bunch of my friends were in town and we ran around the hotel room like 5 year olds. The next morning a bunch of us ate breakfast in the hotel (real American breakfast!) and waited for my parents. Seeing them in the lobby of the hotel in Teguz was totally surreal and I couldn’t believe that they were actually in Honduras. We did the whole introduction thing and then went upstairs so they could scrape the plane out of their hair…or whatever…. That day we went to the mall and then went out to dinner (Teguz is not exactly a tourist trap….apparently the US government rates the danger levels of cities and Teguz is right on par with Bagdad). I figured the mall was the safest place for us, but don’t worry, good old TKC left her mark. We were all walking UP the DRY stairs to leave the mall and she somehow managed to trip and fall. It was graceful though….it kind of reminded me of the Youtube video when the bear falls out of the tree onto the trampoline. At least she didn’t break her fall with the camera like that time with the tricky curb in NYC. The next day we headed towards La Esperanza. For those of you that haven’t been taking meticulous notes on my musings, La Esperanza is the city 4 hours away from my town. We stayed the night in La Esperanza and I showed them around town. The next day we headed towards Colo. Apparently, the parental units thought I was exaggerating when I described the road conditions and were shocked to find their bones rattling out of their bodies. Considering the lack of leg room in the buses, dad’s knees were boxing his ears. Hopefully he didn’t go deaf-(er). I think mom actually enjoyed the rattling about because she just had to put her finger NEAR the button on the camera and the bumps in the road would take the pictures for her.

• Speaking of which- I don’t think her finger was more than 1 inch away from the camera the entire trip… We spent a LOT of time on buses and she was glued to the camera the whole time. When dad or I would ask her what exactly she was taking a picture of her response was “the scenery” or “the flora.” Never mind the fact that she took approximately 9000000 pictures of the same ugly rock….or purple flowers….or pine tree…. Once she even asked “Is it culturally appropriate to take a picture of that big graveyard?” That’s a framer…My only hope is she gets it blown up and hangs it over the stupid man-with-no-legs golf picture in the living room.

When we got to Colo we walked around town and they got to meet a bunch of people I work with. Unfortunately a couple people weren’t in town but they still got a taste of the people here. Then we went to dinner at my host parents’ house. It was good that they got to meet each other. Both parties were really excited to put faces to the names. We were only in Colo for one whole day. I put my mom to work cleaning up the millions of mangos in my backyard. Little did we know she would have an allergic reaction to them and turn into a gross splotchy monster. We also went to one of my English classes and I had the girls teach my parents Spanish, it was pretty cute. That night my host family came over to say goodbye, and someone (a male member of my family….) broke a chair. Mom and I were kind enough to inquire as to his injury status once the tears of laughter cleared. My host family just looked on in horror. The next morning we headed to Las Ruinas de Copan via Gracias, Lempira. The parents got to see more of Honduras and were lucky enough to spend hours and hours and hours on buses. We stayed in an AMAZING hotel in Copan (Hacienda San Lucas). The scenery was beautiful, the service and food amazing. We took a tour of the Ruins which was in parts interesting, boring, and terrifying. Interesting because well…they are ruins, boring because our guide gave a LOT of details, and terrifying because said guide had a seizure while we were in one of the caves. Apparently the seizure thing happens to him a lot because he popped right back up and insisted on continuing the tour but it scared the crap out of us. We also frequented a really good restaurant (and their happy hour beverage menu). The time flew by and all too soon it was time for them to abandon their first born and return to hot running water. The trip went perfectly, the only complaint I got was from my father: “Why isn’t there more Mexican food here?” I’ll let that comment stand on its own, but in case you all were thinking of it, I call getting him an atlas and a slap on the back of the head for Christmas.

Life in General
So what have I been up to since? A couple more trainings, random weekends in La Esperanza, and classes. I am still teaching English classes as well as career training (future training?) classes, and sex ed classes. I am also part of Colo’s cultural committee. Committee meetings frequently make me want to jump out a window (alas there are no buildings over 2 stories here…). They always start late, are frequently 4 hours long, and very rarely accomplish anything. Oh, and I’m not Honduran so culture wise I have very little to contribute….oh well…. I am also counseling a bunch of kids in the colegio (because as we all know, I am a psychiatrist). At first I was apprehensive about this because I am not exactly qualified and my Spanish sucks but what it comes down to is the kids need someone to vent to and I am the perfect person because I am pretty much the only person in Colomoncagua that is not somehow related. What else… a couple months ago I helped a girl apply for a scholarship (and by “helped” I pretty much mean I got the forms for her and smiled at her while she filled them out…) and she got it! She is going to be studying in Wisconsin. Anyone interested in sending a welcome to America package, let me know! I just saw her for the last time today (she leaves next week) and she is really excited and nervous.

