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!

La Playa!

Weirdest Honduran Phrases I've Heard:

1. "Vayapues"-

Sounds like "go so" but in Honduras it means "OK"

2. "Tengo hueva"-

Sounds like "I have egg" but it means "I feel lazy"

3. "No hay pedo"

Technically means "There is no fart", but here they say it to mean "No problem". Oooookay.

I'm feeling pretty good today. As of yesterday, I've been here a month, and I'm finally feeling adjusted. I have to admit, I hit a low point my second week here, and spent the week feeling a bit sulky, asking myself "What am I doing in this strange country?!" and wanting to throw every plate of Honduran food I saw out a window, but I definitely don't feel that way anymore.

I get so much attention for being a gringa! I have to admit it, most of the time, I love it. Mostly people just stare, and I don't blame them, because even I stare when I see gringos in Comayagua. The other day I was loitering outside a Pulperia with some classmates after school and a group of sunburnt shorts-wearing tourists came wandering up the street, and I stared and giggled with the rest of my peers at how out of place they looked...and then I remembered that I'm a gringa, too, which despite my bad spanish and habit of looking in mirrors daily, I have still managed to forget after a month of living here. The other day a little boy at church ran up to me during worship, kissed me, and stood on a chair, pointed to me, and screamed "La blanca!" Yeah, I'm white. Pretty cool, I guess. Apparently school children have yelled compliments to me when I'm waiting for my bus, too, but I had no idea I was being addressed...and men call out to me "hermosa!" and allegedly some things it's better I don't understand. That would be the sort of attention I'm not particularly pleased about.

This weekend I got my first glimpse of the beautiful Honduran coast. I had to wake up at 3:00am on Saturday because the trip to the coast takes 5 hours-- yikes! I can't imagine how long it would have taken in a country with speed limits! My host mom, Juan Carlos, Sandra, and Sandra's kids and I went to the church where we met up with other people from church and piled into a big bus and headed for the beach. Rosa couldn't come because she had too much homework. Once at the beach I spent the day swimming, sleeping under palm trees, and eating coconut bread, fried things, and fresh coconuts, and drinking delicious red (hibiscus?) juice sold by some ladies from the church. It was lovely! Unfortunately I also accidentally fell asleep under the extra-hot coast sun, which rendered me quite burnt despite my SPF60, and got me some interesting nicknames, like"Fresita Rosita" (little pink strawberry/Strawberry Shortcake) and "Tomato".

Whilst relaxing under palm trees some little local boys approached us and sang us a song whilst banging on bucket-drums and dancing. It was so adorable! I tried to upload a video but blogspot is being stupid.

On sunday I went to Nicol's house and played Uno and watched Inception and hung out with her and Kevin. Despite this being my third time watching Inception, and my third time having a guy try to explain it to me, I still don't really get it, and I don't really understand why when these people can build any world they want their adventures are taking place in hotel lobbies and snowy mountains, because personally, I would be permanently residing in a magical unicorn land with candy falling from the sky if Inception were real. Still, it's a good movie.

Apparantly there's a dance party at school on Friday (I can't dance, so that'll be interesting) and my classmates invited me on some sort of roadtrip this Saturday for eating, swimming, and "convivencing"-- spanglish is so adorable :). It sounds so fun! I'm really excited for this weekend!