No Soy Como Shakira

    Lately, I feel comfortable. I have enough friends that I'm usually not lack for things to do, my spanish is a lot better, and I feel like I pretty much have got the hang of how things work around here. I go home in three weeks, but it's bittersweet because now I know I'll miss my home here so much when I go back.
    My vacation week was chill but really great. I went to Cesia's house on thursday, and we hung out in her Pulperia again with her sister. Her taxi driver/buddy Aldo showed up, and we hung out with him too. We just talked and watched Tela Novelas. I always laugh at the dramatic parts of Tela Novelas because they're so ridiculous, and nobody understands why. I try to suppress it, but I just can't. The music gets to me every time.
    The conversation turned to my lack of dance skills, and Cesia decided to take up what is now basically a town-wide endeavor-- teaching me how to dance. We turned up some music in her living room, and I became the entertainment for the evening (Cesia's sister sat on the couch laughing and taking pictures-- those will probably be floating around somewhere on the internet for all of eternity, heaven help me). We started out with Punta, which is traditional Honduran dancing. It involves a lot of butt-shaking whilst spinning around in circles. It looks really cool when Cesia does it, but I'm fairly certain I looked like a retarded duck. After that, we tried Vachata and then Reggueton. Cesia kept yelling "Muda la cadera! Lacaderalacaderalacadera! SEXI KAITI SEXI! Circulos sexis! Como Shakira!"
    "Pero no soy como Shakira" I protested, all the same trying to emulate the impossible ways she was permeating her body. "How do you do that?" I kept asking, which resulted in more lacaderalacaderalacadera.
    At the end of our lesson Cesia swore I had made progress. She screamed with delight and declared that I had learned "circulos sexis". I'm not so sure, but oh well. At least I got a good work out!
   On saturday I got to go to Kora's quincenera! Kora is Nicole's little sister. It was exciting because I'd never been to one before. It was really impressive: like a wedding. We had a very fancy sit-down meal and the whole place was decorated with red and white. Kora wore a puffy floor length red dress and performed dances with her friends, who were all wearing white and red dresses and tuxes. I actually missed the dancing because I left early-- Rosa had a stomach ache.
    On sunday we went to Rosa's grandparents farm. We ate lots of mi abuelita catracha's fantastic food and watched soccer and chilled. I'm actually kind of getting into watching soccer, which is funny because I am not sporty in any way, shape, or form. I have an unfortunate habit of laughing inappropriately when the players fall down and make funny faces, so I'm sure my family thinks I'm a psycho. What is even more entertaining than the game itself is watching everyone else get really into it-- my host mama gets excited and does a little dance when her team scores, it's really cute.
   We stayed until monday, and on tuesday it was back to school. I went to Kenia's house again after school to make banana milkshakes and watch TV. It was fun!
    I wish I had more pictures, but my camera broke. The lens won't open. It's really a bummer because this is the best month to take pictures-- it's my last month here and I've made a lot of plans with friends. Next week I turn 17 and my friends are throwing me a surprise birthday party! Well, it's not a surprise anymore because they whispered about it in front of me, not knowing I could understand. But I will act very surprised :)

Copan Take Two

    I was sick most of the week last week, and to my delight when I got to school we didn't have classes. On thursday we had some sort of catholic ceremony called a "Rosario" or something, and there was a lot of praying and singing and catholic stuff. A bunch of the younger students dressed up to represent all of the continents, and had a sort of parade in the gym walking around holding a giant statue of Mary. It lasted a few hours and then we watched a random movie in the gym. I played Screaming Ninjas with classmates the whole time. And then we got out early so we stayed at school and played hopscotch and jumprope and whatnot. Afterwards Kevin and Nicole and I went to La Princesita to eat baleadas...yum!

    On friday it was "students day". Of course, we spent the first few hours in the gym doing more catholic stuff, as is inevitable at any school event. Then the rest of our day was all craziness-- all of our teachers dressed up like pop stars and danced and lip synced and put on "concerts". My friend Cesia and I were incredibly hyper so I spent most of the time dancing and being ridiculous with her. Her friends were embarrassed by us and Kevin later told me that he had been laughing at me because I had no rhythm and I looked stupid, but whatever. At least I had fun, right? 