I don’t have any other individual stories that I can remember so I figured I would sum up two different “average” days.
Typical Day 1 (took place a couple weeks ago):
I woke up at 6:15, cold bucket bath, coffee, breakfast. Then I met a group of teachers at 7:15 to get a jalon to the school where I give classes. My first class was an English class for 7th graders. I started out as usual, standing in front of the class making an ass out of myself by butchering Spanish. Then, because they have an unnerving habit of staring blankly at me when I ask for participation, I TRICKED them into participating by playing a game. Thank you Masters in education… I repeated this an hour later with the 8th graders. Then I gave a brief Spanish class to the 9th graders. We ended early because I am also giving the 9th graders “career planning” classes. To be honest, I don’t really like this particular program but luckily I have a great counterpart (an 18 year old girl named Audely I roped into going to the training with me) so it isn’t as painful as it could be. The class is designed to help adolescents start thinking about future careers. It sounds great on paper but to be honest I am a bit conflicted as to how applicable it is to their situation. A lot of the words the workbooks use are too big (for them and for me) and the aptitude tests are convoluted and basically just too complicated to be any good. BUT we persevere and I think occasionally the kids get something out of it. After I was done with the 9th graders, I went to teach my classes to the 6th graders. The 6th graders are my favorite. It is a shorter class (20 minutes) and it is just an introduction to English so we pretty much just learn some vocab and then play games like Pictionary and charades to practice them. When I was done teaching, I went with Audely to her house to help her mom and aunt make tamales. I spent a couple hours there and then her mom and I headed back to town. It takes about 1 ½ to walk and it was pouring rain but luckily we managed to get a jalon after about 15 minutes of slogging through the mud. The jalon was in a rickety old truck that had exhaust streaming in through the cracks in the windshield and the heating vents. Poor Audely’s mom was trying to peel the tape off the window next to her so she could breathe. We got into town and I went back home. I did a little bit of cleaning and worked out in my “home gym” and then at 6 it was time to go to a committee meeting. Three hours later (seriously) I headed home and watched a show or two on my computer then went to bed.

• Side story: my committee involvement ended up in me playing basketball in front of the whole town. Just imagine. Me. Playing basketball. In front of people. The tournament was supposed to start at 1, so naturally it started at 6:30. Guess who got to sit by the sound system “guarding” it all day. Yuuuuup. My team lost and the tournament ended early due to downpours. Bummer.

Typical Day 2 (today):
I woke up at 7:30 and started to get ready to go to the Colegio. I noticed that it was a lot quieter than normal and peeked out my window and came to the conclusion that the colegio canceled classes. The teachers are striking (not a very rare thing here). So, I read for a while. Then Rubidia (girl with the scholarship) came to visit. Then I made lunch. Then I read for a while. Then I bought eggs. Then I read for a while. Then I made dinner. Then I read for a while. And here we are. It’s a wild life…..

So. That’s it. Miss you all. Come visit.
ps. if the internet cooperates, there will be a few new pictures up
also, if you interested and have time (which obviously you do if you are reading this) go to youtube and type in Colomoncagua. There are a couple videos of the town and Semana Santa (Running of the Jews). I havent actually seen them because youtube is way beyond my internet capabilities but check it out!

Home Sweet Home, etc

Alrighty, it has been a couple of months so here is what I have been up to….

