The Spanish

I have been fortunate in my life to spend a nice amount of time in 2 different Spanish speaking countries. The first time was in Mexico when I didn't speak a lick of Spanish. I learned a ton but was definitely far from fluent. Much of my time was spent feeling awkward, unsure of how to speak, and sort of trapped in my head because it was difficult to convey any sort of real message to other people. That experience was great for me working as a speech pathologist because I got a tiny glimpse of what it may be like for the kids I work with who know what they want to say but have great difficulty saying it in their primary language. This time around, I know more than I did and I'm not sure exactly how much I'm learning but am confident I could hold my own in some sort of conversational Spanish class....as long as I could speak in the present tense the whole time ;) The same feelings remain: feeling awkward, unsure of how to speak, trapped in my head....but less so than a few years ago.

The kids are fantastic teachers so there is a good chunk of time we practice English (the words they want to learn) and Spanish. Most of them are pretty patient and it's all a huge laugh when we work on pronunciation. The game of, "Say ____" never fails to amuse those participating as my North American pronunciation of certain sounds is highly entertaining. I'm pretty sure I've been taught only appropriate words...by teenagers...but I can't be 100% positive, can I? The other volunteer, Tracy, is fluent in Spanish and English so it is great to have her act as interpreter from time to time.

The least I can do with folks here is use their language to try to communicate. Spanish is such a beautiful language and I have tried really hard to use it to communicate with those around me. It is way more intimidating speaking with adults but it's worth it to see them appreciate the effort...and it's worth it to give those listening a good-hearted laugh with my pronunciations as it's a great way to break the ice. Everyone I've met has been extremely patient and incredibly understanding and helpful with helping me communicate. I have been completely humbled, again, by everyone's generosity. I am happy to say that recently, I really feel like I can understand way more than I could understand when I first arrived 5 weeks ago. I'm pretty excited!

The Trip Out of the Convent

My trip to the mountains of Ocotepeque:

Above is a picture of a 10 year old sister of one of my students trying to show me how fun it is to let this calf take her for a run. She tried really hard to convince me to try. I would have tried....only for for her sake...but the calf would have nothing to do with me.

The #1 thing I learned after getting the amazing opportunity to travel to one of my student's houses...up in the breathtakingly beautiful mountains...is to monitor what I eat 2-3 days before leaving because I can never be sure of the plumbing/toilet/non-toilet/not really a flushing toilet but a squat toilet situation where I'll be staying for 3 days. That's all I'll say about that. The #2 thing is to always bring a flashlight. You never know when you're going to a place where electricity is a luxury.

We took a bus from Santa Rosa de Copan to San Marcos/Ocotopeque. Here is the bus stop in Santa Rosa de Copan. I think I know where old school buses from the States come to retire.
This family was amazing and so welcoming and nice and really took great care of me! The kids loved, loved, loved my camera and successfully exhausted the battery within 4 hours of use. I, unfortunately, did not have the chance to take any pictures of the ride to and from the house on top of the mountain because we arrived at night and when we left my battery was kaput.
This trip made me long for a way to record smells and feelings. The feelings because I'm not sure I can adequately describe the road we traveled to get to the house. 'Bumps in the road' is too weak a phrase. 'Potholes' do not describe them well. These adjectives will have to suffice: rocky, jolting, lurching, jarring. The fact that I had to tell myself to relax because my chances of getting whiplash would be greater if my muscles were tense might give you a bit of an idea. I got a fantastic core workout trying to keep myself from flying from side to side inside the cab of the truck as the driver navigated his way along a very, very, very rough road for an hour and a half. What surprised me the most was that someone had but in intentional speed bumps. It made no sense to me since the driver could not go faster than 10 mph on the parts of the road without speed bumps. I'm not sure who is in charge of the roads in this country but there are often men and children using shovels to fill in some holes and they ask for money from passing drivers. I'm pretty sure they are not paid by the government.
I would have loved to record the smells because there is nothing like fresh food being prepared ALL DAY in the kitchen which is in the middle of this house. I was so grateful for the incredible generosity this family showed me and I felt a bit guilty as they fed me more food in 3 days than I've eaten in two weeks. I'm pretty sure when I arrived back on a Sunday, I was still full by Wednesday.
There is a picture of this family on the side of this blog.

The Water

It's cold. When it rains, we have it. If it doesn't rain, we have less of it. For a day or two we had some hot water in our showers. My shower currently has either freezing or scalding water. For my first few days, I justified that since my heart rate was so fast while bathing, I didn't not need to exercise. That ended when I realized that if I exercise before I take my shower, the water does not feel so cold. And since there is no shortage of food for me, I need to exercise, period.