    That night we had a Tardeada, or a school dance. I was a bit hesitant to go since I didn't have the best experience at the last Tardeada, but my friends persuaded me. At first I hung out with friends and they attempted to give me Vachata dance lessons, but then my friends disappeared and I didn't know what to do with myself. Luckily I met a guy-- I think his name was Renen-- who saved the day. He danced with me for most of the night, which admittedly was pretty awkward since I fail at vachata dancing, but he was really nice about it and made the awkward dancing kind of fun. Unfortunately he's a IMLI alumni, so I probably won't see him again.
    So the next morning I was expected to be ready to go at 2:30am for our school trip to Copan! It was hardly even worth the effort going to sleep, but I slept about two hours and then took a taxi with Cesia and a few other girls to Wendy's, where we were to get on our bus.
    I managed to sleep for some of our 5 hour bus trip, and when we got to Copan we immediately went to the ruins. Of course I had already seen everything before, but it was still cool. As a bonus, I got to get in for the Catracho price of 20lemp ($1) as apposed to the foreigner price of $15.
    After that we were done we went to our hotel for lunch. I ate lunch at a chicken place with Kevin and Nicole, and the we wandered around and bought ice cream and I got ripped off buying earrings from some vendors. Then we all had to get back on our bus and go back to the ruins to go to the Museum, which is a very boring place, but I spent most of the time having random dance parties and taking silly pictures with Cesia and Kenia and Stefany and everyone, so it was fun.

Sr. Carlos PG-ifying MTV for us hahaha

Sonia, Stefany, Kenia, Cesia, and I

Kenia, Sonia, Stefany and Cesia being cool

Cesia at Cafe Americano

    When we got back to our hotel, Nicole and Kevin were going to dinner, but I wasn't hungry so I wandered around the park a little bit until I bumped into Kevin-- the other Kevin, Kevin M, and we had coffee and chatted. Not for the first time, I missed the memo on the dress code for the evening. All of my classmates were painted and primped to the max in heels and dresses, and I had only brought jeans and sneakers. School dance? Jeans and sneakers. Going to Cafe Americano? Bring out the heels. Hondurans confuse me.
    Then I bumped into Cesia and her friends, and we all decided to take a ride in one of the taxi cabs, which is like an event in Copan. Cesia talked him into charging us only 15 lempiras, but I would have paid 100. It was far more thrilling than any roller coaster, because there were a few times when it actually seemed plausible that I might die.
    And then we all hung out and walked around and chatted some more, and then I bumped into Kevin and Nicole again and hung out with them. While we were talking, I was approached by a news lady with a big microphone who wanted to interview me for TV. The one day I didn't do my hair! I wasn't sure why she wanted to interview me exactly, she just asked me where I was from and if I was enjoying Honduras, etc.  This is the second time I've been on the news in Honduras. I guess not much goes on here. So yeah, I spent the rest of the night just hanging out with classmates some more, and it was really fun!
    The next day we immediately got on our buses and headed home. Nicole invited me over to her house and she and Kevin and I hung out and made some of the coffee she had bought for me in Copan as an "early birthday gift" because she knows I love coffee. It was really good!
   Afterwards Kevin and Nicole were going to our classmate Javier's 19th birthday party, and somehow I ended up going too although I hadn't actually been invited. It was fun, we sat on the roof and ate cake and joked around.
    Gabi asked me what I had planned for my vacation week, and everybody laughed at me because up until that point I had had no clue that I had a vacation week. So I have this whole week off! This will have made for, what, five whole days of school I've attended in the last four weeks? I love my life. I spent monday and tuesday just lazing around, reading and eating and sleeping and trying not to get fat. On wednesday Cesia invited me to watch movies at Kenia's house. Cesia came and picked me up in her taxi cab-- she has, like, her own personal taxi driver buddy, and for some reason he let me go free. Sweet! We watched Paranormal Activity 1 and 2, which I do not think are the slightest bit scary but it was hilarious to watch how the girls reacted. Then Cesia and I left early and walked to her house. When we were walking Cesia got self conscious and whispered "Kaiti! Why is everybody staring?" I laughed and said, "Because I'm a gringa!" Yeah, everybody stares at me all the time, pretty much. It's pretty nerve-racking.
    Cesia lives in a Pulperia! How cool. So we just sat in the shop and talked to her sisters and mom and adorable little cousin. Her mom gave me an avocado! I don't know why, but I was happy. I love avocados. Then Cesia and her sister walked me home (our houses are super close!) and Cesia kept asking me when I wanted to come over again so I said "what about tomorrow?" Wow, I am so annoying. But she said they were making pancakes and she seemed excited about the idea of it, so yay! I'm going to go over in a few hours.

These are my "Dos Hombres" Oscar and Kevin. They walk up to me a few times a day and say "Kaiti! I Love you!" hahaha aww <3