Reconnect Workshop

• At the end of February I went to a meeting of all the youth development volunteers. It was a short 14 hours away (3 different busses). I had to bring a community member with me so it was great trying to convince someone to ride 14 hours on a bus, be in meetings for one day, and then turn around and go home (I stayed the whole week but we only needed counterparts for the first day). The first person I convinced to go with me conveniently hurt her ankle the night before we were supposed to leave. She didn’t call to tell me that she was cancelling but luckily I stopped by her house to make sure she was ready to go in the morning. After she backed out I went to a birthday party at Edna’s house and luckily ran into another teacher that agreed to go with me at the last minute. Reconnect was a lot of fun, except for all of the actual learning and sharing and meeting stuff. There are about 30ish youth development volunteers in Honduras, half got here a year before me and the rest arrived with me. The veterans shared a lot of their experiences and successful projects which was helpful. I also got to see a lot of people I either had never met or hadn’t seen since training. It was great to hang out with everyone.

Escaping the Tsunami and participating in the Olympics

• Right after reconnect I went with a couple friends to a tiny island called Amapala off the southern coast of Honduras. We were there to participate in a REF meeting (religious equity forum). The first night we got there we swam and hung out enjoying the island. The next morning we were planning on having our discussion sessions but fijase que there was an earthquake in Chile. We were told that there was a possibility that there was a tsunami headed towards us and Peace Corps essentially told us to run up to the top of the volcano in the center of the island. We (some of us begrudgingly) did so and luckily there was never a tsunami so we headed back down a couple hours later. Later a couple of us headed back to Choluteca on the mainland for a going away party. The theme of the party was (beer) Olympics. It was a lot of fun and there were a ton of volunteers there. The winner received an elaborately carved chalice (volunteers tend to have a little too much time on their hands). Then, I headed home to my.....
  

New house!

• I have a new house of my very own, there are pictures up. It is a little ridiculous because I have no furniture but, I like it. I salvaged an old school desk from the backyard and put my stove on it. Unfortunately it has termites (or something) but I am hopeful that it will hold up for another year and a half. The rest of my furniture is made of the finest plastic so I am not concerned about the termites spreading. The greatest thing about the house is that there is a mango tree and a papaya tree in the backyard. Right now it is mango season so I eat about a million and three every day.

Actual work…ish

• I have settled into a relatively regular schedule now. I am teaching classes at an aldea (outside of town) school Tuesdays and Thursdays. It kind of sucks because I get a ride there but I have to walk home and it takes about an hour. When I finally get back into town everyone I see is thrilled to tell me how red and tired I look and they always yell at me for not bringing an umbrella for shade. I know I should but I always forget and plus, I need a little pigmentation. Mondays and Wednesdays I teach classes in the elementary school in town. Friday I hold little mini counseling sessions with kids in the colegio (high school). It is not so much counseling because (despite the rumors) I am not a psychologist, but it is a chance for the kids to talk about their lives and futures with a quasi authority figure who isn’t going to judge them or try to push them one way or another. So far it is my favorite thing I have done but it is kind of sad sometimes because a lot of these kids are up against a lot.

Semana Santa

• The week before Easter is a big deal in Honduras. School is out and everyone goes to visit family/beaches/etc. I had some grand plans for Semana Santa but unfortunately got sick the weekend before so I had to cancel them. I pretty much spent Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday in a coma and then rallied Wednesday night. On Thursday I went to a birthday party with my host family (see pictures). It was fun but by the end of it (I was there for like 5 hours) I was exhausted. The next day my friend Blair came from her site to see a Colo tradition. Every year during Semana Santa a bunch of the boys and men in town dress up as “Jewish people.” For whatever reason, this usually involves tight women’s clothing and really freaky Halloween-esq masks. They parade through the town fighting each other with wooden machetes and being “chased” by statues of Jesus and Mary. There are several different “showtimes” for the parade. During the final “shows” a bishop-y looking guy with a metal machete joins the fight and he starts beating on the “Jewish” people. It is one of the strangest, most politically incorrect things I have ever seen in my life. Needless to say I was laughing my ass of but also, to be completely honest, kind of worried about having nightmares because some of the guys looked pretty freaky. I tried to take pictures but unfortunately I just couldn’t capture the “magic” but they are up as well.
• The day before Easter I went to the beach in El Salvador with my host family (see pictures). It was kind of like a trailer park version of a beach. We parked in a circle behind a beachfront building and hung up hammocks. No one really sat out like you would at an American beach. I kind of looked like a killer whale in my all black outfit and radiating white skin. Lucky for me, the radiating white skin quickly morphed into neon red, so I was less killer whale, more stupid burnt gringa. The car ride home from the beach was quite an adventure. In El Salvador all the roads are paved, which means you can actually go above 20 mph (something my host dad took full advantage of). However, as soon as you cross the border the road turns into a terrible pile of dirt and rocks. This pile is made even more terrible when there are torrential downpours, just like the one right before we arrived back in Honduras. The rain turned the very hilly road into a mudslick. We basically almost had to sleep in the car because we couldn't get up the hills, but, with a lot of jumping and pushing and luck we made it.
  

