First Impressions

First of all, I would like to say I am extremely happy I don´t have the internet at the orphange. I would have updated my blog the first day saying I was in hell... After a full week there now I have adjusted and adapted a bit. My move in was a bit rough. I was locked outside for about 3 hours because everyone had left for a day trip. Then I was let in to the actual orphanage but didn´t have keys to the room my luggage was stored and didn´t have keys to the room where I would be sleeping. Long story short, I was able to sleep on a spare couch after being woken up about 3 times by kids with bloody knees, lips, etc. Although I do still think the conditions should be much better for the kids considering it is a US funded project, I also know that these conditions are better than what they had before. I would like to visit some other projects just for comparison purproses. But I think the main thing that should be improved at this point in time is the medical conditions for the kids. They haven´t been seen by a Doctor in over a year and many of them have lice, ringworms and many other various infections.

My first impression of the orphanage was that it is a terribly ran project... But I am calming down a bit. The kids are filthy, they don´t really bathe, they rarely have soap, they rinse off with a faucet that sits in the dirt in a courtyard. There are 3 dogs at the orphanage allowed indoors that poop and pee everywhere which the kids then sit and walk in... There are insects everywhere. There is no sense of sanitization... I wouldn´t complain about these things if they weren´t possible to improve but the building is a modern building and has the definite potential to be clean as well as the kids...

On a positive note, I am teaching first grade. I have 4 students, Angelo, Ruth, Desmand and Sara. I want to kidnap Angelo. He is this little short, pudgy, roundfaced boy who can walk on his hands for about 5 minutes. He has these huge brown eyes and he loves to learn. He is too sweet for words. The other´s are definitely cute as well but can be very challenging. The other day I had them all coloring together and Angelo was sitting next to Sarah. He would bump into her, intentionally, and then proceed to say, que paso mi amor, in this little innocent voice. It was adorable.

Classes are from 7:30-12 then the kids eat and clean from about 12-2. After that is free time or time for English lessons. I have been playing soccer with the kids which is a blast. The only downside is you are totally drenched with sweat before you even begin to run around. And they don´t fully, actually don`t at all, understand out of bounds, offsides, or any rules of the sport really. Actaully the only thing I think they know is the color of the cards, red and yellow. But it is still a blast.

I hope everyone is well back home. Thanks for the update about the weather, Chris. I had been wondering how you guys were doing, sun, rain, etc.
Take care.

Graduation Day / Update

Today I graduated from the CASS, Central American Spanish School! Every Friday the school has cake and hands out the diplomas to the students who will be moving on. A good majority of the other students are volunteers at various projects in Honduras as well. I was a bit late for my class this morning because I went out with my current roommate who is from Finland. It is her Birthday today, she is turning 21, and so we decided for her Birthday and my last Thursday in Ceiba we would go out. Thursday is ladies night here in Ceiba so all girls get into the club Casona for free and drinks are free as well. We had a blast dancing, the 5 of us white girls, and got home around 3. The club is awesome! There are 3 floors for dancing, it has open ventilation, plays great music and the downstairs is a karaoke bar, KIM!!! A cab ride is about $1, 20 lempiras, beer is about $1.50 or 30 lempiras... It was a really good time. Oh and on all the floors are about 5 guys standing with HUGE guns... All over Honduras actually... Are men with huge guns, armed guards.

This weekend I move to the orphanage. I am really excited about that, but I have become fond of my host family and with other students so I am also a bit sad. I went to the orphanage this past Wednesday to go over how the classes are ran, meet the kids, and plan schedules with the other volunteers. I will either be teaching 2nd grade or 1st grade. I am routing for first grade because the class size is smaller, and I don’t think my Spanish is ready for teaching 2nd grade yet... But we shall see.

Batman comes out here this weekend! There is a movie theatre in Ceiba and it is $2 or 40 lempiras. All the volunteers come into Ceiba on the weekends to watch movies and help pass time. I have seen Hancock and Walle, Hancock was in English with subtitles in Spanish and Walle was dubbed in Spanish.

