Mass

Today felt like a very productive day. I actually worked on my homework, and got a fair amount of it done. K and I went to the center to go to some bookstores and get some bread. We decided to spend some time in the cathedral in the center. As we were going in I mentioned that we should go to mass sometime, which would be a cool experience, and also be a cultural activity. So there I was, reading my book about the golpe del Estado en 2009, when music started and everyone who was there starting standing up. Apparently they have mass at noon everyday, so there we were for mass on a Tuesday afternoon. We stayed for the whole thing. I enjoyed it; it was interesting to see their worship service. This is the cathedral we were in:

So we did do more things today, but it all sounds kind of boring typing it all up. We did start a new workshop on Monday, which was fun. It is a lot nicer to be teaching it after having taught it a few times already.

¿Dónde esta K?

So, while at Picachu we decided to make a game. It's sort of like Where's Waldo, but this is mejor. We took a bunch of pictures in which K is hiding, but is always at least a little bit in plain sight. See if you can find her in all of the pictures.

Here's who you're looking for:

Good luck!

If you found her in all the pictures, we will send you a present from Honduras. ;-)

Picacho

I have lots of pictures today. We went to Picacho National Park and Zoo today and had a ton of fun. Our friend P went with us. She showed us around and we had fun walking around and taking pictures. Here’s a picture of all three of us right by the Confucius garden.

There's also a Christ statue that you can see from our apartment that is up in Picacho that we saw today.

We were up eating lunch enjoying the view of Tegucigalpa when a group of gringos came over wanting pictures with the view as background. First they asked us in English if we could take a picture of them, but then one of them was like, "uh, tomar un foto." K said she could take a picture, and the guy was like, oh good, you speak English. We thought it was funny that they thought we didn't speak English- we do look pretty gringa, after all.

So we always are followed by catcalls- it's part of life here in Honduras. Since we are gringas, we often hear random English phrases. Today included, "what is your name?" and my personal favorite, "what time is it?" It definitely made me think of One Semester of Spanish Love Song, except it was like one semester of English love song. I totally relate with that girl in the video now.

We also went to the zoo up there. It was a small zoo, but it was fun. The best part was when we went in to see an exhibit of mounted animals, and a monkey climbed in the building.

It came in and climbed on the rafters a bit, we got a couple pictures of it, then it left.

I have more pictures that I'll post tomorrow.

Jamaica- the flower, not the country

We finished our first workshop! It was really fun, and I can't believe how fast it went by. Nine of our 14 original participants finished the workshop. Here they all are with their certificates:

We're so proud!

On another note, we bought jamaica the other day, and we decided to actually make it yesterday. Since I wasn't sure exactly how to do it, and we don't really have any pitchers, I decided to make half a liter of it(the directions are for one liter). It said to boil it for twenty minutes. I sort of got distracted watching youtube videos with K, so it boiled for twenty to thirty minutes longer than it was supposed to. It turned out alright- it just definitely wasn't half a liter anymore.

half a liter would be half of that container- and the amount in there is all that was left after excessive boiling. We have plenty more jamaica to make though.

Elders... dancing! in the rain : (

We’ve had some cool experiences the past couple of days. The first is that we had the opportunity of receiving training with two elders who just finished their missions. On Thursday we got to participate as an area Seventy gave them training on how to adjust to life after the mission. We also took the career workshop with them on Friday. The career workshop is the workshop other than the one we teach that is given by the church. It was good to see it and learn from it. It was also amusing to see how the elders acted around us. At lunch both days they were careful to sit as far away as possible from us- it reminded me of Zone Conferences on the mission. We were talking about job interviews at one part of the career workshop, and how to explain your mission experience in terms employers relate to. As we were discussing it, one of the elders mentioned, “and then you ask them if they want a Book of Mormon.” Yep, definitely recently returned missionaries- the same in every culture.

We went to an institute dance Friday night, which was really fun. We found out Friday afternoon that the dress was formal, like prom dress type formal. While K and I have to wear skirts and dresses to our internship all the time, neither of us has a formal dress here. We got pretty in our not so formal dresses, though, and didn’t feel too out of place; well, other than the fact that we were the only gringos there.