This is admittedly kind of a half-assed blog but I let too much time pass and now I can’t remember what I’ve been doing. However, the parental figures are going to Honduras in less than a week and I promise I will take diligent notes because I am sure we will get ourselves into some rather ridiculous situations. So, I leave you with the promise of future tales of Ma and Pa Kettle in Honduras.

Try this ham, it's made of chicken!

Well, I suppose it has been a while and I have been yelled at a couple of times for not writing, so I will do my best to remember the events of the past month or so….my method is to scribble down a word or so on a piece of paper so I remember to write about it when I finally sit myself down. Unfortunately I am currently looking at my scribbles and I have no idea what some of them are referring to (seasons? What does that refer to Sarah?). Considering I have been doing a whole lot of nothing lately, this is pretty pathetic but, oh well.

• To begin this story, I have to give a brief explanation of my room (not sure if I have already). Anyway, I live in an apartment over the garage. To get to my room you have to climb up a set of stairs and cross a balcony. My only window looks out over my neighbors’ roof. Keep this visual in mind…The other night I was sitting in my bed reading. It was around 10:30. Now 10:30 may not seem super late to you but it is the Honduran equivalent of about 1:30 (most nights I am in my pjs by 8, I know…party animal). Suddenly there was a knock on my door. I asked who it was and the person (a man) just kept saying “soy yo” (it’s me). Well, as I was not sure who “yo” was referring to I was certainly not going to open the door. So, I did the only thing I could think of, which was nothing. I sat frozen in my bed and refused to say anymore. He knocked for a little while longer and then finally I heard him leave. Needless to say I was relieved. I continued reading and then I heard whistling and “Sarrrriiiitaaaa” “sarrrrriiitaaa” I assumed that the guy had decide to continue trying to talk to me from the road outside of my house. Then, I looked up and what do I see outside my second story window? Creepy man trying to shove his face between my window bars. I jumped up and immediately pulled the curtain all the way shut and told him to go away. “But I only want to talk to you!” I could not figure out how to say “creeper” in Spanish so I spanglish yelled at him and then called my host family’s landline. My host mom picked up and I told her what was going on. My host dad wasn’t home yet but she told me she was going to call him. About 10 minutes later I heard them rushing up the steps. My rescue party consisted of my host dad, my host mom armed with a machete, and my 7 year old host brother. Normally I would question the thought process that would lead to bringing both a machete AND a 7 year old, but who am I to question my rescuers? I have seen him punch his siblings pretty hard in the face so, who knows. At this point Creeper McGee was long gone. We stood on the balcony for a little bit discussing the incident and then they went back to the house. I went back into my room and settled in. Then, I heard noises on the balcony. I debated calling the host family again when I got a text message from my host dad. It said “Sarita, I am sorry if you heard me, I turned off all the lights and I am hiding in the hammock to see if he will come back and I can catch him!” The next day he installed a stronger lock on my door. Needless to say, I am well taken care of here. My only problem is that we never figured out who it was so now every time I see a guy between 18 and 30 I suspect him of being the creeper…

• My host mom really likes to make pizza, which for some reason is pronounced peekza here. Peekza cannot possibly be made without “queso Kraft” and ham. I don’t really know why those two ingredients are so crucial but it is literally unheard of to make it without, especially without queso kraft (which is that yellow cheese that comes wrapped in plastic and is generally pretty terrible tasting.) The peekza is decent, but the queso kraft tends to form a layer of melted plastic that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Oh, and the ham is inexplicably made of chicken…yum. Speaking of chicken, the other day one scared the bejesus out of me because it was tied to a table in the courtyardish area. Guess what we had for lunch the next day? Sorry buddy.