Ok I am off to my home stay to eat lunch and take a nap. We were all going to head to the river, the 4 other girl volunteers and I, but it is raining today! I feel like I am back in Portland.

Once I am at the orphanage I will only be able to jump on a computer when I trek back to Ceiba so probably once or twice a week.

I hope all is well back home.

Interesting Week

This week flew by! I got a really bad cold which I found odd considering I am in such a warm tropical climate (thank you brother for the reminder). I do have an explanation though... The host family I live with has a female dog, Huala. She is a little brown mut dog that is three years old. None of the dogs here are fixed and I know that there are no veterinarians around. When Huala is in heat, which happened to be this past week, every male dog within 3 miles comes to try and get through to the other side of the fence. ALL night long the dogs have been pawing at the fence right by my window! Dona Bertha has thrown hot water on the dogs and sprayed a couple of them with hairspray and every day we have put reinforcements up on the fence using scraps we find, wood panels, pvc pipe, etc. The two little girls cry terribly every time a dog gets on the other side of the fence thinking it is killing Huala. On Wednesday, when I was feeling my worst, I took a nap and woke up to the girls screaming bloody murder and yelling my name. I ran into the house thinking someone was in the house hurting them or that something had happened to one of the other kids. When I got in the house I saw that they were balling and they were trying to tell me a black dog was killing Huala. I opened the door to see this huge black dog with a huge tongue, glazed eyes, drooling all over, mounting their little brown dog. I tried to explain that the black dog wasn’t killing Huala but the girls wouldn’t stop crying so I took a broom and was able to get the black dog out of the fence, only for it to enter about an hour later followed by about 5 more times that night. So that is my weak explanation of how I got sick.

My school caught on fire Thursday evening. There was a rain storm and the power went out. When it came back on I guess it blew a circuit and caught some gas on fire... There hasn’t yet been a real explanation but that is how I best understand it. The entire upstairs is totalled, but the downstairs is still in decent shape. I watched it on the news with my host family Thursday night... The news people were saying, Americans, Germans, and Hondurans were all dead, they didn’t know how many, but they knew those nationalities. The next day we found out that NO ONE died, but that the 5 people living upstairs lost everything. The upstairs were apartments ran by the school director and it housed 3 orphans, and elderly woman, and a young girl the director was mentoring who works at the school. Friday school functioned as normal but in a house in the neighbourhood I live. After class Friday I went to the school to see if they needed help cleaning up and repairing the upstairs. Rafael, the director said that I wouldn’t be able to help until Monday because they need to first determine the exact cause. So instead I went to the hospital with my host family. One of the daughters who is a bilingual translator at the private hospital is La Ceiba broke her wrist about a month ago. Instead of putting casts on broken bones here they insert these huge needles! She had 5 huge metal needles, looking more like giant nails, about 2 inches apart which ran completely through her arm, in one side and out the other. She said it was constantly painful but that is what they do, no casts. Whether it is a broken collar bone, ankle, arm, etc. They use needles. The hospital was an interesting experience. It is the nicest hospital in Ceiba and there are still insects crawling all over, the elevator is an old shaft elevator, the ex ray machines look like they are from the 1970´s tat they must wheel around. The cafeteria is a little shack outside surrounded by chicken wire. It was interesting. I sat with the two little girls for about 3 hours while Jenny got her nails taken out... She said that the procedure went well.

This weekend I plan on going to the Pico Bonito Lodge to go on a canopy tour or white water rafting... I am still undecided. This will be my last week in Ceiba before heading to the orphanage. I had a meeting at the orphanage Thursday with all of the volunteers working with Helping Honduras Kids. There were about 30 volunteers from all over the world. It was pretty interesting. Also a social worker who is here to work with women’s groups on providing help to women who have been abused. It is insane how common child molestation is here. And the majority of the molestations are by family members... I have heard so many terribly awful stories it makes me sick to think about them...

Ok other than the school, my cold, and the dogs I don’t really have anything knew... I did take a couple more cooking classes from Dona Bertha. Those have been very exciting!

I hope everyone is doing well. I hear the weather has been warm there! I miss you all.

Mary

Cooking Class de Dona Bertha

Last night was my most favorite night thus far in Honduras! I have been joking with my host family since I got here about wanting to take cooking classes from my host grandmother. When I got home last night the grandmother was yelling at the grandkids to clean the kitchen and living room. I thought it was strange since she has never made a fuss about them cleaning before... After about 15 minutes of the grandkids diligently cleaning the house she then yelled for me to come in the kitchen. I ran in and she said it was going to be my first cooking lesson and I was going to learn how to make baleadas. This is all in Spanish of course because Dona Bertha doesn't speak a lick of English. She had me make refried beans, fried eggs with butter and salt, and the handmade corn tortillas. It was a blast! The two little grandkids were jealous I was cooking in the kitchen with their grandmother so she gave them some dough to make their own tortillas. The grandmother wasn't helping me either. She was just yelling orders at me in Spanish while I ran around making sure the tortillas didn't burn, the eggs didn't burn and the beans as well. Also, today Dona Bertha told me that she cooks for her neighbors, a family of 10, everyday for lunch as a side job. Also a young man that works across the street pays to come over to eat lunch everyday. She is a really great cook and only 58 years old with 5 kids and 3 grandkids.

I now know how to make an authentic Honduran cuisine. It was really a great time. After cooking everyone ate at the same time complimenting me on my tortillas. Usually I always eat alone while the family sits around and then they eat once I have left the room. So this was much more enjoyable for me! The kids were playing with different ring tones on one of the cell phones and the Soldier Boy song came on and I got all excited... They were all looking at me funny so I got up and tried to teach the kids how to do the soldier boy dance. I failed miserably but the family had a great time laughing at me. Linda, the little girls would have loved having Curtis here to teach them the dance!

I hope all is well. Yes Greg now I will be able to cook baleadas for you when I get home.

Trip to Utila

I went to Utila this past weekend to explore and help pass time. I went with a girl from Canada 20, a girl from London 26, and a guy from North Carolina 26. We had a blast. Although we are all from totally different walks of life with totally different views it was really fun! Utila is an Island off the coast of Ceiba. There are 3 main islands, Utila, Roatan and Guanaja. Roatan is the largest and the one cruise ships stop. The two islands Utila and Roatan are known for being some of the best and cheapest islands in the world to get your scuba certification ($250.00). It is a 4 day course so I didn’t do it this weekend but I plan on getting it before returning to the states. The boat takes a bit over an hour to get to the island and the drivers do not hold back in any way! They seriously gun it to get to the island. I don’t think they would even stop if someone fell off the boat. I was up in the front outside with the 3 people I was going with and we got seriously from head to toe soaked. Our bags were soaked and everything we had brought was completely soaked. Whose idea was it to sit in the front of the boat the entire time? We have no idea. We arrived on the island soaked and frustrated and knew we would never do that again! We found a hotel with 3 pools for $4 per night! It is nicer than my home stay room! The food was reasonable on the island with a variety of different restaurants. There were bikes and scooters everywhere! The guy we were with rented a scooter and took turns driving us around. We played by the pool and went out to a bar up in a tree house that was incredible. I guess all of the locals and tourists go to that bar and then head up to another bar up the road after midnight in the hills where they can blast music. That was incredible. If I have ever thought that I had any rhythm or could dance even somewhat decently… I now know I have absolutely NO rhythm and no idea how to dance. These Hondurans can DANCE! The women and even little girls here are amazing. I cannot begin to describe it… But that was a very fun night and I was able to get a baleada on the street at 2 am on the way back to the hotel. On the boat ride back to Ceiba we sat in the cabin which was a much better idea. Although we did see a couple of people throw up into the bags they provide on every ride. At least we were all dry and had tons of fun. Utila is a place where many people go to scuba dive and relax that never end up leaving. There are Hondurans from the mainland and all over Central America speaking Spanish, there are actual islanders that speak this slang English with a unique accent, and there are people from all over the world that have gone to visit and never left…