The dancing and music was obviously very different. The only song they played that I knew was I Gotta a Feeling by Black Eyed Peas. They played some other songs that had English lyrics, but I don’t think anyone else knew what the lyrics meant because otherwise they probably wouldn’t be played at a church-sponsored dance. I learned that they listen to Punta music a lot here. I also learned kind of how to dance here. No one really knows how to dance here, either, but the style of dance they do is very different from what I’m used to. Also, I’m used to dancing in big circles of people for fast songs, but that is not how they do it here. Pretty much everyone dances in pairs for all the songs, and when a guy asks you to dance, it isn’t just for one song. I only danced with three guys, but I was dancing the whole night minus when we got food.

On Saturday we taught a workshop. To this point we had been lucky in avoiding the rain, but when we left the building Saturday it was raining. We had one tiny umbrella between the two of us. We each had our backpacks full of materials for our workshop including poster paper and workbooks for the participants. Since we didn’t want the stuff to get wet and ruined, we decided that I would wear both backpacks and have the umbrella, and K would have to tough it out in the rain with no protection.

I looked ridiculous, which served also to prevent the usual cat calls. It stopped raining when we were a couple blocks from home, so K took her backpack again, and the usual kissy sounds and “hello baby” started following us once again.

I also have to mention church today. It was interesting, to say the least. It included me being called flat-footed, conducting music to a song when I was not even on the right page, giving an 8 minute talk in broken Spanish, and going to Sunday school with a kid who looked like he was eight. Sacrament meeting was probably most interesting, K wrote about it in her blog if you want to read her description. After Sacrament meeting we asked if we were going to the young adult Sunday school. We had no idea there was a YSA Sunday school class. When we got there we were surprised to see a lot of people who definitely looked younger than 18, including a 12 year old boy who looked like he was 8. K and I thought it was funny- but we were glad to know that it was just because the youth’s teacher wasn’t there today.

Basically, to sum up, Honduras continues to amaze me.

Enseñando en español

On Monday K and I taught our first workshop. We were both really nervous, but it went pretty well.

I guess maybe I should explain what it is I'm doing here in Honduras. I'm here doing an internship for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. K and I have been trained to teach a Self-Employment workshop which is basically how to start your own business. It is split up into four parts- each of which takes about four hours to teach. A few people have already asked us if we are business students, which neither of us is. Little do they know, however, that before training a few weeks ago I had never heard of some of the terms we will be teaching them about next week. Before I got here I was a little nervous about being able to teach this stuff well enough for people to really learn since I definitely am not an expert on this stuff. Honestly though, I learned a lot in training, and the materials we have to teach from are very helpful. The way the workshop is set up is for them to learn through practicing making a pretend lemonade-stand business. I took some pictures of the groups presenting their resumen del negocio.

Monday was our first class. The four hours flew by, and I found that I could communicate in Spanish alright. Today, Wednesday, we taught the second part of the workshop. It also went well. It wasn’t as fun as the first portion, but it was neat to see the progress everyone is making. Our class is so awesome. They help us if we forget words in Spanish and are patient with us. I can’t believe we’re already half way done with our first workshop.

On another note, today we had interviews con el Obispo de nuestro barrio aqui. K y yo tenemos asignaciones en el barrio ahora. K va a tocar el piano y yo voy a dirigir la música en los domingos. Vamos a escoger los himnos para cantar. Y, también, en los diez minutos entre la reunión sacramental y la escuela dominical, vamos a enseñar al barrio como cantar, dirigir, y cosas asi. Dirigiendo esta fácil, pero el enseñar como cantar- no tengo idea como hacerlo. Estos son asignaciones, entonces también probablemente vamos a recibir llamamientos en el barrio en el futuro. Oh, y también este domingo K y yo vamos a dar discursos de quince minutos en la reunión sacramental. También, K ya había ofrecido que nosotras traer el pan para la santa cena este domingo. Entonces, vamos a traer el pan para la santa cena, proveeremos la música, vamos a dar los discursos en la reunión sacramental, y después enseñaremos como cantar o dirigir o algo. Basically, this week, we are the Sacrament meeting for this ward. It will be interesting to say the least. But hey, we have already handled two four-hour classes this week in Spanish; certainly we can handle one Sacrament meeting. Vamos a ver.

