Viajando

We leave tomorrow morning at like 4:30, so I should be packing, but here I am finally writing about our extensive trip.  I've already mentioned parts of our trip in past posts, but here I will post pictures from the rest of it.

First, I'll give an overview of our trip.  On July 19 we left Tegucigalpa to go to Tela, and our next stop was La Ceiba.  After that we went to Copan Ruinas, which is the only place we stayed where we did not teach a workshop.  Then we went to La Entrada, and Santa Rosa de Copan.  We finally got back to Teguz last night at about 8pm.  It's weird to come back to a place that feels like home only to leave again about a day later.

In La Ceiba we had the biggest group we've taught so far.  We had 22 graduates, and about 40 people were at each class.  I don't like speaking in front of a ton of people, but on the first day we taught there we had a microphone.  I don't know why, but for some reason I really liked talking to a big group when I had the microphone; it made me less nervous.

While we were in La Ceiba we also went ziplining.  We also went to some hot springs, got a massage (which only hurt my sunburn a little), and ate more fish and tajadas.

Next stop: Copan Ruinas.

We saw this beautiful view in Copan after going on a horseback riding tour only about half an hour after getting to Copan.  The next day we went to see the famous ruins in Copan.

The ruins were pretty cool.  We had some fun taking pictures at the ruins.

We went to a butterfly park the last morning we were in Copan Ruinas.  There are a ton of butterflies in this part of Honduras.

In my last post I wrote about our arriving in La Entrada; here are the participants from that workshop:

Our last city was Santa Rosa de Copan.  On our second day there we decided to go get a snack down the street.  We ate, then got liquados and decided to drink them in the park that was a few blocks away.  While walking there we noticed that something seemed to be going on, as people were lining the street and buying pinwheels that people were selling.  We finally asked someone about it, and found out that a parade was supposed to have started at 9am (it was noon by then).  We waited about ten more minutes, and a parade came along!  Our timing was pretty good so that we were able to see the parade, but not be waiting around all day.

This was my favorite float.  K described these dancers well as "ninja mimes."

And, here are the graduates from our last workshop we taught in Santa Rosa.

This trip was awesome.  We more than doubled the number of people we taught in workshops, saw a lot more of Honduras, and got to do some really cool things.  Now I better go pack, my traveling isn't done yet.

10 Lempiras

Our internet lately has been really unreliable.  Hopefully it works long enough for me to post this blog.  I will post pictures from more of our trip after we get home to Tegucigalpa and have more reliable internet.

We're still on our long trip that has taken us to five different cities.  A few days ago we took a bus from Copan Ruinas to La Entrada that made stops in a bunch of little places along the way.  When we got to La Entrada we had no idea where to get off that would be closer to our hotel.  We had already passed a stop or two within the city, and when we saw signs for the highway to San Pedro and Santa Rosa we decided to get off and try to find a taxi.  As we were trying to get off the bus, both the guy who collects the money and the busdriver tried to stop us.  They seemed worried that we wanted to get off at La Entrada, didn’t we need to go to the terminal to catch a bus somewhere else?  We insisted that, no, we were in fact going to La Entrada.  We got off the bus right in front of a gas station, and we walked the length of the gas station before a taxi pulled to the side to give us a ride.  We told him we were going to the hotel San Carlos.  He said it was on the other side, but he didn’t say on the other side of what.  We assumed he meant the other side of town, so we asked how much it would cost.  He said 10 Lempiras, which I assumed was 10 for each of us.  That’s still pretty cheap, but believable (we just payed 15 L cada una to get to our hotel in the next city we went to).  He loaded up our luggage in his little three-wheel red taxi, we all got in, and he proceeded to take us across the street where K noticed the sign to our hotel.  It was RIGHT THERE.  We literally got off the bus directly across the street from our hotel.  We were so busy looking for a taxi that we missed seeing the hotel.  I drew a map so you can all see the hilarity of our little escapade.  The purple arrow shows where we got off the bus.  We then walked to where the blue arrow is pointing where a taxi driver picked us up.  We then paid him 50 cents to take us to our hotel across the street. 

Then to add to the hilarity, two days later as we were walking to the bus terminal, which is like two blocks up on the other side of Texaco, the same taxi driver saw us as he was leaving Texaco.  He jokingly asked us if we needed to go to San Carlos.  I still laugh every time I think of this little experience.

Rojo es el nuevo blanco

For K and I’s last two weeks in Honduras we are traveling to other parts of Honduras to teach the workshop in four different locations.  A side effect of traveling to teach more workshops is that we get to see other cool places including la playa at Tela and Copan ruinas. 

the view from our room in Tela

K and I first went to Tela, Honduras.  We taught the workshop in 8 hours (instead of 16) over two days.  Fifteen people from the two branches in Tela came to at least part of the workshop.  It was neat to see how much everyone appreciated the workshop.  I felt like we were able to really help them a lot.