The People

I don't know where to start. The people here are so nice and generous and helpful and friendly and caring and, and, and....

To the left is a picture of me, Christian (one of the Sisters' hired drivers), and Sor (Sister) Yolonda. We visited the Copan Ruins one weekend.


To the right is a self portrait of me and one of the little sisters at the house in the mountains of Ocoteqeque.

The Sisters are great. At times, I've been a little intimidated but I believe that's because I cannot have a truly meaningful conversation with them due to my lack of Spanish skills. Each one of them has been extremely gracious and helpful and patient with our conversations as I try to learn more and more how to communicate in Spanish. There is another volunteer here. Her name is Tracy and she has been extremely helpful as she is able to bridge the communication barriers that exist. I am so grateful as I am able to double check with Tracy to make sure I understand what the Sisters would like me to do when I don't think I understand. One of the Sisters does an amazing impression of Michael Jackson dancing. Another one tries to teach me words in Italian. Another one follows everything she tells me up with, 'You're welcome' because she likes to say it in English..even if it doesn't exactly make sense. Another one jokes with me about mariposas/butterflies (I showed some fear of this guy when it flew into the kitchen one day and she thought it was really funny):
I don't know if you can really tell how big it is but it comes from this caterpillar:
Another sister likes to talk a lot and I love listening to her because it gives me a lot of practice picking out new words and trying to interject something or ask related questions.

The students are great, as well. They are just like your average pre-teen/teenager with some mood swings but overall they are sweet and kind and really look out for each other.

There are teachers working at this school, of course. They are really nice, as well. I can't be for certain but I've heard that a teaching job is a pretty good living here and they make the equivalent of $3 US dollars an hour. I knew this country was monetarily poor but I was shocked by that figure. It just goes to show that money isn't everything as the people I've met seem to be pretty darned happy.

There is a 'day of gratitude' this Friday where there will be lots of parties and performances (yes, I have to perform something) so I will be able to add some more pictures of the people mentioned above.

Below is a picture from my trip to the mountains of Ocotepeque. I went with the mom to what I thought was going to be mass on Saturday evening but it turned out to be a catechism class for these kids. They seemed to come out of the woodwork of the trees since we were in a pretty rural part of the country. They were so sweet, were shy to talk to me, liked to hold my hands and kind of looked at me like I was an animal at the zoo. I was told not too many green eyed girls make their way to their town very often. They could totally belt out some praise and worship songs, though. I was impressed. :)

The Food

I love, love, love the new fruit I've been able to try. My favorite fruit so far is https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYf-Ao2dBUb9VoMPY3s1faCvEjOVWjUOEjEpffYoirr-tHRuxuMvV85fnvn6YqGfsle-2GuPsq10zP3ZVJlbnRM7lVqVJiH0f3qgwUhWE0j4LlhU4neklUKudMBcaFhZKLUIgeYbnc/s400/guanabana.jpg. This is very tart by itself but with a little salt, it is YUMMY! Other common items to eat are papayas, mangos, tortillas, bananas, black beans, little bananas, soup, squash, cooked bananas, rice, chocolate covered bananitas, cheese, plaintains, potatoes, avacados, chicken...oh, and bananas. There is no shortage of bananas. Oranges are in plentiful supply, too. Everything is fresh and pretty much made from scratch. Sometimes I have some time to spend in the kitchen with the girls in charge of cooking. They are so sweet and let me help. It's not uncommon that what I make does not look as great as what they make but they are very encouraging. Plus, if what I make is ugly, they don't say it's ugly but they insist I eat it rather than serving it to the Sisters :). Here is a picture of two of the girls working in the kitchen and also a picture of the little kitchen where the tortillas are made and some of the food is cooked.

I love this little door in the middle of a big door. It is where food is passed from the kitchen to the dining area.

I eat my meals with the Sisters. It's a bit awkward the majority of the time because they speak kind of fast for my Spanish learning ears and often times, I'm just not sure where to look. I don't want to laugh when they laugh because they all know I don't understand what's funny and that I'm just laughing because they are. They do a great job of trying to include me, which I appreciate. I just kind of divert my eyes and listen intently for my name so I know they might be talking to me. Here is a picture of our dining table. For a bit, I got to sit at the big table when a couple of the Sisters were out of town. Now I get to sit at the little table (at the far end of this picture)...it reminds me of sitting at the kid's table at family gatherings.

My First Legitimate Update from Honduras

Welcome to my attempt at a concise update of my travels this summer. I have sporadically informed different folks about different aspects and thought it would be best to put it all in one place. I have tried to write a little each night for the past few nights. I am in the final week and a half of this trip and the days are going to be quite busy so I'll try to add some more pictures once I get home to Texas.

First of all, I am having a really great summer! I have been so blessed to have the opportunity to participate in some much anticipated volunteer mission work in Honduras. This is my first time to Central America and I love it! The people are great, the weather is nice and I absolutely love the food. Here's a run-down:

The work: I'm a volunteer missionary with VIDES+USA. I am living and working with Salesian nuns. (If you are curious about this order of nuns, let me know and I will be happy to tell you more about them later). Before flying to Honduras, I attended a two and a half week training session in San Antonio and Asherton, Texas. Even though most of the participants at this training were fresh out of college, it was amazing to get to know and work with people really interested in doing various levels of mission work.

Here in Honduras I am working with girls at a Catholic/boarding school. During the school day, I get up and monitor the girls as they do some routine chores, attend mass when there is a priest available, attend a celebration ceremony when a priest is not available, and help with any last minute things before school starts. Because I am not fluent in Spanish, I do not have a class of my own during the school day (from 7 am until 1:15 pm). During that time, I help the Sisters with whatever they need, substitute for absent teachers, do my laundry...see picture of my 'washing machine' (not really a machine, as you can see),

work on Spanish/English skills with the girls who do not attend school but work at the school, and/or work at a bakery run by the school. Once school finishes, I monitor lunch for the 'internas'. These are girls boarding at the school. They are boarders for different reasons: some of their families are too poor to take care of them and some are from places too far away and too rural for someone to bring them/pick them up from school. There are close to 70 internas ranging in age from 12 to 18.

After lunch, it's chore time again. Then comes time for me to teach. I get to teach 'review' classes which is great for me because I can sit in on the real classes during the day to get the Spanish and then get a little time to practice before helping 7-10 students with the things they are having trouble understanding. I get to teach 2 English classes, a computer class, and an algebra class. After the review class, it's study time. During this time, I'm available for helping with whatever the students may need. Usually this is when I get to practice my spontaneous use of Spanish. This is also a time when the kids let me play futbol/soccer with them. I'm not so good but it's really, really fun because there are about 25 people all playing at once. I don't have a picture of us playing but here's a picture of the courtyard where we play:


Once that study time is done, I work with 9 of the lowest performing students in a separate class. During this class they are supposed to do silent study and more often than not, it is not exactly silent. These girls seem to not be the best at typical school assignments and therefore have some attention getting behaviors that make 'silent study time' virtually impossible. They may have other reasons for their behaviors but I'm just trying to work with what I have. That said, I am constantly amazed when working with kids with 'behavior' issues. It takes a little bit of work to find out what they do really well and give them praise for those things, make them laugh so you have a connection with them and you have quite a bit to work with when unwanted behaviors arise. These kids just want to be loved and appreciated just like everyone else in this world. This part of my days is definitely the most challenging but I constantly pray for the patience and the strength to show God's love with my actions since my words are often times limited.

After the supposed silent time, the entire group of internas gets together with the 7 Sisters and the volunteers to pray a Rosary together. After that, it's dinner time and I'm 'off duty' until 6:15 am the next day. I get Saturday as my day off.

I also work in the caseta (snack shop): First experience: I was told to sit back and watch as the current workers did their magic. Things to watch: product names (products include: various frozen treats, various drinks, different homemade pastries, candy, chips, etc.) and what things cost...in Limpiras. Luckily for me (because it's easier to learn), we deal mostly in bills.
Well, the 'watching' turned into 'doing' immediately. Like I was saying, I was told to wait behind the counter and the other workers would soon be there. I was surprised with myself at how calm I felt inside because there was no such thing as a line of patiently waiting teenagers, no, it was mass chaos screaming, waving money in my face, and yelling my name. The other workers arrived what seemed like 10 minutes late but in all fairness was probably a minute late so I had no choice but to start helping the customers. Even though I did not feel super anxious inside, I'm pretty sure I successfully sweat enough to be the equivalent of running a 5k. Just a guess.

Sometimes I help out in a separate cafeteria that feeds the city's children. It is run by the Catholic Church here and provides free lunches to any child who can make it to the cafeteria. I really love it when I get to do this.

The work is not really complicated but it is challenging and at times and I have been sure God is working on my humility, my patience, my persistence as I try to be an example of His love.

Here is a picture of some of the students I have in my review classes: