I have blessed to have the opportunity to travel to Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras for five weeks.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

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. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment