The Last Post (by Todd)

Well, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was just so busy getting ready to go, I didn't have time.

But I am now back in the good old U S of A, in the middle of orientation for medical school. It is different to be back. I feel often like I'm living the high life, living extravagant...

Cutest Pictures Ever (by Todd)

Whenever we go to Los Izotes, James takes a children's book to read, as part of his ongoing project to read to kids to promote education and literacy. If James can't make it, I'll take the book so the kids won't be disappointed.

Today's book was, "Donde Viven los Monstruos" ("Where the Wild...

Things that seemed strange when we first got here, which we have gotten used to, but which may not be obvious to all of you in the US (by Todd)

INSTALLMENT 1: BUSES

All over the highways of Honduras you see yellow school buses. Many of them will have writing on the sides along the lines of "Garret Park County Schools," etc., etc. Are these Honduras' extensive school transporation system? Nope. They are public buses, which Honduras b...

103... (by Todd)

...is the number of flies I killed (with a flyswatter) today at Casa Pasionista. It's a new Passionist Volunteers record for flies killed in one day. Thought you all would like to know.

Well, to give a little background to the killing spree, I'll say this. Much of Casa Pasionista is open ...

Hilarious!!! (by Todd)

Last night I was relaxing in the house after a full day in Los Izotes. Since I was a computer science major in college, one of my favorite ways to relax is to program computers. In other words, I was doing a little programming for fun.

At one point, James was reading stories to three littl...

The Rains Have Come (by Todd)

I realize that it's not obvious to all of you back in the States, but we have already past the hottest part of the summer. March, April, and the first half of May were really, really hot - sweltering. That was the thick of summer for the Hondurans.

About a week ago, the rains came. (Here in ...

La Hora Nueva (by Todd)

On Sunday, May 7, Honduras jumped ahead an hour, switching to Daylight Savings Time. This is the second attempt to do so ever made by Honduras.

The last attempt, made several years ago, met with overwhelming public opposition, criticism, and strikes, and was revoked.

This year, the hour chan...

Slight Change to the Blog (by Todd)

I've made it so that the main page only shows the first part of each post. Click "SEE THE WHOLE POST" to read the rest.

I figured this would make it easier for people to skim posts and find the ones they want. If it seriously bugs you, please do let me know :)

Just to show you how the text ge...

Facts of Life and the Honduran Dream (by Todd)

Facts of Life:

According to the Inter-American Development bank, in 2004, money sent back to Honduras from workers outside of the country (primarily immigrants in the US) constituted 15% of Honduras' GDP.
see: www.iadb.org/IDBDocs.cfm?docnum=537360 (it's in Spanish, though)

This percentage has...

The Cardinal Visits (by Todd)

Last Saturday (April 1), Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez came to visit Talanga. For those of you who don't know, a Cardinal is the highest position under the Pope in Catholic Hierarchy, so this is a fairly important guy.

It was a really nice visit. He came and met with the active members o...

The Honduran Mafia (by Todd)

They're not really the mafia. That's just my nickname for them. They are actually the "Comite Económico" for the Catholic church. Their job is to undertake fundraising projects and stuff for the church.

The first time I attended one of their meetings, I was met outside the door by four older...

Los Izotes (by Todd)

By the way, just so you all know, it's not that I'm stingy about posting pictures. It's just that it takes forever, because the internet is so slow. For example, to post all the pictures for Terrero and Los Izotes has taken me a full 7 days of uploading pictures.

Anyways, here are the pictur...

Terrero Colorado (by Todd)

James and I work in two aldeas: Terrero Colorado and Los Izotes. I've finally gotten around to putting up some pictures for them.

This entry is about "Terrero." It's the closer of the two aldeas to Talanga. James and I spend every Tuesday there. At first, it used to take us half an hour ...

Scholarship Profile - Karen (by Todd)

Story #2:

Karen is 14 years old. She graduated from elementary school at age 12, but couldn’t go to secondary school last year because she got sick, and for financial reasons. This year, she will be going because our scholarship fund has committed to pay for her three years of secondary scho...

Scholarship Profile - Ana (by Todd)

I'm going to post stories about some of the scholarship winners. Here's the first one.

I was in the aldea of Los Izotes, walking around, and inviting people to apply for the scholarship. I came to a house (withabout half a dozen giggling kids in tow) where there live two girls who we know pr...

Honduras Scholarship Fund (by Todd)

In my previous post I alluded to scholarship fund I've set up to help some of the children in the aldeas get to secondary school. Let me tell you a little more about that.

Most of the kids in the aldeas make it through primary school, but virtually none go on to secondary school because the ...

The Aldeas (by Todd)

Here is a little piece I wrote about our work in the aldeas.


