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 :)

Dia De Madres!

                                   

    I had a fantastic weekend! Friday night we had a mother's day celebration at our school. All the parents came and we (the seniors!) provided food and entertainment. A few people sang, but mostly it was dancing! I knew Hondurans were good dancers, but I was blown away! I'm especially impressed because I know they started two weeks ago and only had like 5 practices. Everyone did an amazing job, although some of the dancing would have shocked an audience of American parents. By Honduran standards, it was totally PG. 

 My physics teacher, Merlin, and Gabi

Singin' songs about unity and peace and stuff

Merlin and I

    I was so hyper that night I had trouble sleeping, which was unfortunate, because I had to wake up at 4 am to be at the school for our trip to Tegus with Sr. Silva! Most of the students couldn't go because of Trabajo Social, but Merlin, Gabi, Oscar, and three of our professors had an awesome time anyway. To be honest, when I left, I didn't really know what we were doing. Sr. Silva, our religion teacher, is Portuguese and he's extra-hard to understand-- all I knew was that we were going on a trip, so I signed up. But I learned that we were going on a "run" (we didn't actually run much) with the organization Run 4 Unity to promote peace. I hadn't really worn running clothes, but that's fine, because in Honduras, nobody wears running clothes. If this had been in America, all the girls would be in yoga pants and jogging shoes, but Honduran chicks wear skinny jeans and ballet flats everywhere. Seriously, everywhere, even to go camping in a cow field. 

    When we got to Tegus, we met up on a sidewalk with a group of other kids and a lady who talked a little bit about the organization, and then we sang some fun songs and got started walking. We held a bunch of signs that said things like "Youth for peace!" and chanted and we had police escorts so that we could walk in street. Traffic was busy and a lot of people were annoyed at having to go around us. Blocking traffic for peace! Woot. 

    We stopped a few times along the way to meet up with little groups of other R4U people holding signs on sidewalks and to be interviewed by various cameramen. I think we were on TV, but I don't watch TV, so I don't know for sure. I ended up being glad it was so early in the morning because it was already so hot! We walked for about two hours and then we stopped at the university and gathered in one of the auditoriums. There was more singing and talking and some sexy dancing. (No event in Honduras is really complete without sexy dancing). We painted our hands crazy colors and put our handprints on a big poster and took lots of pictures. And then we ate lunch! All of us had brought Baleadas and Sr Silva had brought sandwiches and fruit to share and then we went to the mall "to eat lunch". Everyone made fun of me because I didn't want any of Sr. Silva's food and I didn't eat at the mall. "You don't eat much!" they said. But I had eaten three baleadas and a guava! I don't understand how my classmates are so skinny the way that they eat! 

    I was glad we went to the mall because it gave me a chance to buy a present for "mi mama hondureña". Bless Merlin for being patient with me when I was trying to pick out a card for my host mom! They all said things like "You are the best mother in the world"-- well, that's a little disloyal. Or, "you have always been there for me"-- well, that's not exactly true. Or, "you understand me more than anyone else"-- that would be difficult, considering we speak different languages! I finally found a fairly generic card and a bag of jelly beans with a cheesy little "Happy Mother's Day!" balloon. It's so difficult to communicate with my host mom but she is a sweet lady and I hope she knows how grateful I am to her for opening her home to me.

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    That was pretty much my saturday! Obviously I was tired that night, but I had trouble sleeping. At three AM I was awoken to the sound of Giovanni's signature "Maliña!" outside my window, and I was like, oh, Rosa and Giovanni are having a date in the front yard at three AM, that's cool. But then I heard a bunch of other voices and I realized that, in fact, half of the church was in my front yard! And they had all brought drums and guitars and started singing a mother's day song. Thank heavens I had worn pants that night, because in Honduras, you never know if some guy is going to stick his head inside your window at three AM and shout "LEVANTATE, KAITI! How ARE yooooou!" 

    That was a serenata, and apparently they're common here on mother's day. Mother's day is kind of a big deal here. I noticed when we were on our way to la casa de los abuelitos that morning that a lot of people were dressed up and carrying cake boxes and flowers. We brought presents and mocha cake and Gracia's dad played a bunch of Mother's day songs on his guitar before we ate it. It was a good day. I hung out with Gracia and talked about books and ate ridiculously good food, as per usual upon visits to the grandma's house. We hung out at the river and caught fish and Gracia yelled at a bunch of boys who were torturing wildlife. They tortured a turtle and threw rocks at the beautiful colorful birds in the trees until they fell down and beat them, laughing while they screamed. One of the birds they had thrown rocks at was entangled in one of the trees, crying and badly injured. We managed to get it down because Gracia's brother and I wanted to put it out of its misery, but Gracia wasn't sure so she just left it hidden in some of the grass by the river, hoping those horrible boys wouldn't find it again. Animal abuse is something that is sadly prevalent in Honduran culture.

Me, Nicole, Gabriela, and Jenny

    On monday I had something fun to do as well. It was my compañera Jenny's 18th birthday, so she had a little party at her house. Gabriela, Nicole, (Mirta?), and another girl who's name I forget and I hung out and ate pizzitas and nachos and cake for a while and then we went to the theatre to meet up with some more people from our class and see the Hunger Games, which I was ecstatic about. I've been bugging everyone about taking me to see the Hunger Games for the past month! Everyone has been warning me that the theatre in Comayagua is a joke, but it was much nicer than I expected. The chairs were plastic but a step above fold-ups, the screen was big, and the rows were slanted down so people's heads did not impede my viewing. And for a buck a ticket, I'm not complaining about anything. I would have paid that much just for the privilege of sitting in a well air-conditioned room for two hours! Haha! Maybe I'll pester people about seeing Avengers with me next. 
   I might be having another awesome weekend this week because I heard AFSers are doing a trip to Copan! I didn't go on the last trip and I sort of regretted it, but apparently everyone was robbed so I guess it was for the best. Hopefully that won't happen again! 

Trabajo Social

 

  I had a great weekend. The volunteer work turned out to be really fun. We started out our day by piling into very Honduran-styled transportation-- the back of a giant truck.  If I thought riding in a car with a seatbelt in a country with no speed limits, no regard for traffic rules, and an incredibly low amount of actual roads was scary, this was terrifying. But it was a fun kind of terrifying, with everybody screaming and laughing and falling over each other, and it was a pretty good way to get woken up. I tried to avoid doing the math about the statistic probability of my earthly termination.
    We rode to a little town outside of Comayagua, and we went to a school where we were expected to take down the stone wall surrounding the school. I got the feeling I wasn’t expected to do much--they didn’t even put me in a group! But I was excited about having something to work hard at for once. I am a hard worker and I wanted to prove that just because I am a “rubia” gringa who doesn’t understand Spanish or anything at school doesn’t mean that I am a lazy useless blob! So I surprised everyone by working my very hardest. Some people actually got mad at me because I made them look lazy, so people kept taking my shovel and forcing me to take breaks. They kept complaining that I was making them work even though I never said anything! “Tranquila, Kaiti!” they whined.  “Descansase.”
    At lunch I reunited with Kenia, Sonia, Merlin, and Prins, the girls I had hung out with at the Convivencia. I love them so much! They’re all really silly and they make me laugh so hard. We got on the topic of dancing, and I told them that they need to teach me because I am a gringa and I absolutely cannot dance. I showed them “gringa dancing” which was like a really bad imitation of snookie-meets-lady gaga, and they got a kick out of it. Then Merlin stood up and tried to show me how to dance, but Jorge, one of the boys from the other class, took over. He told me to imitate what his feet did, so I did, and everyone told me that I did good but I needed to move my butt more. So I moved my butt and everyone was like “perfect!” Wow, um, that’s it? There were cameras present, so there is probably photographic evidence of this experience somewhere on the internet. Great.
    So I rode in the back of a truck, worked all day, and danced during lunch break-- it was a very Honduran day! I’m still sore (and it’s Tuesday!) but it was a great day and it was definitely worth it.
    On Sunday we went to church and to Giovanni’s house to watch movies. We watched Rango and Puss in Boots and went to his Aunt’s house for dinner. In retrospect I probably seemed grumpy because I was so tired that I didn’t really talk all day, but it was a good day. I love Giovanni’s family, they’re nice and they make me feel at home. Monday I went to school and I had today off for some sort of holiday. I’ve just been relaxing and I went to lunch with Sra Ortega, Rosa, Giovanni, and Rosa’s uncle. We were going to go to a Tilapia restaurant but we had a kind of funny experience there. Everyone there was hammered and singing Karaoke really loudly. My host mom asked the waitress for a menu, and she was like “we don’t have one”. She asked, well, what do you have then? And the waitress said “Tilapia”…and then she left and didn’t take our order. What, was she waiting for us to decide? Haha. So we ended up going to Carne Asada.

Oh yeah, and this is the menu at "Wendy's". Funny.