My Birthday :)

    Sorry this blogpost is a week late! I was having technical difficulties. I'm having a great last few days here, but I'll have to catch up on those later. 

    I had an awesome birthday week. On wednesday I got to skip school and go to Tegus to buy dresses for me and Rosa. She needed a second dress for her graduation dinner, and I needed one for her prom night. It was hard for me to find a dress, even in Tegus's big malls. The Honduran brands didn't fit right and the American brands were incredibly overpriced! But I found a grey strapless one that worked okay. Rosa found a pretty cream-colored chiffon dress.

    I was glad we went to Tegus because it also gave me an opportunity to get a small present for nicole-- her 18th birthday was on Thursday! I went over to her house after school with my backpack stuffed with beauty supplies: she had designated me as her stylist for the occasion, and I was happy to take the job. I straightened her normally curly hair, shaped her eyebrows, did her makeup, and instructed her to wear a dress. She looked fabuous.

    I had such a fun time at her party! I'm finally comfortable around all my classmates and I didnt deel awkward for a second. 

    Friday I had a party as well. Since my birthday was on saturday, Nicoles family and mine (who are good friends) decided to have a dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. I think it was called El Todito. We had salads and trays stacked so high with chicken, steak, pork, and sausage that I was surprised our table managed to eat them. Everything was delicious, and then we had cake! Afterwards Nicole slept over at my house. We painted each others nails and listened to music and watched movies and ate cake for breakfast and it was great! But she had to leave for her cousins house the next morning, so she couldn't stay for my (second) birthday party that Cesia arranged. 

    Cesia showed up at my house around two and pretended she had an egg. She had been telling me all week she was going to crack eggs on my head on my birthday, because thats a tradition here in Honduras. I screamed and locked myself in the bathroom but she told me she was joking so I cautiously came out. She presented me with a giant, beautiful birthday card. "Read it!" She demanded happily. "Read it all! I wrote easy spanish so you would understand!" And I did! It was laced with sentiments such as "I love you Gringa!" And "I'll never forget you!" I gave her a big hug and then she offered to do my hair. After I was all ready, we called her taxi driver and went to Kenia's house. 

    Cesia had invited 10 or so people to go to La Princesita with us, but only Nidia and Kenia could make it. I didn't really mind, small groups are fun too. They treated me to a giant Baleada-- the ones at the Princesita are three times the normal size-- and a piece of cake, which we promptly stuck 17 candles into. They told me they had been practicing Happy Birthday in English so they could sing to me. I had mentioned I knew the song in Chinese, and they wanted me to teach them. After they had sung happy birthday to me in both chinese and english, I blew out my candles. There wasn't enough cake to push my face into (another honduran tradition), but they flung frosting at my face. This turned into a bit of a food fight, and needless to say, we were getting some pretty strange looks at this point. What would I do without these girls? 

     Cesia presented me with another beautiful card from all of them, and then we left. I thought I was going to go home, but Kenia and Nidia were going to a concert, and they invited me to go with them. It was a "Battle of the Bands" concert with a bunch of bands from Honduras. I was surprised by how good they were! I only got to see a little of the concert because it started late and I left at 9, so I spent most of the times hanging out with classmates and friends of Kenia's, and it was really fun.

    I sort of feel like I had a party that lasted all week. People kept asking me if I was sad that I wasn't home for my birthday, but I honestly wasn't. I feel so blessed to have such great friends here, they made me feel so loved and special and I had an amazing birthday. 

    On sunday instead of having church, our church had a Garage Sale, and I got to go help out. I love garage sales! And this was the garage sale of my dreams: all of the clothing and everything was under a dollar and oh-so-very-vintage. But of course I couldn't shop, because I don't have room in my suitcase. So I stayed far away from the 1 lempira bin (the DIY possibilities!) and focused on helping out. I'm good at these things, and I think I was a lot of help. One of these days, I'm going to go vintage shopping in a third world country. That would be rad. 

Here's a picture of my friends with a hobo.

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

Tela!

    Last weekend was fun, but this weekend was fantastic. I initially didn't know any of the AFSers I was going on the Tela trip with, and I knew that they all knew each other and that they were mostly Italians and Germans, and so I was worried that they would just speak Italian and German and I would be the odd one out. But I was completely blown away by how friendly and welcoming everyone was! Everyone was so fun and open, and everybody spoke Spanish and English so we could all understand. After the first day, I felt like I'd known everyone for years.

    On the bus I hit it off with one of the Belgian girls, Lore. We talked for most of the bus ride to Tela and then ended up in the same room. When we got to Tela, we ate lunch and then headed for the beach! It was so wonderful to talk to people while wading in the cool clear waves and watching the sunset. I thought I was the only American, but there was actually another one! He was a volunteer; not a student. I should have been able to tell right away by his accent and the way he laughed at my jokes, but I hadn't been expecting to meet any so I was surprised when CJ told me he was from Chicago. It was great to talk to a fellow American, I think being abroad for a while has really made me aware of my culture and what traits I have that are uniquely American. Fun fact: Hondurans hate it when we refer to ourselves as "American", because technically they're Americans too. But since we're too lazy to refer to ourselves as "We That Come From The United States of America", we're sticking to "Americans"...at least when talking to each other.

    That night, as well as the following morning, we had orientation-activities, it was all basically the same stuff I had done the former week in Copan. We talked about our feelings, the "positives and negatives" or our experience, etc., etc.

    On saturday, after our orientation activities were finished, we were free to do as we wanted. I started out by going on a little boat tour with a few of the other students, and it was really nice. We took off from the beach in a little motor boat and entered into a quiet little lake not far from the shore. I didn't understand a lot of what our tour guide was saying, but it was beautiful.

                                     

    After that, CJ and I and two other girls, Anja and Berenice, and I decided to go and find "Pastelitos", beacuse he had been raving about how much he loved Pastelitos and I had never tried them. Even though "Pastelitos" sounds like "little cakes" they were, in fact, nothing like cake, but rather a kind of bready fried thing with chicken inside. He said they usually had a kind of relish inside as well, but these ones just had chicken. They were really good, but did not replace the special love in my heart for Baleadas as promised. 

CJ and his Pastelito

                                     

    After that, Anja and Berenice and CJ and one other Italian girl-- I forget her name already but she was really fun-- and I took a long walk on the beach and talked. When we came back, I hung out with CJ and Lukas, a boy from Germany, and we sat on the beach and talked some more. We talked about our experiences as foreigners and had some really great conversations/debates about controversial issues such as religion and abortion, which was wonderful because I really love good debates and I haven't had one in a really long time.

Lukas

     That evening we had dinner and walked through town. We winded up going to a discotec, which was fun although we had a curfew of 11pm, so we were pretty much the only ones at the discotec. Nobody goes to discotecs before midnight! The discotec had an interesting theme that night, and there were all these guys dressed like monsters. 

I danced with one of these guys.

    Our curfew ended up being a good thing because we had so much fun hanging out outside the hotel afterwards. We engaged in quite the bit of silliness-- somehow we ended up with a pineapple that we all wanted to eat, but we didn't have a knife. So this happened:

Lore and Amarilda doing the honors

    And then more 2am silliness ensued.

    We left first thing the next morning for home. Why so early? I was sad to go because I probably won't see any of my new friends again.
    Monday I had to leave school early because I had a stomach ache and felt horrible. It's wednesday, and I'm still sick, although better than I was yesterday. yesterday I was throwing up and couldn't keep food or liquids in my stomach. I've been sick before, but I think what really worried my family was that I wouldn't eat, so they took me to the doctor. She gave me a bunch of medicine and told me to eat soft foods, I think I might have gotten food poisoning or something. Despite having been here three months, I feel like my body's still not adjusted to Honduras. I've gotten several headcolds and stomach malfunctions and viruses. I hope I get better quick, because it would be terrible to miss out on the class trip to Copan this weekend!

Copan!

     The wednesday night of last week, I got a call from Louisa, my AFS coordinator, saying there was a trip to Copan the next day and I had to be at the shopping center at nine AM the next morning. Advanced notice, right? But who am I kidding, it's not like I had anything cooler than Copan planned. So I enjoyed the rare luxury of sleeping in, and the next morning I was on a bus to Copan! The bus ride took the better part of the way because we kept having to stop and wait for other students. I got to reunite with the other students, Juri and Luise, and the rest of the German/Belgian volunteers. There were also two new volunteers; a girl from Lichtenberg, and a lady from Switzerland, and a new student, a boy from Japan. I forget their names already, but they were cool. When we got to the hotel, we were all surprised by how fancy it was. The courtyard was gorgeous and the rooms were clean and had giant super-soft beds and irons and coffee makers. Then we all laughed about how Honduras has changed our fanciness standards.

Juri, Luise, and I :)

    The first day we ate dinner and then spent the rest of the day just chilling, which is actually what we did for most of the trip. I kept asking our coordinators what we had planned and they said, "Nothing, this is just for relaxing and vacation!" A vacation from my vacation! We had a lot of freedom; no curfew and we were allowed to go wherever we wanted, so that was cool. The first night Juri and Louise and I walked around the picturesque town and hung out in the park. We talked to people at the souvenir stands and watched fire tricks, musicians, and dancing. I loved the mood of the town: it was a little irritating being treated like a tourist, but there's something to be said for the friendly, artificial mood of such a touristy place. Being a foreigner, you feel an automatic sort of kindred-ness with other foreigners, and it's easy to walk around and just meet people.
    On friday, we started off the day by doing a AFS exercise like the ones we had done in orientation. We talked about our feelings, all our crappies and our happies. Louise ended up with a crazy host sister who spreads mean rumors about her, and she's having to change families. Juri absolutely loves her family and her school and is having a great time. Everyone has gained weight except for me-- Juri even had to buy new pants. I had to buy new pants too, but it was because I lost weight. I have no idea why! I've basically been stuffing my face nonstop for three months now.

