So it´s been
a while again… and this time it looks like I’ve written the better part of a
book. There has been a lot of stuff that has happened since I wrote last. I
tried to break the entry up into sections so that you could read the sections
that interest you, or get a snack half way through or something. There is much
more that happened then what I had time to put into words, feel free to shoot
me an email if you want to know more.
Pictures from Vacation
Pictures from Vacation
Christmas
I spent
Christmas with my host family in a town called San Jose, where both my host
parents grew up. I am glad to have experienced Honduran Christmas but I can’t
say that it will be difficult to go back to Christmas I grew up with. I don’t
claim that my experiences are pan-Honduras Christmas traditions, but I have
heard similar stories from others. Firstly Hondurans will say that they
celebrate on the evening of the 24th, I fell for that. They really
mean midnight or 1 a.m. which then is really the 25th.
The 24th
started early when my host family and I loaded the truck at five in the morning
for a two hour drive to San Jose. The 24th seemed to be a full day
of cooking, thus the reason for leaving super early. Traditional Christmas
foods my family made were: tamales, bread, and leg of lamb. I spent most of the
day with my host brother, Christian, visiting relatives and of course every
place you go gives you a little something to eat. I don’t think I actually ate
a meal all day. The “evening” of the 24th
celebration consisted of the kids setting off fire works in the street followed
by a secret Santa gift exchange at midnight with my host Mom’s family. And
since we’re on Honduras time, we didn’t get started before 12:30 a.m. So
everyone was tired yet excited, plus everyone wanted to joke around making it
impossible for anyone to give secret Santa instructions. When the exchange
finally ended we had coffee and sweet bread before going home at two in the
morning. It was a long day.
The 25th
was really relaxed with no plans and lots of leftover food. I took advantage of
being in a really safe small town and went for a run in the mountains,
something I miss being able to do. The traditions here feel different so much
that I forgot it was Christmas a couple of times, each time asking myself, “How
do you forget it’s Christmas?” It was interesting to participate in different
traditions and to think that these traditions mean as much to people here as my
traditions back home mean to me.
Roatan
I was lucky
to have my girlfriend, Liz, able to come visit during my SALT term. She arrived
the evening of the 1st, and the following morning we left to go
check out Roatan. Roatan is the biggest of the islands off the north coast of
Honduras and is famous for its large coral reefs, white sandy beaches, and blue
waters. We took a 2 hour ferry ride from the main land to the island. We
arrived on the tail end of a storm so the ferry ride out was kind of rough, and
the water was stirred up for the first day or so. The weather and water cleared
up in time with gorgeous days at the end of our time on the island. Roatan has
amazing diving and snorkeling. Unfortunately the cost of diving would stretch a
MCC stipend a little too thin and because of the weather early on limited our
chances of snorkeling. I went through culture shock a little upon arriving
because we were still in Honduras, but the island culture is different and has
a lot of American influence because of tourism. I found myself unsure of what
language to speak because my instinct right now is to speak Spanish unless I
know the person speaks English, and most people there will first engage in
English unless they know I speak Spanish.
We had a
great time and relaxing time on the island, I had wanted to go ever since our
family came in ‘05. The town where we stayed, called the West End, has a main
road that travels about a half mile along the beach with lots of diving
companies, souvenir shops, and restaurants. We tried a few of the restaurants
plus we found a place that sells fresh fish and were able to do some cooking.
Shrimp curry happened a couple of times. More than once we found ourselves on
the deck of a restaurant watching a Cruz ship slide silently by in the near
distance.
One of the
mornings we took some kayaks out to explore the bay. We raced around, gliding over clear blue
water and live coral that was sometimes as close as a foot or so from the
surface. The waves that hit the bay would break at the entrance of the bay
because of the coral, which made the water calm inside the bay. Liz found out
that you could kayak surf and ride the waves that were breaking at the entrance
of the bay. This was fun until a wave caught her kayak at the right angle to
roll her out and carry the kayak away, leaving here stranded in a patch of
shallow coral. Luckily I was able to retrieve the kayak and she could use her
oar to push away from the coral to avoid bad injuries. But the scrapes she did
get made the idea of being in salt water much less appealing.
Guatemala
When Liz
booked a ticket to come down, we knew that I had a MCC retreat scheduled for
one of the weeks she would be here. It was a weird situation, me going to
Guatemala while she was in Honduras visiting me. But it was the only time a
visit would work, so we made the most of it. Liz spent a week in Copan while I
met up with MCCers from all of the Central American countries in Guatemala. It
was cool to catch up with SALTers whom I haven’t seen since orientation as well
as meet other longer term team members. The location of the retreat was on a
lake call Atitlan, which is a gorgeous lake
surrounded by towering volcanoes. It was interesting to make comparisons
between Honduras and Guatemala. I at one point had the naïve notion that all of
Central America was practically the same. I’m still amazed by how blatantly
wrong I was.
After
Guatemala
After
returning to Honduras I had a week left with Liz to give her a tour of my SALT
life. We went to visit the Stephens (MCC family just outside of San Pedro). We
went to see a waterfall, sailing on the lake, and ate fresh coconut. Then went
back to San Pedro to visit my host family and see where I live and work. My
host mom (Consuelo) taught us how to make flour tortillas, which was hilarious.
Consuelo can make perfectly round ones in half the time it took us to make
shapes like footballs or Swiss cheese. Then for diner, Consuelo served Liz’s
tortillas to me and my attempts to Liz. It was a fun night and I was able to
translate which takes a lot of energy, but kind of fun.
Now the
vacation is over and I’m back to work. I’m registering students for my next
round of classes which start next week. It’s a little tough to switch back into
work mode, I was getting used to vacation, travel, and visitors.
On a more
somber note, my grandma (Erna Graber from South Dakota) passed away this month.
I was not able to go home to attend the funeral. It was hard not to be able to
go, but I’m really lucky to have support of the MCC team. It has helped a lot.
Thank you
for reading
