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 extravagantly, with everything I buy, and throw out, and eat. I'm amazed at how soft my clothes are after a machine wash and dry. I keep trying to throw out my toilet paper instead of flushing it. I forget that I can drink the tap water, and go searching for a water bottle when I brush my teeth. And my showers have been lasting upwards of 20 mins, as I relish the limitless hot water.

It was a wonderful year. I learned so much, and it was very, very sad for me to say good bye to all the folks I'd come to know and love in Honduras. It especially tore my heart out to leave the aldea of Los Izotes.

Of course, I wish I could have gotten farther along in some of my projects, but that will have to be for the new group of volunteers. It took a while to figure out what I was doing, but that was the nature of going as one of the first group.

I am very happy with the work I did, all that I learned, and especially the relationships I formed. For now, it's back to my US life. But my year in Honduras will leave an indelible mark.

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 Are"). During the story, I had the kids make monster faces and growl and gnash their teeth...so cute!! Take a look:

Gosh, those little guys are cute!

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 buys for cheap from the US. I would estimate that more than half of the public buses are yellow school buses, although they often have some design or name painted on the back.

You would be surprised at the number of people that can fit in these buses. You know those signs they often have in the front, saying "maximum capacity: 50 passengers"? Well, those are a lie. When the seats fill up, you squeeze three onto a two-person seat, or you stand people in the aisle. When it's really full, you can even squeeze two rows of people into the aisle.

The buses roll through at a roughly set schedule. On their front they usually have painted their destination, like "Talanga-Tegucigalpa." There is also a "wingman" kind of guy who rides standing next to the driver. Every time the bus stops, he gets out and shouts the destination of the bus, getting passengers to come on board. His job also includes collecting the fare once the bus is underway and organizing the passengers when it's crowded ("everyone standing move to the back of the bus." or "make two rows!").

When you want to get off the bus, you ask the driver to let you out. There are a few regular stops, but anywhere in between is fair game. If you want to get on the bus somewhere that is not a regular stop, that's fine too. You just wave the bus down.

There are also vendors who will get on the bus for a short time to sell food. They get on at one stop, walk up and down the aisle with a basket full of pizza, or bags of popcorn, or cold sodas. Then they get off the bus, and catch the next one going in the opposite direction.

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 to the air - it's got a central atrium/garden (unroofed), which is surrounded by a covered area that has no walls. This covered area connects to the kitchen and living room. So flies can fly around at will. And sometimes, we just get a ton of them. At which point, I go nuts and start the killing.

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 little boys who are 5 to 7 years old, and they wandered into the room where I was programming. James, trying to model positive career options, told them that I was programming the computer, and that they could someday learn that if they wanted.

"Can you program computers?" James asked the kids. They all bounced up and down, saying sure - you move the mouse this way to go right, this way to go left. I smiled ruefully at James and said, "I don't think they really understand what computer programming means."

So James explained it to them. "Look," he said (in Spanish), "I can give you instructions." Pointing at one of the boys, he said, "Brinca," which means jump. The boy jumped. Then James pointed at the other two boys. "Brinca. Brinca." They jumped, giggling.

James continued. "'Jump' means brinca in English," he told them. "I can tell you to jump in English." "Jump" he said in English, pointing to them. After a short hesitation, they all figured it out and jumped.

Then James made his point. "Todd can give the computer instructions in a language called Java," he said, "just like I can give you instructions in English." (For those of you who don't know, Java is a computer programming language).

The little boys nodded and seemed to understand. Then one of them turned to me and said, "Tell the computer to jump in Java."

James and I must have lauged for five minutes straight. Hilarious!!!

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 Honduras, summer is followed by rainy seasons). For the past two weeks, we volunteers have been thanking our lucky stars for the almost daily downpours that cool things off and tame the dust of Talanga streets.

(It was really hot before).

So, basically, now things are cooler, although it is still hot. But I believe the worst is past. Although we do have to contend with mud and numerous drips in our roof. Oh well.

