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.

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!

Prom shopping, mass, and awkward goldfish

Giovanni, Rosa, Emily and Me in Tegus

My little friend who lives in my closet

    This week has been sleepy. Last Saturday there was another Tallier project at school, but I didn't end up going because my family was going to Tegus to look for a prom dress for Rosa. My host mom, Rosa's Aunt, Rosa's little cousin Emily and Giovanni and I went to a few stores and Rosa picked out a beautiful pale green satin floor length gown. Here, if you want to buy clothes of even considerably good quality, you have to go to Tegucigalpa. I was coached to tell the shop owners that we're from Tegus if they ask because apparently if you tell them you're from outside they show you the worst dresses-- haha! Tegus really is like a whole different country. 
    Even though you can find good clothes in Tegus from American and European brands, the prices are outrageous. They charge at least twice as much for any given article of clothing, and they hang cheap fashion chain brands like Forever 21 and H&M in boutiques along with designer. I'm going to Rosa's Prom, too because it's not really a dance but more like a formal graduation party. I didn't realize until after our shopping trip that I'm supposed to buy a formal dress too-- I thought one I brought was nice enough, but I showed it to my host mom and she said it wasn't. Shoot. Item # 345,678 I really should have packed...hopefully we'll go to Tegus again sometime in the next three weeks because the thought of trying to buy a formal dress in Comayagua makes me shudder. This experience is really making me realize what a diva I am.
    Another event coming up is the mothers day celebration at our school...I'm a senior, and apparently we're the entertainment. We're all supposed to either sing or dance...everyone's dancing, but I'm white and I can't dance, so that's not happening. Everyone wants me to sing-- I don't really get stage fright singing in public, but the main problem is that I have no idea what to sing. It's so hard to find a song that's good for mother's day. Also, it's hard finding opportunities to practice since I feel self-conscious about the fact that the whole neighborhood can hear our household activity. Not that the neighbors don't deserve it for blasting their mariachi music late into the evening, but still. I could always play the Bewildered Exchange Student Card and get out of it. 
    Today I got to experience my very first Catholic mass, which was slightly more exciting than Lab class. We just sung and prayed and chanted things. I was scolded very publicly for not singing along, but I was like, "I don't know the words, dude, what you gonna do?" Actually I just smiled awkwardly like I didn't understand and the service went on. There was wine and bread present, like at protestant communions, but instead of everyone taking some like we do, only the priest drank the wine and ate the bread. Haha. Okay. 
    The only other abnormality in my week was having to talk in front of my class today. El director, Senor Carlos, decided that I should take a turn doing the morning chapel like everyone else, but he decided instead of having me talk about God he wanted me to give a speech about myself "to practice my spanish". My classmates Mirta, Kevin M, and Nicol teased me about it all week, saying "Remember, Kaiti, on friday you have tu momento religioso" with an evil glint in their eye, and then laughing like the voyeuristic fools they are when I squirmed with dread and discomfort. Awesome. I just babbled about my hometown, my family, and my school for a minute and I must have made a lot of mistakes because everyone kept laughing. Afterwards I asked if anyone had any questions, but they just stared at me like a bunch of awkward goldfish. Ugh. 
   I still haven't had my compañeras over to swim, because every time we plan something, a test or something comes up and they have to study. Most of the people I talk to are from the other class, Secretarios, and they have to study even more than my class does! Most of them rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep a night.
    Tomorrow I have another school project, my class is doing some sort of volunteer work. I'm not really excited about going to school on Saturday (again) at 7:30 in the morning, but at least it will be a much-needed opportunity to hang out with my classmates. 

Barriers

Juanca's birthday! He's so adorable.

Let's see, what have I been up to? I haven't been doing much, just going to school and church on the weekends. This weekend I also went to watch people from my church play futbol and Saturday...what did I even do Saturday? How can I not remember three days ago? I think I'm going senile.