 

When we haven’t been teaching we’ve been enjoying our time here mucho.  We spent a lot of time at the beach- which, by the way, was right behind our hotel. We also decided to go see the muey that was down a little ways.

beautiful

We got very sunburned.

Pina Coladas at a restaurant on the beach.

Yesterday we rented bikes from the hotel and rode into town.  We’d gone into town just to teach the workshop, and C’s dad gave us a ride there and back each time.  It was nice to go in by ourselves and see what it was like.  Tela is very different from Tegucigalpa.  The streets have way more space here, so the traffic is not so crazy.  Tons of people ride bikes to get around here.  It’s really hot and humid here, too.  It hasn’t seemed too hot as we’ve been in the ocean, pool, and our air conditioned room, but I thought that it would be really hot going into town.  Riding bikes into town turned out to be a very good choice, though.  We ate at a restaurant on the beach.  I’ve now eaten fish and tajadas for three days in a row.  I love it.  

We left Tela this morning.  Pres. M gave us a ride to the bus station in his truck.  We rode in the back, and as any gringo would do, we took pictures along the way.

Adios Tela.  Hola La Ceiba.

It All Ends

Today we had an awesome conversation with C at the CRE.  K had one of the phones that go in C office that we were done using.  We were returning it, and K said "think fast" and pretended to throw it to C.  Then when he was actually paying attention she did toss him the phone.  Right after he caught it he told us not to do that to anyone else here in Honduras because it is considered offensive.  We were both surprised by this fact.  Luckily C was not offended, and he in fact fits in very well with this American custom we have.  He explained to us that here tossing something to someone makes people uncomfortable because it's like tossing something to a dog.  After discussing this cultural difference for a bit, C told us to watch from the other room(all the rooms have huge windows so we could see) as he tried to get J to toss him something.  We could see him stand at the door as he asked J to toss him a pen.  J, who was seated behind a desk, reached forward with the pen as far as his hand would go.  C stayed in the doorway and asked him again to toss it to him.  He tried to reach further, and another guy sitting kind of between the desk and the doorway took the pen and handed it to C.  Then we went in the room and explained to the people in the room the experiment we had just done. It's so cool to learn little random things like that about cultures.  I'm going to miss that when I go back to the States.  Our time is rapidly ending.  It all ends in August.

Yeah, so we totally went to the HP movie tonight.  It was a very cultural rich activity : )  It only cost about $3.50 translated to dollars.  That's right, be jealous.  We debated between going to the movie or the institute dance, but not for long.  I've been here long enough now that when thinking about the dance I think about it how I do in the States- they're just not that exciting unless you're really in the mood for them.  And this one was another formal one.  And the movie was the last HP movie.  And it came out today.  We made a good choice.

Fried Green Bananas

Sunday was an awesome day.  We spent a good portion of the day with the M family.  We went up to where the temple is being built.  It was a beautiful clear day.

Then we went to the M family's place where they taught us how to make tajadas, which are fried green bananas.  Here are some pictures of K and I learning how to make them:

You have to use a knife to start peeling them.  Then after they're peeled you slice them to fry.

We ate them how they do in Tela- minus the chicken organs- we ate it with ground beef instead.  They eat them with cabbage, meat, and a homemade sauce.  It was so good!  

It was way fun learning how to make tajadas and spending time with the M family.

Oh, I forgot to mention, K and I sang in a quartet in Sacrament meeting again on Sunday.  I wasn't as nervous this time, but I have accepted the fact that singing is not my talent(ok, so I already had accepted that, but that fact is just confirmed further).  

We also sort of forgot to pick the hymns for Sacrament meeting until we got there on Sunday.  So, while we were practicing singing I was also picking out hymns.  For the Sacrament hymn I picked the first Sacrament hymn I saw in the book.  I asked K if the song was alright for her to play.  I just showed her the page though, and she looked at the other song on the page which is a common easy hymn that I should have picked.  As we were singing the song I realized it was not a simple song.  I realized I didn't know it very well, and neither did K know it well on the piano.  I felt lost at some parts, and K played well considering she was sight reading a hymn that's difficult to play, but there were some rough spots.  Luckily the congregation knew this hymn pretty well- if they hadn't it would've made for an even more interesting story, and a new hymn would have been sung that day.  That's what happens with last minute choosing of hymns without actually looking at them.

We also found out this week that this upcoming Sunday will be our last Sunday in our ward.  That's because the next two Sundays we will be traveling(yay!).  We're going to teach 4 workshops in our last two weeks in Honduras, and each in a different city.  It will be awesome.

Expect the Unexpected

“He who can travel a year in Honduras without being constantly amused must be incapable of appreciating the ludicrous in a thousand incidents and scenes.”

William V Wells, 1857

This statement is as true today as it was in 1857. I've learned to expect the unexpected here in Honduras. Some of my experiences and witnessed scenes in Honduras have included:

-A horse in the middle of the highway just standing there chilling. Actually it was standing there freaking out inside- you could see the fear in its eyes as the hundreds of fast moving cars whizzed by it.

-A snake on the sidewalk in the middle of the city (don’t worry, someone had already crushed its head).

-About a dozen mimes scattered at different corners of an intersection. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, because they didn’t seem to be miming. This was also the one time I was walking to work by myself, so K wasn’t a fellow witness for this one.

-People catcalling after us- it’s surprising how much English they know! Phrases such as (read with accent) 'hello baby,' 'goodbye my love,' 'your eyes are so beautiful' commonly follow us as we walk. Other men choose to catcall at us in Spanish, which is one time when I’m glad I have to concentrate to understand Spanish. One man (or possible werewolf) chose to howl at us rather than use human language. And one choice individual decided not to use words at all, opting instead to unzip his pants and give us a show.

-Transvestites catcalling us, instead of the regularly dressed men who usually do so.

-The guy who roller skates all around Tegucigalpa, sometimes holding onto buses to be pulled along.

-A mural made from bottlecaps

These and many other experiences have added to my constant amusement here in Honduras. If only I did have a full year to travel Honduras; I can only imagine what other scenes I would witness.

Our Excellent Excursion to El Salvador

Last night we got home from the best vacation ever. Seriously- this vacation was so awesome. We left early Thursday morning to go to El Salvador by bus. K has a friend from El Salvador whose family lives there. We wanted to visit them and have dinner with them, and they ended up going above and beyond to make sure we had a fantastic time in El Salvador. We arrived in San Salvador in the afternoon, and the T family took us to see the San Andres Mayan ruins.

Then, they took us to see a volcano. We had to hike up a little bit to see the crater. We took the easy path.

The pictures really don't do the view justice, but here is a picture zoomed in to see the crater. If you look closely you can see someone has written "Punk" in white letters.

Or, you can't really see it, but you'll have to take my word for it that it does say "punk."

We then went to the San Salvador temple open house. It's a really pretty temple. To see the temple is the reason we had planned this trip, and it was cool to go see it and go through it on the open house tour.

You can't really see us super well, but this is

K and I with Hna T in front of the temple.

We ended the night going to the T family's house and eating pupusas. Salvadorian pupusas are the best. We also drank Kolashanpan which is a Salvadorian soda.

Also, here is a picture of most of the T family.

On Friday we went to the beach, which the T family also helped us with a lot. It was a lovely day to spend at the beach. My shoulders didn't like the sun so much, but it was worth it.

Us at the beach.

The ocean! The waves were kind of big to go swimming in, no one else was in the ocean, so we had it all to ourselves.

We also swam in the pool, which we also had all to ourselves for a little while. Here we're sitting at the pool bar- don't worry, we didn't drink anything alcoholic, we actually didn't drink anything here. We saw the guy spray bugs with bug spray directly over the food and drinks he was preparing, so that would've been a bad idea.

Just chillin in a hammock on the beach... best day ever.

After the beach we went back to San Salvador where we met up with my friend who is there this summer with a service organization. We had a good time talking over a dinner of pupusas.

Unfortunately, every vacation has to end sometime- Hno and Hna T took us to the bus station on Saturday. Hna T made pupusas for us to take with us. It was nice to come home at the end of vacation and heat up some pupusas to eat for dinner. We've had a meal of pupusas everyday for the past four days now, and are happy that we still have some left to eat.

Baleadas Express

We finished teaching a taller at 5 today. K helped Hna S finish cleaning the CRE while C introduced me to popular rock music of the 80s and 90s such as Enanitos Verdes and Fito Paez, so we didn't leave until around 6. Of course we were hungry, so we decided to go to Baleadas Express for dinner. We figured it was fitting to have Honduran baleadas tonight, and then Salvadorian pupusas when we're in El Salvador tomorrow.

We've gone to Baleadas Express probably about five times since we've been here, and today was the first time we successfully ate them without using a fork. A baleada is a tortilla with beans, sour cream, and eggs. You can also get other stuff on it like chorizo and avocado. They just fold the tortilla in half with all the stuff in it- and these are like, fresh flour tortillas that are pretty big. The first time we got baleadas mine totally fell apart and I had to eat it with a fork and knife, and since then I've gotten a fork to use to eat my baleada. Well, today we didn't even think about getting silverware to eat our baleadas. K and I were both about a third of the way done with our baleadas when I realized that we were doing pretty well at eating them without them falling apart. I had just thought this when I looked up to see mantequilla strewn across K's face, and thought that maybe that wasn't so true. However, K wiped the mantequilla off her face and we proceeded to finish eating our baleadas without them falling apart or making a huge mess. Here's a picture of K eating a baleada the other week(this is a smaller one that she made herself).

Graduation numero cuatro

We just graduated our fourth group today. It was a big group- on the first day 24 people came. It was a lot more people than any of the other groups we've taught, but things ran smoothly and it was a really good group. 16 people graduated today; here they are:

It was fun because this group decided to have a party when we got done today, so they all planned ahead to bring different things like cake, tamales, and golocinas. K made lemonade, too, which is fitting because throughout the workshop they make a business plan for fake lemonade stands.

On a different note, lately I've been noticing a lot of things that cost way less here. For example, K and I went to the distribution center the other day and bought two Conference Ensigns for L 6(which is like 30 cents, 15 cents each). I thought I heard wrong when I heard 6, like maybe it was 106, but no, it's just that cheap. Other things at the distribution center cost way less, too. Like, most of it seemed like normal US distribution center pricing, but other stuff was significantly cheaper than it is in the US. I will definitely have to take advantage of that while I'm here. It isn't just stuff at the distribution center though. We went to get haircuts on Saturday. It cost L 140, which is about $7, to get my hair washed and cut. This place wasn't like the crappy places you can go to in the US for a $12 haircut, either. It wasn't like a super nice place, but they did an excellent job, and it definitely cost way less than it would have in the states.

And, here's another song I really like that's pretty popular: Mi niña bonita by Chino y Nacho.

Música

So you know how I mentioned how I could never sing a solo in front of people? Well, basically I did on Sunday. I lead the music in Sacrament meeting, and K and I choose the hymns before church every week. I believe our conversation in deciding the hymns went a bit like this:

K: Should we sing Por la belleza terrenal (For the Beauty of the Earth)?

me: Sure. Do you think they know it?

K: I don't know. Probably not.

me: Oh well, it's a pretty song.

It is a pretty song, and we discovered on Sunday that no, they do not know Por la belleza terrenal, as I was the only one singing it as far as I could tell. I think someone in the bishopric was trying to sing it by the last verse, but I really felt like I was singing a solo there. I didn't look up the entire song, and I remember thinking, 'do they think I am performing a solo? cuz I'm not.' Why I said "Oh well" the day before I don't know- but now I know I CAN sing a solo in front of a bunch of people. It did make it easier that I was waving my arm in time and not looking up the whole time. We don't think they knew the closing hymn we chose either, ¿Donde hallo el solaz? (Where Can I Turn for Peace?), because again I felt like I was singing a solo the first verse. I looked up that time and was disappointed to see that lots of people NOT moving their mouths. The second verse more people started singing, and the third verse even more people were singing. Either they were learning the song as we sang it(or rather, as I sang it), or they forgot the hymn number that had been announced before the last speaker and it just took them really long to find it. After Sacrament meeting, a member of the bishopric told K thanks for teaching the ward new songs and to make sure we sang them again so they can learn it better. I wonder how many times I'll sing For the Beauty of the Earth solo before they start joining in.

Speaking of singing, last Tuesday K and I were invited to meet the maestro of the Honduras Philharmonic Choir. We went, and ended up singing WITH the choir, which was not our intent when we went. We thought we'd just meet the teacher and see the choir practice. It was pretty cool though. I haven't been in a choir in years so it was something different to do. I sat next to a boy who's probably about ten years old. His voice hasn't changed yet, so he gets to sing soprano with the women. When I sat next to him he asked if I was from Honduras(though he was obviously thinking that I must not be from Honduras- I am pretty gringa). He sang pretty well, and at the end he complimented my singing in perfect English. We had a good time, so we're going back tomorrow to the full practice instead of just some of it. Oh, and we had to tell someone we can't do a musical number on Tuesday night for a missionary setting apart because we had already agreed to coming to this choir thing again. I am definitely developing talents here I never thought I would.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Yesterday we went to Valle de Angeles, which is a touristy town north of Tegucigalpa. We had a lot of fun walking around, eating pupusas, and taking a bunch of pictures. We've noticed that Hondurans have a different picture-taking expression than the big smile expression Americans tend to make for photos. So, we took a bunch "Honduran style" and then "American style" photos.

Honduran style

American style

Honduran Style(except C did the opposite we were doing in these two pictures)

American Style

Honduran

American

And, of course, here is K chasing a cow. It's not Honduran style,

but then again it's not American style either- not sure what

you would call it... The cow really was scared of her though.