“They can’t play,” the kids told me, pointing to two 11-year-old sisters.

“Nonsense,” I said (in Spanish). “Anyone who wants to can play Go Fish with us.”

But I soon realized what they meant. The two sisters didn’t know their numbers...

Fiesta Patronal (by Todd)

We've been nutso here with the Fiesta Patronal (celebration of the patron saint of Talanga, who is San Diego). There have been processions, called "gremios" all week. For each procession, people march in from one or a few of the aldeas. They meet up with the Talangeños and then process f...

¡La Policia! (by Todd)

Approximately four times now I have been stopped by the police.

The thing is that they have these "Puestos de Control" (Control Posts), where they randomly stop cars. The first time they stopped me, I was a little nervous. But they just asked for my license and registration, looked at them...

We're safe (by Laura)

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we should get some extra wind and rain from Beta but that we should be safely out of harm's way. We'll let you know if not! ;)

Right now we're gearing up for a busy two weeks with All Saint's Day, the Day of the Dead, and then the Fiesta Patronal...

Evil black bugs and other fun details... (by Laura)

There are evil black bugs in the aldea of Los Charcos. They leave welts that hurt and itch like crazy with red dots in the center. We got eaten alive by them and one of the welts tried to take over Lauren’s leg. One welt took over my left ear, it was swollen and red; beautiful but at lea...

Out of Wilma's Fury (by Laura)

Don't worry, everyone, we are inland and far away from the coast, we didn't even get the heavy rains we thought we were going to get. The worst that came from Hurricane Mitch a few years back was flooding in the area, too, so we should be ok in terms of hurricanes this year.

Things are pic...

Clinicas (by Todd)

Being very interested in the matter of medical care here in Honduras, I've been busy the past two weeks familiarizing myself. The nearest hospital is in Tegucigalpa, so much of the primary health care is administered through "clinicas" - health care clinics. They can't provide specialists o...

Las Aldeas (by Todd)

Another of our ministries will be working with the "aldeas." The aldeas are little towns, ranging from 100 to several thousand people. Most of the ones we've visited have around 300 residents and 50 houses. They are often out of the way, in the mountains. Some of them are really hard to get...

The Rainy Season (by Todd)

One waterproof poncho: $6 at K-Mart
Keeping dry in a Honduran rainstorm: priceless

During the past week, I've realized that the most useful thing I brought from home was that poncho (thank you Bryan for finding it!). We have apparently now entered the rainy season here in Talanga. It rains ab...

Hot shower! (by Laura)

Maybe the shower head that heats the water was a purchase we could have done without, but I'm willing to say it was a great buy! Though the fact that it took a few hours to install because they had to run an electrical line into the bathroom made me feel a bit spoiled. But I know that aft...

Pastoral de los Enfermos (by Todd)

This morning I went with the "Pastoral de los Enfermos" - ministry of the sick - of the Talanga church. The ministry is a group of ladies who visit the sick of Talanga. On Sundays, they take communion to the sick, who can't make it all the way to church. They also bring a little food - some...

Cleaning the Pila (by Laura)

First let me start off with the experience of washing clothes. The pila is about 4 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 5 feet long. It's a concrete basin full of water. Set above it is a little washbasin with a separate drain and a washboard surface on the bottom. I feel like it's a blast from t...

¡Mas fotos! (by Todd)

Here are a few more photos for everyone:

Padre Daniel, the pastor of the Talanga parish, on his birthday. Notice the message on the cake we gave him: "Feliz Cumpleaños. Sin Bombas." - "Happy Birthday. Without Bombs." That refers to the fact that at midnight on his birthday, the parish youth ...

¡¡Talanga!! ¡En foto! (by Todd)

Let´s start with a map of Talanga. As you can see, it´s just south of the road to Tegucigalpa. It´s also divided into eight "barrios" (neighborhoods), each of which has a different color (or white) on the map.

Here´s a shot of Talanga from above. What you see is about a tenth of the town -...

Open the floodgates... (by Laura)

Oh, wait, they already were.

The good news: we have (or at least had for a few hours) running water and some water in the reserve tank.

The bad news: our house flooded this morning.

The girls and I woke up in the rectory with the intention of eating watermelon for breakfast, climbing the cerri...

Dance, gringos, dance! (by Laura)

Why do I feel so loved by the Hondurans? Because every chance they get, they call us up to the front of the church to dance. Really, I think they're glad we're here so they can get a kick out of us. No, that's not true, but at the rate this is going, we will be choreographing dance more ...

Almost in the house! (by Laura)

We'll move tomorrow if we have a bathroom door and running water. The house looks great though I hope that we get dressers or something of the sort soon. Living out of a suitcase is getting old...I can never find anything!

To add to Todd's midnight description of Padre Daniel's birthday c...