Today AFS called me to ask if I wanted to switch grades or schools because I guess my host mama complained to them because my classes are impossibly hard (programming? calculus? computer repair?!) and I said no, just because I've already been where I am for six weeks and I don't want to start all over again, it's hard enough making friends as it is. I wish I had thought to talk to AFS about it a month ago, but I wasn't even aware that switching schools was an option. I'm really having a hard time seeing how I'm going to get any credit for all these classes I doubt I can pass, even though AFS is doing their best to see that I do, so it's looking like I might be stuck in high school a little longer than planned. Oh well, I guess the important thing is really that I'm making friends and learning spanish.

So about making friends...it's hard. Shocking, right? There are the obvious problems of the language and social barriers, and then there's that underlying barely-tangible cultural barrier. There's a disconnect between the way I think and behave as a result of my culture and the way Hondurans think and behave as a result of their culture, and sometimes that makes it feel impossible to communicate. I feel like there have been some times when I've accidentally offended or snubbed people simply because of a miscommunication. I have to be very conscious of appearing friendly because Hondurans are friendly in ways that Americans are not. For instance, in Honduras, it's impolite to walk past a person, stranger or friend, without saying "hola" or "adios" or "buenos". "Here we at least say Adios, Kaiti!" lectured Nicol when I responded to an "adios" with a smile and a wave. Also, Hondurans are really into cheek kissing-- everyone. Family, friends, strangers, teachers. I love cheek kissing but it's another one of those things that stresses me out because I don't really understand it.

I was warned, before I came here, that Hondurans are a very non-confrontational people. I thought that was a rather bizarre generalization, so I sort of blew it off, but it's true. If people want to say something to you...they don't just say it to you. I've noticed that in general, controversial issues aren't really addressed or discussed openly...people here are very religious, but often more so in appearance than in practice. I'm a very direct and open person, so that's another thing that's hard to get used to.

In some ways, though, Hondurans are less polite than Americans. I noticed that kids at school love to jokingly address each other as "Vo'Imbecil!" ("Yo imbecil?" "No, el otro imbecil!"..."Vo'Imbecil!") and "Maje!" Black kids are nearly always referred to as "Negro!" which sounds horribly offensive to my American ears but it's the norm here. Black kids are also teased about their skin ("Your skin's so dark, your mama must have left you in the oven when you were little!") which is hilarious because often the teasers are every bit as dark as the "black" kids. In fact, often I don't even know someone is "black" until I hear "Hey, Negro!" and see them turn their head. They're all pretty mixed.

People are just referred to by their physical attributes in general...kids with curly hair are called "curly", kids with pale skin are teased for being "gringo", kids with pimples are addressed as "pimples!". I've also heard hey gordo! Which is like, hey fat guy! That would not go down well in America.

Also, every Honduran's favorite English word is "fuck", which is hilariously incongruent with their politeness. Lost at Uno-- fuck! Stubbed my toe-- fuck! Dropped my pencil-- fuck! At school, no less-- I wince every time I hear it. They must not understand its poignancy in the English language. They love the n-word, too, which I can't even type.

Mainly I'm just trying to focus on making friends. I wouldn't have said I'm a shy person a month ago but it's amazing what being completely uprooted and replanted can do for what you think you know about yourself. I'm finding that I really have to take making friends into my own hands, if I sit around waiting for people to talk to me it is absolutely never going to happen. Mostly I find people are intimidated by my presence or just apathetic. Some comments have led me to think that people here are incredibly willing to believe that I consider myself superior to them because I am "gringa", which is of course completely not the case. I guess people are just shy sometimes. They do talk to me on facebook-- I've had a few people message me on facebook telling me I should talk to more people. One guy who was completely unresponsive to my attempts at real life conversation later FBed me to say he was sorry, and that he had been nervous. I said you're nervous, dude? I'm fresh off the plane living in a country full of people I don't know who speak a language I don't speak haha it's fine we'll talk tomorrow :) Haha. I guess highschool's the same everywhere. I've been trying more and more to make extra-extra-effort. I started out with inviting a few girls I eat lunch with over to come over and swim this weekend and I can't wait!

There are a lot of ways in which I really like the cultural differences here.

Hondurans are very friendly and generous. They love to share. Yesterday, for instance, my religion teacher invited me and a few of his other students into his office during recreo just to chat and share a giant omelette he had brought in foil wrap. Often you'll see people splitting tiny meals sixteen ways, pulling candies or cookies or entire plates of chicken fajitas out of their little purses, which I think is pretty sweet. Personal property isn't really a thing here, what you have, you share, even if it's not much.

Hondurans have very strong family values. They prioritize their families and they are always loyal. Divorce rates are very low. University students are likely to live at home with their parents, "on-campus housing" is not a thing. My host mom has a niece who regularly steals money and the most random household items from them-- clothes, sketchbooks, underwear-- haha! yet she is still welcome to stay whenever she wants because she is family. I guess that goes back to the personal property thing, too.

Some Hondurans have pointed out to me that Americans are obsessed with time. "What is it with Americans and lists?" asked Kevin. "You Americans are always making lists." I think Americans make lists because in general they are very goal-oriented and efficient-- Hondurans, not so much. Hondurans take their time doing whatever it is that they are doing, they relax and enjoy life and are often not concerned with huge accomplishments. Kevin and I arrived at the conclusion that sometimes making lists is bad because your goals can get in the way of other things that are more important.

AFS has a motto: "It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different". I'm finding in many ways that is true.

PS. Does anyone know how to disable that tag-autocorrect on blogspot that corrects all your tags to tags you used in former posts? It's making me want to scream.

Semana Santa has begun

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It is officially Semana Santa! No school this week, YES! It's amazing what a relief that is to me considering I don't really do anything at school anyway. I think I'm going to get another vacation week in a few months for something called "student's week", whatever that is. They like vacations here! Woohoo!

One of the things I like about it being Semana Santa week is that everyone's so happy. At school on Friday the mood was palpably joyful, and Rosa has been giggly all weekend. It makes sense because they are all students who have been working really hard.

On Saturday Rosa and Giovanni and I went on a little road trip to La Paz, a little little town outside of this little town. We met up with some of Rosa's friends and somehow managed to cram eight people inside of one five-seater car, but that's completely normal here. (You should see my school "bus"! It's actually a van but at times there are twice as many people as seats). We drove around a bit, went to one of the girl's house who had lots of pets and literally dozens of birds, and we went to the park and ate ice cream and drank soda and acted silly. I didn't do much but watch and giggle at all of them because they were all so fun. Then Rosa and Giovanni and I went home and went to church.

On Sunday we went to church again, and then we went to Giovanni's huge house to swim in his pool. And then we got dressed and went on an adventure looking for Guajada cheese. Rosa has been telling me about Guajada cheese-- it's her favorite thing ever. She told me it's softer than The Honduran Cheese and it tastes better. So we drove to somebody's house and Giovanni asked them if they had Guajada, but they didn't, so we drove to Giovanni's grandparents house, and behold, they had a huge tub of it! We stood in the kitchen while the lady finished making it and then they gave us a baggie of it. We went back to Giovanni's and had a dinner of Guajada, beans, rice, and tortillas. Mmm! I didn't like the Guajada better than Honduran Cheese, but then again, I didn't love The Honduran Cheese when I first tried it and now I do, so I guess it's just one of those types of things you have to get used to.

Then Giovanni and Rosa started a movie, but I fell asleep before the opening credits, so I sorta missed out on that.

And today is monday! I just ate pancakes (which are here what we'd call crepes) and watched the last half of Finding Nemo and now I guess we'll probably spend the day doing mostly nothing. Tomorrow we're going on a camping trip with the church youth, so I'm excited for that!

My pictures have been pretty lame so I'm going to be trying to take more and better ones. I always feel like such a tourist pulling out my camera, but I essentially am a tourist so I don't know why this bothers me. I know I'll regret it later if I don't take enough!

Baleadas are magic.

Top Three Things I hear People Saying About Me In Spanish:

1. "How cute! Where's she from?"

2. "She doesn't speak any spanish...no, none at all..."

3. "Does she like beans/rice/plantains?"

I'm slowly getting used to the region's spanish. My first impression of honduran spanish was that it sounds almost muffled; soft. I've come to notice that Hondurans don't like to pronounce consanants and have an irritating habit of skipping s's completely. They also don't like to pronounce more than one vowel in a row. "Quieres" is "queres" and "tienes" is "tenes". There is no "mas o menos" only "ma o meno" Also, there is no "tu", there is only "vos", which is like the spanish equivalent of "ya'all" so it feels really strange. Even if I speak with "perfect" grammar and pronunciation, often people gape at me as if I had just mumbled "HVJBEAWBBAKBKS" (or laugh hysterically) and somebody who's been around me long enough to understand my version of the spanish language has to translate it into the Honduran style of not using consonants. Sigh. Luckily I am incapable of embarrassment, or I would have stopped talking a long time ago.

ANYWAYS, it's monday and I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Nicol. She came over friday with the notion that she would help me with my studies, but we ended up just watching movies and hanging out. Sandra also made Baleadas for the first time, which changed my life.

Baleadas are a uniquely Honduran food consisting of a wheat tortilla, with beans, cheese, and mantequilla*, and often other ingredients as well. You're probably thinking, oh, like a burrito! But NO. Yes, Baleadas consist of similar ingredients as your average taco bar/enchilada/generic central-american dish, but what you don't know is that Hondurans not only put beans, cheese, and mantequilla in their Baleadas but they also put MAGIC. Or pixie dust. Or crack.

I would love to learn how to make Baleadas, but according to Rosa, I have about as much of a chance of creating a successful tortilla as I do of discovering the cure to cancer or building a rocketship with recycled cans and flying to the moon out of my backyard. I guess Sandra is the only one in our home we can do it because her hands are...magic. Or something.

On Saturday I went to school. Yes, really. There was a Tallier project there's not enough time in the week to do, so this week, I had school on Saturday. But it started at eight, so I got to sleep in. Ha! I never thought I would thing of eight as sleeping in, but school normally starts at six forty, so eight is practically like the middle of the day for me now. I was supposed to take apart a computer, clean all the parts, and put it back together, but all I really did was stand around and try to look like I knew what I was doing, and somehow I managed to not break anything.

After Tallier was over, Nicol and some classmates and I went to "La Princesita" to eat breakfast-- more baleadas! I was faced with another how-will-I-eat-this crisis because my 20-lempira baleada was twice the size of my face and overflowing with content, and hondurans don't believe in eating utensils, but it was SO WORTH IT because it tasted like heaven on a tortilla. Angels actually sang as I ate it.

If you're going to Honduras and you're worried about spicy food, don't. I have yet to meet a Honduran who even likes spicy food. My classmates all stared at me in awe as I piled the entire tables portions of rejected chiles (jalepenos?) on my Baleada, and the end result was still well below my spice-threshold. "Wowwww," they all whispered. "She likes chiles!"

After hanging out at school some more, Kevin, Nicol's boyfriend, and I went to her house because my host mom told Nicol to have me over. I'm not quite sure why that happened, but whatever, it was still fun. We all listened to music and talked and ate popcorn, and Kevin and I had mini-debates about drugs and alcohol and religion.

On sunday we just went to church (I understood 95% of the message this time! Yippee!) and then went home and chilled. We ate pizza hut and fried chicken for lunch, which is pretty popular here. I have eaten innumerable plates of fried chicken here, which is perfectly OK with me because fried chicken is amazing.

Another thing I eat a lot here is a plate of eggs, beans, mantequilla and toast, and sometimes avocado or platanos, which is all eaten together on the toast. I really like it; I just can not get enough of the beans here.

*Mantequilla, or crema, as pictured above, is what Hondurans think of as butter but it's more like a cross between butter and sour cream. It is eaten with essentially every meal.