Honduran Food

Everyone knows that I love to eat and that I love food. That is no different here in Honduras. I am SO happy I chose to live in a home stay for my 3 weeks in La Ceiba because all of my meals are authentic Honduran meals prepared (sometimes not timely) by the family. I have absolutely no complaints, actually one little one sometimes the meals can be a bit salty for my taste but I am adapting to it... For breakfast, desayuno, I have fresh fruit which tastes SO much better here in Honduras because they can actually wait until it is ripe to pick it. So I have fresh bananas, mangos, watermelon and my favorite here, pineapple. I also usually have an egg prepared slightly differently every meal. The eggs are always fried and salted and then my favorite is the fried egg rolled in a fresh (I mean handmade in the kitchen that morning) corn tortilla with a sliced avocado. I am already making myself hungry. For lunch, almuerzo, it totally varies. Always a sliced avocado, usually rice with some kind of meat and beans. Baleadas are a typical Honduran meal and that is my favorite for lunch! It is flour tortillas that are much better and a bit thicker than the ones back home. They are folded with homemade refried beans and then you can get an additional topping. Basic baleadas are the tortilla with beans and cheese. You can also get them with avocado, mantequilla (a rich sour cream), meat, eggs, and much more. The best one I had was the beans and eggs in the tortilla. It was awesome! Lunch also always includes a side salad which is a cut-up cucumber, tomato and onion soaked in a light vinegar with a seasoning sprinkled on top. It is delicious! For dinner, cena, it is always a meat, either bistec, chicken, or sausage. My absolute favorite was a pasta which is crazy I know considering this is Honduras. I asked if they made it thinking because I was American I liked spaghetti or if it was a typical Honduran meal, I had never mentioned that I love pasta. They said it was a typical Honduran meal. It was amazing! Spaghetti noodles, with hamburger cooked in a light cream sauce. It was delicious. Oh and last night for dinner it was homemade taquitos. The daughter rolled the dough by hand, stuffed the dough with hamburger and fried them on the stove, melting cheese and pouring a red sauce on top. AMAZING! I told the family I wanted to take cooking classes so tonight I have my first one. I cannot wait! To all those who thought I would lose weight on this trip... I seriously doubt it!

David A

I met up with 3 girls that are currently volunteering at the Hogar de Amor in Agua Caliente. We hitched a ride from La Ceiba to the orphanage, which is just east of a small village that appears on maps called El Cacao. I had assumed that the villages would have little markets with a little main dirt or gravel road and houses or huts surrounding… Nope. Basically there is nothing in Agua Caliente except for the orphanage. I cannot wait to get there! The kids were all adorable! I was only able to stay there for a little over an hour because the last bus heads back to La Ceiba around 5:30 pm which puts you arriving in Ceiba at dusk. Which is cutting is fairly close.

Fortunately, I was able to catch a ride back with David Ashby who is the director of Helping Honduras Kids. On the ride back to Ceiba I told him about the wine tasting fundraiser and how much fun I had had organizing it and how everyone was so generous in their donations and I felt the money was going to go a long way. He was excited as well, but also seemed a bit preoccupied or stressed out. Although I had never met or communicated which him before in my life so he may always come across that way… But he began to tell me facts about Honduras to kind of bring me back down to the reality of what I would be dealing with and what the bigger issues are. This information is coming from a man who lived in Vancouver B.C. and the States and moved to Honduras 30 years ago to work for Dole. He has lived in La Ceiba for the past 30 years and is married to a Honduran woman. He runs the HHK projects and he spends time at all of them daily. He has invested his entire life into helping the kids of Honduras.

Interesting Facts:
- 50% of the Honduras population is 15 years old or younger
- 40-50% of the youth has been abused sexually or has been forced into a life of prostitution, males and females.
- 75% of birth certificates 3 years ago did not list a father’s name. Reasons being either the girl was forced into prostitution and didn’t know who the father was, or she was impregnated by a family member and could not declare it on the birth certificate
- The AVERAGE age of girls giving birth in Honduras is 14 YEARS OLD!

It was also interesting to hear that the prices for gas, electricity and food have gone up 30% in the past 2 months. This is coming from a country who’s daily earnings on average are 2-3$/day. Also, he mentioned that many of the non-profit organizations are REALLY struggling in Honduras because a majority of the monetary donations are from the United States. While the U.S. economy is currently doing poorly it is affecting the organizations throughout Honduras, and I am sure elsewhere in Central America, dramatically. People have stopped sponsoring the kids at the various Helping Honduras Kids sites. I found my meeting with David yesterday very interesting and thought it was worth sharing.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Oscar and CASS

So my Professor Oscar... He is a very amusing guy. We were working out of our book today going over using the preterit, a form of past tense verbs in Spanish. He was asking me about my trip here and I was explaining to him that I sat at the airport for about 9 hours in San Pedro Sula. But I told him a young Honduran boy entertained me. There was a young buy about 7 years old that was playing on a little game boy and he must have been playing a game from the movie 300. 300 is the American movie about the Spartans for those who haven’t watched it or haven’t watched the South Park spoof. About every 5 minutes while he was playing he would run up to either his mom or dad and in English say, "THIS IS SPARTA"! I was dying because other than that he didn't seem to speak a spec of English. As soon as I told Oscar there was a 300 game for game boys and about the boy at the airport he flipped out and seriously acted out the entire movie! He was quoting all of the lines IN ENGLISH, which he is by no means fluent, and acting out all of the action scenes. Once I felt he was winding down to the end of the movie I told him I would give him five minutes and then he needed to teach me some Spanish. He said he ABSOLUTELY loves the movie and I guess quite of few of Hondurans do. He seriously knew EVERY scene of the movie and even the action moves to go along with it. He was using my pen as his sword and his book as his shield. I was dying laughing and told him I was going to bring my camera tomorrow to take a video of him. He then was totally embarrassed and said no... But it still was absolutely hilarious!

At this school there are a total variety of people, which I expected. And many of them are doing volunteer work. There is a family here from LA, CA who are having there kids take 6 weeks of classes, the morning classes, while volunteering in the afternoons. They are hoping that the kids will skip a year of Spanish in High School. The father is a Dr. from LA and he is here to volunteer at the local Hospital. The mother I believe will be volunteering as well. But they are all living in different home stays and just meeting up in the mornings. The father said he felt the need to come here because in LA the majority of his patients speak Spanish and are from Central America and he felt it would really help him to communicate by improving his Spanish. He also felt the need to bring his wife and kids here because he feels his entire family needs to learn that the world is so much bigger than LA and the US. Based on first impressions they are a very neat family and I cannot wait to get to know them better.

Also, I met up with 5 volunteers that are working at various sites for HHK yesterday. It was really great to meet all of them and I cannot wait to get there.

I hope everyone is doing well. Also, I am usually typing these in a rush at an internet café where I am watching the minutes add up. So please disregard all of my terrible grammar errors. Aside from being a terrible writer in the first place I am about 5 times worse when I am in a rush.

PS Andre thanks for the piping comment! Actually as I was walking here I was thinking about that in my head and knew I had typed it wrong! But at least I was close.

Roommates!

So my bed is in the middle of a room which is about 7ft by 7 ft. To the left of my bed there are a toilet and a shower. Again the shower is a pvc pipe coming through the wall which only has running water about every other day. To the right of my bed are a large window and a door. I know have 2 sets of roommates sharing the room with me, which is why I slept terribly last night! I find at least 2 cockroaches roaming my bathroom daily. So usually I stick to the opposite side of my bed as far away as possible so that I can sleep without hearing them enter and without fearing they will crawl into my mouth while I am in a deep slumber. Last night I was on the far side of the bed and I heard this terribly loud sound which sounded like a velosa raptor! I jumped up and grabbed my flashlight and found 3 geckos about 4 inches long chasing each other around the ceiling and wall by the window. Now I know 4 inches is not large, but these things were making the loudest, most terrible sounds. As a result I did not sleep well at all. I laid in the middle of my bed between the cockroaches to my left and the shrieking geckos to my right. I am sure this is one of the things I am really going to miss about Honduras after 5 months of living with it... But at this point in time it is definitely not my favorite thing about my trip.

I got to school thinking I was alone in my critter adventure but a girl I have befriended from London told me when she arrived her room and bed were covered with ants! I think I would rather have the geckos...