Recent Happenings...

September came and went quickly here, and I think we’re all having a hard time believing it’s already October.  It’s different here to realize that, because usually I mark time based on the weather or different things going on at home like school or something, but those don’t follow the same schedule here.  We’re not enjoying fall right now, but instead rainy season.  When it rains here, it rains.  The amount of rain that falls is incredible at times. Typically, it rains in the afternoon, which is nice because it cools the temperatures down, and sometimes it rains at night too.  It’s funny though, because when it rains here, life pretty much shuts down.  Nobody is on the streets, businesses close, and meetings are cancelled because no one likes to go out in the rain.  I can see why though, because the roads turn to mud, or even rivers at times, and umbrellas are often useless with the intense rains here.  Mostly, I’m just frustrated when it takes a week for my clothes to dry on the line… and when they finally do, they typically smell funny, but I guess you could say I’m getting used to smelling funny anyway.

We had a great visit earlier in the month from Father Lucian, the director and founder of our program.  He’s pretty much a rock star here, so it was fun to see how excited everyone was about his visit.  He brought Tricia along too, who is the new associate director (I believe that’s the title), but she works on recruiting new volunteers and keeping Father Lucian in line.  We had a lot of fun showing her around town and telling her about what we do here since she was our first visitor who hadn’t been here before. Lauren and I especially liked her presence because she evened the numbers in our house, and we could finally play games with even teams! 

We spent some long hours in the Immigration Office in Tegucigalpa, but the good news is that we’re officially residents of Honduras… I think.  Let’s just say this place is ridiculous.  Think DMV, but much worse.  The first time we went, we spent at least 3 hours there and came out having accomplished nothing.  The second time was better, as we waited only a couple of hours, then were photographed, fingerprinted, and told we’d have to come back again anyway.  Good times.

Tegus isn’t always a downer though, because recently we went for a feast day mass at the cathedral in the center of town, and we had the chance to meet the Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez.  He’s a pretty amazing guy, and supposedly the most famous person in Honduras.  There’s also a lot of talk about him becoming Pope someday, which would be sweet because I could say I chatted with the Pope.  He was so nice to us though, as we walked with him from church to his office with his bodyguards.  It helped a lot that he spoke fluent English, apparently in addition to at least 5 other languages.  

We’ve also found that Tegus is home to an amazing basilica.  We were just driving around one day, you could probably say we were lost, but we ended up on top of this hill where we spotted this giant temple-looking building in the distance… so then we made it our goal to get there.  Turns out, it was the Basilica of Suyapa.  Everything about that church was super-sized.  The doors dwarfed anyone standing in front of them, and the church was full of these incredible stained glass windows.  I’m sure it’s the biggest church I’ve ever been in.  We just sat inside there, for at least a half hour, marveling at its size, beauty and peacefulness.  We left Tegus that day happy, which is unusual because typically trips to Tegus are more stressful and frustrating than anything.

We have officially taken our first Honduran field trip as well.  My host-mom is a catechism teacher here, and she invited us to go to the Youth Missionary Day with her class and a number of others from our church.  The funny part is, I knew none of that when I signed up to go.  I didn’t really understand what she was talking about when she invited me, but I thought I’d take the chance so I told her I would go.  I only knew we were leaving at 6am, and that the cost was 80 lempiras a person, and somehow I convinced Sean, Mike and Lauren to go too.  So basically it was a surprise field trip because we had no idea where we were going, what we were doing when we got there or how long we would be gone.  Thankfully everything turned out ok J.  The drive was only 2 hours, which wasn’t too bad, and it was my first experience on a bus here!  I was amused that we occasionally stopped to pick up vendors on the side of the road so they could sell snacks on the bus, we stopped for people that needed to use the bathroom on the side of the road, and on the way home we stopped just to buy fruit at this random roadside stand.  The 2 buses were packed and didn’t have enough seats for everyone, which wasn’t really a surprise.  We started the ride there by doing the Rosary, then the kids proceeded to sing and/or scream the rest of the way.  We arrived at our destination outside of Tegucigalpa to find about 1000 more children there for the Infancia Misionera celebration.  We started the march to the church, which like all the marches we’ve seen here so far took a couple hours even though it could have been completed in a half hour, and then there was a big mass.  There was a lot of good food, and then dances and dramas put on by the kids there.  The kids were all divided up to represent the continents of the world… all 5 of them according to Honduran teachings.  In case you’re curious, it’s Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas.  It was a long day for sure, but I definitely thought it was fun, and a good way to spend our Sunday getting to know a bunch of the young people from Talanga.

And for my usual scary Honduran creature and insect update, a favorite for most of you I’m assuming, but I’m 99% sure that we saw a dinosaur the other day.  I was driving back with Sean and Lauren from Corralitos, one of the aldeas we visit that’s about an hour-long drive into the mountains, when a small, freakishly fast lizard ran across the road in front of us. It wasn’t just any old lizard though, because we’re getting used to those by now, but instead, this one was running on two legs and looked pretty much like a miniature T-Rex.  That’s just not normal… I can’t tell you the last time I saw a dinosaur popping up out of nowhere along the roads in Iowa.  It was probably a foot tall though, and its tail was at least a foot-long as well.  We told Profe Daniel about this encounter, because he’s the smartest guy we know here, but he had no clue what it could have been.  So, we have been led to conclude it must be a dinosaur.  Other than that, we’ve just been dealing with slugs inside our house.  These nasty, slimy things apparently thrive in the rainy season because they show up in the most random places.  I’m not sure how it works, considering they move about 2 inches an hour, but they’re everywhere.  You can tell where they’ve been too, because they leave a shiny snot trail behind.  We find these on our walls and screens covering our window, and recently one apparently took a trip all over my suitcase that I thought was safely stored under my bed.  We found one last night hanging above Joe’s bed about 3 feet from the ceiling on a string of its own mucous.  It seemed to be enjoying itself though, as it was doing these acrobatic-type moves while Sean tried to take a photo. One also ended up on the outside of my mosquito net, probably in the same manner.  I try not to imagine its slime seeping in, though I’m sure it probably did.  I’m very thankful of that mosquito net above my bed though- so much so that it’s probably my most prized possession here.  I like to think that it’s “No-Bug’s Land,” which allows me to sleep peacefully at night.  There’s only been one major breech, when somehow one shifty gecko made it inside there with me… not something I like to recall often… but other than that, it does a good job of keeping everything I hate outside of my personal space while I sleep.