Visiting!
At the beginning of the month I ventured out to my friend Christine’s site which is..only…an 11 hour voyage. I decided to visit because 1) I enjoy Christine’s company, 2) I was bored, and 3) it was her site’s feria. Pretty much every pueblo in Honduras has their own feria, which is pretty much like a town fair. My day began when I got up at 3 am. I was on the bus by 3:30, and I assure you I was looking positively divine. It was the standard 4 hour ride to La Esperanza, and I frequently drifted off and was awoken when I slammed my head into the window (bruised? Yes.) When I got to La Esp I threw my stuff on the bus and then went to grab some breakfast, since I had about 45 minutes to kill. Imagine my surprise when 15 minutes later I was finishing up my coffee and saw my bus (and my stuff) starting to pull away. I ran out and threw my body in front of the bus to make him stop. Luckily, the breaks were working and I hopped on. I ended up in a nice roomy seat in the very back of the bus. I was finally comfortable and started to go to sleep. Then the lady in front of my opened her window. Now, I know it will come as a surprise but the La Esp area is actually pretty cold sometimes. I would say it was about 55-60. This, when you are on a bus that actually occasionally goes above 30 mph, is cold. She was wedging her head out the window and spiting a lot (which was flinging back in and hitting the guy sitting next to me, lovely.) Obviously she was feeling car sick but geez lady, close the window and use the barf bag. As we drove, we picked up more and more people and they had to stand, and since I was on the back there were a lot packed in around me. The sick lady retreated under a towel and the guy sitting next to me shut her window (hero!). Therefore, I was able to sleep for a bit. When I woke up I looked around me and came to the slow realization that EVERYONE around me was desperately clutching their barf bags to their faces. I somehow ended up in the puke capital of the world. Gross. I was definitely not upset when my bus pulled up to my stop. I got off and (naturally) headed straight to Wendy’s for a little comida Americana. Then I popped in the grocery store (an actual supermarket!) and purchased some essential supplies for my visit (these supplies may rhyme with drum and dodka). I also bought some peekza supplies as Christine is Italian and makes a mean peekza (despite the fact that it lacks queso kraft and hamchicken). Then I headed for my next bus. Another very dusty four hours later I pulled into Christine’s (very hot) site. We dropped my stuff off at her house, I attempted to beat the dust out of my once black, now brown, pants and we headed to watch a soccer game. Then we visited her friends and headed to watch bull riding. The bull riding was interesting to watch. I still can’t decide which was more frightening; watching the bulls and the crazy men or the makeshift bleachers we were sitting on. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience. In addition to the bull riding and bull baiting, they had dancing horses which were cool. Then we headed to Christine’s house and I took a much needed nap while she went to watch the town queen crowned. That night there was a dance so Christine, her site mate, and I went and confirmed the fact that gringos can’t dance. It was a pretty wild night, especially considering the fact that I was going on zero sleep. The next day I was essentially dead. Christine went to a baptism and I slept more because I literally could not move. In addition to being super tired, I had a mysterious bite on my foot and it swelled up to about twice the normal size and had a lovely puss bubble on it. Charming. Later that day we went and visited her friends and watched traditional dancing. Then we went to a wake. That’s right. A wake. Typical. Slightly awkward considering I did not know the woman who died, but… an interesting cultural experience? FYI we went to the wake at 10:30pm. Honduran Catholic wakes last 24 hours (I think) and people show up when they want to. Then Christine and I headed home. I was excited to go to bed but unfortunately, in addition to the mystery bite on my foot, I also got attacked by biting ants so BOTH my feet were terribly swollen, itchy and painful so I spent most of the night reading with my feet soaking in water like an old woman. The next day we headed to a river to swim. The trip home was, as expected, pretty painful (especially with my giant gross feet). I had the pleasure of talking to a man that kept repeating a phone number to me. He informed me it was the telephone number of California. Really? How does California pick up the phone, it doesn’t have hands.

Colo’s Feria
This week was Colo’s feria. We kicked it off by going to the first round of the Miss Colomoncagua contest. Sounds harmless enough, right? Three hours later, I wasn’t quite sure. They only had three outfit changes (“casual” which translates to borrowing your infant sister’s mini skirt and wearing a tube top, “cowboy” which again involved said infant’s mini skirt paired with a button up shirt tied in such a way that the entire stomach shows, and “sporty” which, believe it or not also frequently involved the mini skirt (I recall how I loved wearing miniskirts when I played soccer…)). The girls “modeled” for a million years. They would walk around the stage a thousand times (it was sort of like they were being flushed down a giant toilet, around and around and around), then they would walk down the “catwalk.” Then they would do it in pairs. Then in groups of four. Then they would walk diagonally. Then in a circle again. Literally, hours of this. The second round was held about a week later and was no different, except there was a ball gown section instead of a sporty section. Miniskirts continued to be well represented. After the girls answered pretty typical questions (“What do you think we should do about the trash in Colo?”….uhhhh throw it in a can instead of the street?) the queen was finally crowned. After the crowning there was a huge dance. I opted not to go to the dance considering the last dance I attended resulted in me getting mauled by every bolo in the place (not to mention the infamous machete dancer).

• A couple days later it was time for the Little Miss Colomoncagua contest. My host mom asked me if I could blow dry and straighten my little sister’s hair for it. She said “I am sure you know how to do it, because I don’t!” um.. have you seen the seven straight hairs on my head that dry in one minute? I will try but am certainly no expert. I think I ended up doing a pretty good job. The Little Miss contest had a casual category, cowboy category and fancy category. It was (slightly) shorter than the grownup version. My host sister ended up being the Queen of Peace (everyone got a title). I found this quite ironic considering the fact that she screams 95% of the day.
• The rides at the feria are an American lawyer’s worst nightmare (or greatest dream, if they are the type that enjoys nothing more than the sight of an ambulance’s taillights). Nothing is roped off, and the boys enjoy playing chicken with the rides. The Ferris wheel (aka wheel of Chicago) goes about a million miles an hour. The rickety little seats swing like crazy and there is not height requirement. I opted not to ride. Another great danger is the plethora of French fry venders. I assure you they are not checked over by a health inspector (six day old grease, dirty potatoes, and warm mayo…yummmmy).
• One of the most popular things in the feria are the shooting games. My host brothers have spent pretty much the whole week shooting pellet guns at army men. The culminating event was an actual real pistol/rifle shooting contest. Where did this take place? Right outside my house. Slightly frightening given the amount of young children and old bolos milling about, but at least I got a good seat.
• I realize my report of the feria has been a bit negative nancy-ish. It really is a great event and the whole town pulls together to make it happen. In addition, I got a super nice hammock for the equivalent of about 15 dollars! As for the other stuff, I am just a grouchy hater of crowds and ceremonies.

House news: I should be moving into my very own house at the beginning of next month. Wooooo. My landlord is actually one of my counterparts and is super nice. He and his family just opened a restaurant in one of their houses which is right by my future house. They used to live in the restaurant house so it has a nice living room and a tv (separate from the restaurant) which he invited me to use whenever I wanted. Considering I will not have a couch and maybe won’t have a tv, this is great news.
Work news: School started today! This means I will be working again (hopefully). Unfortunately I will still be teaching a fair amount of English but I am also going to have other projects to work on so I am pretty excited. It is crazy how different school works here. As an example, last night we were at the feria and my host mom and a friend sent my host brother to the director of the elementary school’s house to find out if school would be starting today. His reply “yeaa, I think so.” I got to the elementary school this morning and we sang the national anthem and listened to some speeches and then the teachers had a faculty meeting. This is while all the children are running wild outside. We talked for about an hour and a half and were actually discussing who would teach which grade and in which classroom. Can you imagine showing up to an elementary school in the States on the first day and finding out that the teachers weren’t even positive which grades they would be teaching? Crazy.

That’s about it for now. I think I forgot a whole lot, I will try to be better about updating. Miss you all!

I'm on top of the world! and bare-assed in a hole...

Happy New Year everyone! I can’t believe it is 2010. It seems like only yesterday the Krings hoard was celebrating the millennium by vomiting together as the clock struck midnight (a family tradition I am happy to say did not continue past that year, maybe it will remain a purely millennial tradition). Anyway… my new years was certainly different than last year, and all the years previous. Instead of wandering around DC in heels I was climbing Honduras’ version of Mount Everest. That’s right, I climbed the tallest mountain in Honduras in celebration of the New Year. In a way I think it was very metaphorically fitting, as I am certain the coming year will be more challenging and (hopefully) more rewarding than most. My only hope is that I do not smell quite so bad or look quite so grimy (metaphorically or otherwise) at the end of the year.

My mountain adventure began, as do most of my adventures, with the lovely 5am, 4 hour bus ride to La Esperanza. There I met up with a bunch of fellow H-15ers who I hadn’t seen since training. It was really amazing to see them and was great to speak English and share stories. From La Esperanza, we headed to Gracias, Lempira to meet up with the rest of the hiking crew. All in all there were 12 of us (I think). The next morning we got up, ate a big breakfast, and took a van to the base of the mountain. We all piled out of the van, strapped on our backpacks and started to walk. We walked for about 30 minutes and already I was thinking “Why am I doing this?” Then we arrived at the welcome center. Not a good sign when you are questioning your motives and have not ACTUALLY reached the starting line. Anyway, we hiked for about 5 hours and finally made it to our base camp. Well, we thought we made it to the base camp, it was a nice camp site with a latrine and a pavilion so we assumed it was the camp we had read about. It was not. The actual camp site was about 30 more minutes up the mountain. However, the fake camp site was a heck of a lot nicer than the real camp site so it was a fortunate error. The hike was pretty tiring. Most people had super cool backpacking bags but I just had my stupid backpack from walmart loaded down with a million pounds of stuff so my back was killing me. But, we made camp (and by “we” I mean the 5 or so people that actually had half a clue what they were doing) and made dinner and all was good.

• I think I should take a minute to explain just how wildly unprepared I was for this particular journey. I did not even pack a flashlight. What kind of person goes camping sans flashlight? Apparently me. Considering it was maybe my second time camping ever, I am choosing to label my stupidity naivety instead.

The next day (New Year’s Eve) we hiked another 5 (very steep) hours to the top of the mountain. The hike, though hard, was beautiful. Celaque is a cloud forest so everything was super green and the trees were humongous. When we got to the top, it was unfortunately too cloudy to see much (apparently on the rare clear day you can see San Salvador). We mainly just saw…cloud. But, it was still great to be on top of Honduras, plus I rewarded myself with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so obviously that was awesome. The trip down the mountain was just as hard (and I think a bit more dangerous) than the trip up the mountain. A couple of us spent a majority of the way down clinging to tree branches and laughing at each other’s falls. Although there were no serious injuries, grace was definitely not one of the prevailing themes of the day. Once we made it back to our camp we made dinner and all sat around the fire. We talked and made smores and a few of us even managed to stay up until 12 to ring in the new year. In the morning we trudged back down the rest of the mountain and headed to a lovely hotel in Gracias. Everyone was abuzz about how great the hot showers were so I was super excited. Unfortunately, I was one of the last ones to jump on the shower wagon and did not get any hot water, which was definitely disappointing. However, I had a giant plate of fettuccini alfredo and a brownie which more than compensated for the lukewarm shower. Then we all went to bed in nice cozy soft beds.
I headed home the next day. The journey home was exhausting, and the bus popped two tires in between La Esp and home but I finally made it. As I walked up to the house all of the kids were playing outside and gave me a horrified look and sprinted into the house. Obviously, this caused me some concern. As I climbed the steps to my room I heard frantic whispering and scurrying about. As I rounded the corner I was just in time to see my host mom desperately flinging suitcases out of my room. Apparently family had come to visit so the family put them up in my room. I didn’t really care but was a little annoyed they seemed to think I would be stupid enough not to notice…

• In related news, I have been “in negotiations” with a guy in my community for my very own house, hopefully I should move in within the next month or so.

The next weekend I headed to Teguc to pick up packages and medicine. On the way I met up with another volunteer and we stopped by a friend’s house in San Jeronimo for the night. We made baked pasta and apple pie and it was super delicious (again, by “we” I mean “they”). The next morning we continued on to Teguc. Teguc was great, more or less like being in America again. I went to the mall, saw Avatar (cool looking but too long for someone with the attention span of a fly), and ate yummy food (way too much yummy food). My friend Christine and I shared a hotel room and watched a lot of English TV. Unfortunately, we were morons and the mail room and medical office in the Peace Corps office aren’t open on the weekend so we had to wait until Monday to get our stuff. The packaged were well worth the wait (not so much the malaria meds that taste like crap and have weird side effects) I think I now have enough stuff to stock the average American snack food isle in a grocery store. So thank you to Aunt Betty, Aunt Karen, the Putnams, Doris and Blossom, and the parents, I appreciate everything so much! The trip back from Teguc was epic, too long and exhausting to write about but just to sum it up, it involved many busses, many hours, and the first time in the history of the world the Colo bus has actually left at 3:00pm (which was problematic as I arrived in La Esp at 3:05). But, I finally made it home and went to bed at approximately 6pm.
This past weekend I went into La Esperanza for a birthday party. A bunch of other volunteers came to celebrate and we had a lot of laughs. Coincidently, it was also La Esperanza’s Feria (fair). It was the potato feria (woooo) which meant that there were French fries everywhere (apparently there are no other uses of the potato). The feria was slightly lame because it was supposed to be in June or July but was rescheduled because of the golpe. A highlight of the feria had to be when a man walked by one of the other volunteers and queried, in perfect English, “Are you wearing panties?” Really buddy, that’s the English sentence you chose to memorize? A highlight of the trip would have to be Dona Maria’s baleadas. Baleadas are a traditional Honduran food, it is a flour tortilla filled with beans, mantequilla, eggs, and avocado. There are a lot of variations, but that is the standard. Dona Maria’s house is about a 30 minute walk from the main part of town but it is well worth it. Not only is her food delicious, she is about the cutest little old lady you could imagine. If any of you come to visit, I will force you to walk the 30 minutes so prepare yourselves. The bus ride home from La Esp was rather trying because I sat next to a man who tried to woo me, for four hours. He is a nice guy but slightly obnoxious, I finally had to proclaim that I could not possibly have a novio (boyfriend) for at least one whole year because I was too busy acclimating to Honduran life. To this he replied “well, I can help you acclimate!” ughhhh get the point. I might have to invent a pretend giant, strong, extremely jealous novio in the states….

A few random stories:

• A while ago I was sitting on the porch with the empleada (the lady that cooks and cleans for my host mom….this isn’t very unusual here in Colo, most people either work in a school or work for someone who works in a school). I noticed a little boy who couldn’t be more than two sitting bare-assed with his feet in a hole. Now, this wouldn’t be totally unusual but he was sitting in the middle of a field where two under-aged, under-muscled children were learning how to ride motorcycles/playing motorcycle tag. In light of recent events (please see Christmas entry) this made me slightly nervous, especially since there appeared to be no one monitoring the child. I said something to the effect of “Oh my goodness look at that little boy!” the empleada looked at me and said “What do you think he is thinking?” Now, I was expecting something more along the lines of “yea, we should go move him” or “where are his parents?” so I was a little confused and told her I had no idea what he must be thinking. She then gave me an all-knowing look, sighed and responded “Well Sarita, his feet are in a hole, that means he wants to die, or is at least very seriously thinking about death.” Oh. Uh, a suicidal 2 year old? To be honest I am just not sure he was thinking about his own death. And if he was contemplating suicide I think the big indicator would not be that he stuck his feet in a hole, but that he was sitting smack dab in the middle of a practice session of the world’s most inexperienced motorcyclists
• In light of the recent earthquakes in Haiti* and Guatemala my host mom calmly looked at me the other day and said “I think the world is probably ending, since all these bad things are happening.” And then continued to sweep the floor as if she had not just predicted the apocalypse. *If you were thinking of sending me a package, don’t. Send your money to Haiti, they need it way more than I need a chocolate bar.
• I went to a family birthday party the other day at Edna’s house. Everyone was talking and laughing (I was more sitting in the corner and smiling when other people smiled because I still can’t follow/contribute to large group conversations). Somehow the conversation took a turn for the dirty and the grandmother started singing lines from a popular song entitled Como se Mata el Gusano. This means How do you kill the worm. What is this song about? Well, think of the most vulgar thing a worm could stand for, and then imagine “killing” it. The song describes the necessary motions in detail. Now imagine a grandmother singing it. Now boil your brain to erase the memory.

That’s about all for now, I started up one of my classes again (just one this time, 3 days a week) so I have that to look forward too. I am going to try to start planning things for the coming school year so I’ll let you know how that goes. Miss you all, thanks again for all the packages! Happy new year.