Good Day

We had a really good day on Sunday. We went to church for the second time and we talked to a lot more people than the week before. Then in the afternoon the Relief Society went to see the Tegucigalpa Temple that is being built here. We met at the church at 2. They really stressed to be there on time, so K and I got there on time. After waiting about half an hour for people to arrive we were ready to go. We all piled into a 15 passenger van- there were probably about 18-20 of us. When we got to the top of a hill/mountain we all piled out of the non-air-conditioned van to a great view of the partially constructed temple. There were primary kids there singing Me encanta ver el temple (I Love to See the Temple). We stayed there for a bit and enjoyed the atmosphere and talked with some of the sisters in the ward. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

¿Cual es mejor?

I decided to compare my apartment here in Teguz to the last apartment I lived in in Ptown. I already mentioned that the quality is better in the apartment I live in now. I think it’s sad considering I now am living in a third world country. I am taking into consideration that this apartment is in Honduras while my old one was in the United States, which means I think it’s awesome to be in Central America to begin with, and I’m looking at the apartment taking into consideration how people in Honduras usually live. Okay, here goes my list of comparisons:

1. Management actually cares- Where I lived in Ptown our concerns always fell on empty ears. Aquí, the manager of the building called us a few days after we moved in to make sure everything was in good condition for us. We told him everything was great; there was only a minor problem of our toilet leaking, which was interesting to explain since neither of us knew the word for toilet in Spanish. They promptly fixed the problem. Aquí: 1 Ptown: 0

2. The stove here is electric, but the one in Ptown was gas. My personal preference is electric. Aquí: 2 Ptown: 0

3. The microwave here is way better. That’s not hard to accomplish considering the microwave at my old apartment is literally older than I am. Aquí: 3 Ptown: 0

4. The kitchen here is pretty small. K and I can both fit in it, but once we’re both in we’re stuck. I don’t like cooking anyways though, so that doesn’t matter so much to me. I’ll give the point to my old apartment though since it is sadly losing. Aquí: 3 Ptown: 1

5. K and I witnessed a man preparing to use the street as his toilet yesterday. While you would think this would give Ptown a point, I believe I have to withhold points from both locations because it was in Ptown that a crazy naked guy chilling in our hot tub had to be escorted out of our apartment complex by five policemen. Also, the incident here was actually a few streets away from our apartment complex, not in it. Aquí: 3 Ptown: 1

6. We have a maid who is paid to clean our apartment every day. She has already done our laundry twice, and we haven’t even been here a week. In Ptown I had a wonderful roommate who did clean our apartment and even did my laundry, but I have to say that having a paid maid is better. I always felt a little guilty having K clean up after me. Aquí: 4 Ptown: 1

7. We have hot water here. Okay, so you might be saying, “what? In a third world country you have hot water, but you didn’t in Ptown?” Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Okay, so maybe not exactly. For like a month and a half to two months in January and February my apartment in Ptown didn’t have hot water in the mornings. It wasn’t cold water, but it definitely wasn’t hot either. I think it’s pretty sad, actually, but another point for the apartment in a third world country. Aquí: 5 Ptown: 1

8. The apartment here comes with two tvs. For me this isn´t a huge deal since I don´t watch much tv anyways, but it is cool that it comes with two tvs. My apartment in Ptown definitely didn’t. Aquí: 6 Ptown: 1

9. The internet here is faster. That would be a plus, except my computer has issues. Apparently it can only recognize wireless networks, and we don’t have a wireless router. So I am posting this from K’s computer. It’s very annoying, and we don’t know where to buy a wireless router here. I will call this one a tie. Aquí: 6 Ptown: 1

10. We have geckos and lizards here! Some people may see this as a negative thing, but I think it is cool. I hardly ever saw lizards or geckos as a kid, and was fascinated by them when I saw them all the time on my mission. I never saw any in/around my apartment in Ptown. Aquí: 7 Ptown: 1

11. The apartment here has lots of windows to open and is way better ventilated. In Ptown it was impossible to get any air flow in my apartment. It isn’t super hot here luckily, but it is hot enough to also note that there is no AC. With the fans and windows it cools off mostly though, so I will have to consider this another tie. Aquí: 7 Ptown: 1

12. Finalmente, lo mejor de este apartamento es el patio. There is a patio area that we share with the apartment complex. It’s huge- there are two bathrooms outside (for when we host parties), a kitchen area, a barbeque, a table with some chairs, and a wonderful view of Tegucigalpa. I think this merits two points for Teguz. Aquí: 9 Ptown: 1

Final Score- Aquí: 9 Ptown: 1

Clearly my apartment here wins.

Firsts in Honduras

En sábado, después de llegar a Honduras, the manager y su esposa nos muestran nuestro apartamento que es muy buena- la calidad es mejor que los apartamentos en que viví en la universidad. The microwave is newer than the one in my old apartment- although that is not hard to accomplish since that microwave is literally older than me. I will post pictures of our apartment soon. It really is pretty sweet. Right now I am sitting out on our giant patio that has a fantastic view and is perfect for parties (ok, so it’s shared with the rest of the apartment complex, but the complex is pretty small). On Saturday the manager also took us grocery shopping and out for dinner at a restaurant that has good Honduran food.

En domingo fuimos a la capilla que está muy cerca del apartamento, como quince minutos a pie. El gerente había dicho que nuestro barrio comienza a las nueve, pero en realidad comenzó a las ocho. Luckily, habíamos salido temprano porque no sabíamos cuánto tiempo necesitábamos para caminar a la iglesia y lleguemos a las 8:20. Conocimos algunas personas, many of whom didn’t ask us our names, but asked where we are from. Hopefully we will make more friends at the Relief Society activity we have tomorrow.

Hoy era la primero día de trabajo. Tuvimos que llamar a muchas personas en la mañana, which is not fun to do in my book. First of all I don’t like calling people, and second of all it was in Spanish which makes it difícil y hablan muy rápido y es dificil al entenderlos por telefono. My comp, K, was awesome as she did most of the calls and let me just type up the info we got from the people we called. Luego, para almuerzo fuimos a una restaurante con baleadas. Es otra comida Honduran . Son tortillas frescas con frijoles, huevos, carne, avocado, queso, y mantequilla (sour cream). Estuvieron muy deliciosos y messy. En la tarde fuimos a una reunión con el gerente para observar algunas personas presentan sus planes del negocio, que relata directamente con lo que vamos a enseñar a personas.

So far, so good. This summer is going to be awesome.

The Journey

We made it here safely to Honduras, but it was after a very long day and a few setbacks. I was surprised, but even our luggage got here with us at the same time.

Our first leg of the journey was pretty uneventful, but it got interesting really quickly when we got to LAX. When we left the airport had printed out all of my companion’s boarding passes for all three flights, but they only printed my first boarding pass. When we got to the next airport I asked a few people how to print them and was instructed to go straight, then go right outside, go until the island then keep going until we got to the blue sign and take bus A to terminal 3 where we would find the TACA airline and I could have them print my boarding pass. They were sort of confusing directions and when we got outside we were very confused for a bit. LAX is BIG- we had to go outside and take a bus to the terminal.

We got there alright and found a VERY long line. This line literally took up all the windy switchback things, went along the wall inside the building, and went outside the building reaching the next terminal. The system was down for TACA, which meant that all the workers were doing things by hand. While in line a worker came by asking for people who had pre-checked in and she took them away. I asked her about me- since I had already checked in at another airport shouldn’t that count as being pre-checked? The lady didn’t know and said she would come back for me. She didn’t, so I left my companion to keep our spot in the line and I found the manager who said I could move to the pre-check in line. This line went outside only a little bit. We were in line about 2 ½ hours to get my two hand written boarding passes that for some reason they couldn’t just print when I checked in at the first airport. After getting my tickets we walked to security passing the empty line queues and airlines that were closed(since it was now after one in the morning.

We got to our gate probably about ten minutes before what should have been our boarding time. We didn’t actually board until about 2:30 am, and the plane didn’t leave until about 3:30am. I actually slept on the plane better than usual, but I still woke up a lot. Because of the late take-off we missed our last flight. We then spent a lovely morning and half an afternoon in a tiny Central American airport. We got some hot chocolate to get the password for the coffee shop’s wireless internet, and ate pupusas for lunch. Luckily we got a hold of our manager a few hours after we landed and got new tickets(so I didn’t even need the second hand written one).

When we got to Honduras things started to go a lot smoother.