    After we were done writing our feelings on construction paper and such, we ate lunch and went to a bird park. I almost didn't go because the entrance was $10, which seems like a ridiculous sum of money to me now, but there wasn't much else to do. The birds of Honduras are absolutely beautiful. A lot of the birds who were in the park were there because their former owners had been abusive-- it's so unfathomable that people would abuse and kill such beautiful creatures for fun. At the end of the tour, we all got to have Kodak moments with the Macaws on our shoulders. Our guide claimed they were docile but one of them bit my hand, the little booger.

    Part of the fun of our little bird-park trip was just riding in these crazy "taxis". They aren't even cars, really, more like some sort of ATV/golfcart hybrid, and our cab driver had a need for speed. I'm pretty sure he was racing the other cab driver, there were a few times I thought I was actually going to fall out and land my butt on some cobblestone. But if I thought a Copan cab ride was crazy with four passengers, it was nothing compared to when we somehow managed to fit seven.

Look at this lady! She's like, "Stupid tourists." Hahaha. (Her presence in this photo is entirely coincidental)

    That night we were again without plans. Louise and Juri and I wandered around town again and we ended up meeting a couple of Brazilian guys and we hung out with them for a few hours. They were trilingual and good conversationalists, and their English was perfect. One of them used a few words I didn't know; which was so not cool. 

    Saturday we finally got to see the Mayan ruins. They were incredible. According to our tour guide, the ruins in Copan are pretty much the best in the world. He knew so much about Mayan history and the way Mayans lived. It was all fascinating, but I kept having to resist the urge to ask how they knew all these things from looking at a bunch of rocks-- his histories were almost unbelievably detailed. This is why I have trouble in school.

    Saturday we hung out with the German/Belgian/Lichtenbergian(?)/Swedish-- this is too much work, I'm just going to call them German, OK? Saturday we hung out with the German kids and went to the discotec. I've heard so much about Honduran discotecs but this was my first time going to one! It was fun. 

    Getting up the next morning for the bus home was not pleasant! Neither was going to school the next day, because after an eventful weekend it felt so boring. A lot of the other exchange students have fellow exchange students in their towns or in their schools, and I'm a bit jealous. It's funny because I remember wondering why the exchange students at my old school hung out with each other. I thought if I were on a country I would only want to spend time with people from that country in order to be integrated-- but I totally get it now. I still think it's good to try to be integrated into the culture of the place, but I think hanging out with other exchange students is good too. Being an exchange student is such a strange experience to have and it's nice to be around people who understand your perspective.
    Monday at school I announced to Nicole that I need new pants. She laughed and assumed that I've gained weight, although that is not the case. So on Tuesday we walked to the mall after school. Kevin came too, and at first I was like, "Oh, great, a boy. He's going to hate this," but it was funny because I think he was actually more into the process than Nicole, as hard as he tried to hide it. After we had been to three different stores and tried at least twenty pairs, I finally found a pair that sort of worked and he said "Are you sure you don't want to try on more?" Nicole rolled her eyes and I could have hugged him.
    I didn't think I was going to see any of the other students again, but I ended up seeing Luise on wednesday when I went to Tegus to deal with immigration things. I get documents in the mail in thirty days that say I am officially a resident of Honduras! (And then I leave a week later. Hahaha.)
    I had to catch a bus at eight to go to Tegus, and at eleven we were done and Tania and Louisa took me to the bus station to take a bus back to Comayagua. But I was a little disappointed that I had come all the way to the city just to go home an hour later, so I asked if I could go to the mall. They said OK, and Luise wanted to come too, so we took a taxi to the mall. I've been dying to buy books and I need to buy a formal dress for an upcoming Quinceañera as well as Rosa's Prom. I did not accomplish either of my objectives-- the bookstore was tiny and only sold religious books and crime novels, and I got distracted from my goal of buying a formal dress. I had fun anyway, it was so nice to shop in a really good mall. I wish I had known I was going to Tegus, or I would have waited and bought pants there. They had big-girl pants.
    I just found out I'm going on another AFS trip to Tela-- tomorrow! I won't be with the same group of students. Since I'm the only American, and, I think, the only student doing a semester program, I'm an abnormality and I don't really have a group. I'm not sure why, but I'm invited on this trip as well. Yay! 

    Oh yeah, and here are my graduation pictures. I'm not actually graduating, but I insisted they take them because everyone else was and I felt left out.