Tortillas are also eaten with pretty much every meal, and I'm never really sure what to do with them. If I'm eating beans or something I use them as eating utensils, but if it's spaghetti or fried chicken or rice, I just get confused. I try to observe what other people or doing, but the piles of tortillas just seem to mystically disappear when my back is turned, so I still don't really know what Hondurans are doing with them. They're good, though, so I'm not complaining.

I've been here almost a month, and I still don't have a tan, which is disappointing to me. I do have a sunburn-- ick! but people keep walking up to me and going, "You're gotten pink! Que linda!" so I guess Hondurans think sunburns are cute? Weirdos.

We Ain't in Kansas Anymore, Toto

Things I'd Rather do With my Uniform Skirt Than Wear it Daily:

1. Donate it to the homeless to use as a tent

2. Use it as kindling for a bonfire

3. Feed it to Simba, the dog (he thinks my shoes are delicious, so it's not a far stretch)

4. Send it back on a time machine to the 60s, where it should rest in peace forever.

5. Hack it to pieces with a battle axe.

True story: while I was trying to upload this picture, my computer spazzed out and I had to restart it four times. Even electronic equippment can't handle the ugly.

Horrid uniform and crazy classes aside, I'm adjusting pretty well. Some other things I'm getting used to:

1. Food. The food here's great, but it's just so different from what I'm used to at home. I've found myself dying to taste something familiar...at a low point last week I walked to the convenience store in hopes to find a snickers bar or something American, but the only chocolate I could find was this random arabic cookie, which I passive-aggressively shoved down my face. So not the same. Globalization, where are you when I need you?!

Upon a trip to Wendy's, I was thrilled to find that, although the menu looks nothing like its american counterpart (no chili!) they have Ceasar salad. Yes! Something familiar! So I ordered it, but when it came, I was disappointed to find that there was no actual ceasar dressing included in the ceasar salad. Instead I got "Avocado Ranch". Well, at least there was good old Parmesan cheese, right? Nope. It was The Honduran Cheese. At least it was a salad.

At school for breakfast we have all-honduran options-- tacos, popusas, churros, and soda. I ordered Popusas last week, and the lady handed me a bag with my popusas drowning in three different types of salsa and...no fork. Or napkin. I turned to Nicol and said, "How do I eat it?" She cracked up and said, "With your hands, silly!" Uh, really?

So I went to the store with this idea in my head that I would purchase American sandwich ingredients to bring to school. So I went to look for cheese. But all they had was The Honduran Cheese and this frightening-looking limp yellow stuff that was being marketed as "American Cheese". So I went to get some deli meat, hoping I would find turkey or something. No such luck...all they had was ham, chicken, and ham AND chicken-- gross! I finally settled with PB&J, which thankfully they had the ingredients for. I do love trying new foods here, though, more on that later.

2. Bugs. As I started to write this, there was a bug crawling across my shoulder, which I pinched off and discarded. A few weeks ago I may have been more phased by this, but there are so many here that I've gotten pretty used to them. I've gotten countless mosquito bites, there are these tiny black crawlers everywhere, and cockroaches half the size of my fist scuttle across the living room floor. Luckily I've never been that scared of bugs, so it doesn't bother me too much, but it's something worth mentioning.

3. PDA. Personal space is not as much of a concept here in Honduras. It's hard for me to follow who's dating who at school, because everybody is touching everybody all the time. Boys I've never seen before in my life will kiss my cheek, hug me, put their arm around my shoulders, or grab my waist or hips (and, oddly, are more comfortable doing so than actually talking to me). The first week I was like, BACK OFF, MY FRIEND, I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY! but I'm used to it now. Typical scenario:

I am walking with so-and-so, and so-and-so stops to greet her boyfriend. Boyfriend kisses so-and-so's cheek, then hugs her, then boyfriend kisses MY cheek and hugs me. Why, hello. Nice to meet you too.