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 change brought a good deal of confusion (witness: we had arranged a meeting in Los Izotes to which everyone showed up an hour late). However, as far as I can see, the Hondurans seem to be taking it a little better this time. Still, a lot of the people I know are quite bent out of shape over it. There seem to be several different responses people make:

OPTION #1: Ignore the time change completely. In the aldea of Terrero Colorado, everyone just pretends the time change doesn't exist. "Mel (the president) can keep his hour"

OPTION #2: Accomodate the time change but refer to it by the old time. This is my personal favorite. For example, at a school, the principal announced, "School now starts at 6am instead of 7." Did this mean that school was starting at 6am by the new time? Nope. It meant that school would be starting at 7am new time, but that we would just refer to it by the old time.

Similarly, a friend of ours complained to the girls that she had to leave for school in Tegucigalpa at "4am!!!!" When pressed, however, we discovered that, well, ok, it was 5am with the time change :)

OPTION #3: Complete acceptance. It seems to me that the farther you get from major cities, the less likely this option is. Most of Talanga is now on board, though not without some grumbling :)

The most common reaction, however (at least for the first week or two) has been to maintain BOTH time frames, using the terms hora nueva (new hour) and hora vieja (old hour). If we state both, we can avoid any possible confusion. For example, "We will meet at 7pm hora nueva, 6pm hora vieja."

As for us volunteers, being seasoned gringos already accustomed to bi-yearly obfuscations of the clock, we're taking it in stride. We are laughing quite a bit, though.

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 gets cut off early, I'll keep typing a little bit here. La-ti-da-ti-da.

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 increased sharply since the devastating Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras in 1998. Workers remittances in 2003 were 4 times greater than foreign investment in Honduras.
http://www.sela.org/public_html/aa2k5/ING/consejo/Di9.pdf

It is claimed that without this source of income, the Honduran economy would collapse.

Also an interesting article: http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004c/081304/081304a.php


The Honduran Dream

In the US, we have the American dream: to work hard and get rich, no matter what background you come from.

Hondurans have a dream too: to sneak into the US, work for several years, make a lot of money, then come back, by a house, and live comfortably in Honduras.

Obviously, I'm generalizing, but so, so many people here want to get to the US. Most of them plan to come back for a few years, although a good number eventually decide to stay. And almost every family has a parent, son or daughter, or cousin in the US or in Spain.

It makes me so sad sometimes to see families split by working in the US. On the other hand, very often people are trying to do the best for their families, given that the Honduran economy and job market are not great. We know one family where the kids have not seen their parents in 7 years (because they are illegally in the States, and can't come back). However, these kids are also better off than most kids here. It's a tough trade-off.

This morning, in the aldea of Los Izotes, James and I spent an hour talking with a 14-year-old about his plans to go to the US illegally. We were asking him questions, sort of joking, because I doubt he'd be able to go anytime soon. But even though it was all joking, I think the responses are telling.

"How will you get there?" "Walking."
"What state will you go to?" "I don't know."
"What work will you do?" "What I find when I get there."
"Where will you live?" "They'll give me a place to stay where I get a job."
"What if you get sick?" "I'll go to a doctor." "How will you pay for it?" "With the money I get from working." "What if you are afraid to go to a doctor because you might be deported?" "I don't know."
And of course: "What if they arrest you and send you home to Honduras?" "I'll go back."

It is very striking, and representative, that this young kid at 14 years has been planning for 2 years to go to the States to work. That is his career goal.

I suppose this all ties in to the Day without Immigrants and all the hubbub about immigration recently. Here's my political two cents (seems sort of obvious to me). All the immigration legislation in the world is just a band-aid that doesn't get to the root of the problem. It's like sticking your fingers into holes in the dam instead of changing the flow of the river. The ultimate solution to immigration is to economically develop the countries sending the immigrants. As long as those countries are poor, people will keep trying to get to a better life.

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 of the church (including us). We all went out to lunch, then to look at some land the Talanga parish is thinking of buying. Then we came back for a few more meetings, and a big Mass, which was absolutely packed. (Hondurans really love the Cardinal).

This is the second time we've met the Cardinal, and what struck me most for the second time is that he is such a humble man. For as important as he is (and the Cardinal here in Honduras wields A LOT of influence - a whole ton more than a US Cardinal), he doesn't put on airs. He's not intimidating at all. My favorite moment was when he took about 10 minutes to jam on the keyboard with the choir. Just smiling and bobbing up and down and plucking out notes on the keyboard with some of the young people of Talanga.

I really like Cardinal Rodriguez. He had a wonderful way of making time to listen to all sorts of people and to give them encouraging words. And he's really focused on the needs of the people - education, ways to keep kids out of drugs and gangs. After he left, everyone was really excited to keep on working on projects. He gets an A+ in my book.

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 men. They all talked in husky voices and addressed each other as "Don So-and-so." We had Don Mario, Don Guillermo, Don Guillermo, and Don Daniel. You can see where I got the mafia impression.

Most of their work these days is raising money to build a second Catholic church here in Talanga. Which is a really good idea because it takes an hour or more for some people to walk from the other side of Talanga to the church, and that's a big bar to participation for people who would like to come.

I have been working with them a lot. The Comite Económico is the comittee that is administering the scholarship fund I have started. One of them is a "public health promoter" in the Centro de Salud, and he has been invaluable in helping us set up for building latrines in the aldeas.

They are a great, great crowd. I really like working with them. They are enthusiastic and driven, and really excited about working to help other people. I could not have done the scholarship project without them! I realize all the time how much I don't know about how things are done in Honduras. But they have been so wonderful about managing the scholarships that it has compensated for my ignorances.

I just sort of stumbled across them one night by chance, but lucky me!

Tomorrow we have 4 college students arriving. They are coming for one week to volunteer here. I expect we'll be quite busy putting them to work all next week. They're going to build two pilot project latrines for us in Los Izotes.

Ok, I'm off! Until next time!

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 pictures from Los Izotes. James and I go there on Fridays. I think Los Izotes is the aldea closer to my heart. The people are just so welcoming (we can't visit a house without being offered food).

It's also farther from Talanga, which means that it is poorer. It takes us about 50 minutes driving to get there. They do not have electricity or running water. There is a bus that runs from Los Izotes to Talanga Fridays through Mondays, so that they can get into town fairly easily.

And they have AMAZING coffee. I don't even like coffee normally, but they grow, roast (in the sun), and grind their own coffee, and it tastes INCREDIBLE!! I doubt even the richest people in America have such good coffee. Not that I'm really an expert.

Ok, here are the pictures:

A view of a small part of Los Izotes. It is so gorgeous in this aldea. Sometimes I wonder if that's what really made me fall in love with it. You can't see the beautiful horizon in this picture, but take my word - it's gorgeous.

Also, that building whose roof you can just make out all the way on the left is the Catholic church, where James and I spend a lot of our time.

I'm really proud of this picture too. It's a shot of some sugarcane, which a lot of people in Los Izotes grow and sell to make some extra money. There's even a "galera" in Los Izotes - a place where the sugarcane is ground up, the juice heated until it turns the consistency of molasses, and then dried into cubes of sugar.

This sugarcane is probably 12 feet tall. The part you see sticking up is just the flower. Beneath it is a stalk like bamboo, which contains all the sweetness. The kids in the aldeas love to peel those stalks and munch on the tissue underneath. I like that too. It's not super super sweet, but its a bit sweet and cool and refreshing. And I feel quite Honduran munching away on it :).

Me with several of the kids in Los Izotes. They're a cute bunch.

Again, several of the Los Izotan kids.

James rides a horse for, I believe, the 3rd or 4th time in his life. They let him ride it in a circle around the house several times this day. James really likes that horse!

James and I run a youth group in the afternoons. Here, the kids are playing an icebreaker called "The Human Knot" (under James' watchful supervision). They all grab hands in a tangle, and try to untangle themselves without letting go of the hands. At first, they were super shy, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to play. But now, after several months, they go right to it.

This is me with my little friend, Cesar. For some reason, he has always been very attached to me (they say he mistakes me for his father). Whatever the reason, he likes playing with me a lot. A few weeks ago, we had a good scare, because poor Cesar got a really bad case of diarrhea, which kills a lot of young children here. They took him to a doctor, though, and fortunately, he pulled through just fine.

Several of the kids from Los Izotes, in front of the church. The people of Los Izotes are really proud of their church. They've worked hard to build it. It's still not done - you can see that the walls are unfinished, as is the floor inside. The big hitch is that they can't afford the materials. The cinder blocks and roof of the church were donated. From time to time, they have fundraisers to raise the money to continue work.

That's all the pictures for now. Until next time!

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 to get there, bouncing over this bumpy, pot-holed, dirt road. Now that we're old hands at the deal, James and I can get there in 15 to 20 mins.

Terrero Colorado is divided into two parts, an upper and lower part. In between, there's a stretch of road with no houses. The lower part has a pretty good water supply, although it is not piped INTO their houses, just to right outside. The upper part has water that goes INTO their houses, into sinks and stuff, but that water supply fails for most of the summer. No one has electricity.

As seems typical of the aldeas, the men typically work during the day, in some sort of agriculture. The women stay around the house doing house work. And the kids go to school or play around.

James' and my typical schedule is like this: In the morning, we go in and play with the kids. Since school started, instead of playing, we've been helping out in the one-room, one-teacher, 50+ kid school. Around lunchtime, we visit a few houses, just to spend time with the people and see them in their homes. Then, in the afternoon, we run an adult's group (the idea being that the adults can help us organize the community), followed by a youth/kid's group.

Ok, enough talk. Here are the pictures.

This is a view from the road through Terrero (in the lower part). You can see how gorgeous the vistas are - I love them. You can also make out three houses. They're spread far apart, which is pretty typical.

Gosh, these guys are cute. They're three of the younger kids we know well: Mauricio, Fernando, and Marcela.

This is me with Margery (left) and Bessy (right), two of the kids we know best from the aldea. Since day one, these two love to hang out with us and play games all morning. At this particular moment, we were singing Christmas Carols, and, unbeknowst to them, I was preparing to tickle them!

This is us with a bunch of the kids from the youth/children's group we run. More than anything, they love to play games. Sharks and Minnows, Red Light Green Light, Marco Polo - all of them are HUGE hits.

I am quite, quite proud of this picture :). I really can't claim credit; it was just dumb luck. Her name is Danisela - she's three years old and just ADORABLE. She's also a bit of a terror to all the animals that live around. She's been known to toss kittens through the air and leave puppies stranded on a stool. But she is cute.

I took the picture when they had just harvested the corn, which they themselves grow. Most of their food they buy with the wages of the men, who typically work with crops for some bigger land owner. But they grow their own beans and corn (for tortillas). For about a month there, every time we'd visit a house, the people would be scraping the corn kernels off the husks.

I love this picture. I like to call it, "James enjoys the company of the children in Terrero Colorado." As they all grab his ears. Heh heh.

And that's Terrero Colorado. This is one of the aldeas where we are sponsoring two girls to go to secondary school.

Until next time!

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 school.

Karen’s father died 8 years ago. She lives with her single mother, Euphemia, who is still raising 3 of her 8 kids. Euphemia is also raising four grandkids – that’s seven children and one single mother.

Euphemia – the mother – is the midwife for the small town of Los Izotes. She wanted to be a nurse, but was never able to afford the education. Karen wants to be a nurse just like her mom did. Before I told her about the scholarship, Karen had a plan to become one. She would study for two years as a seamstress, which she could do very cheaply. Then she’d work for a while until she raised enough money to pay for secondary school. Then, probably more work to get the money to pay for training as a nurse.

As it is, we’ve saved Karen at least three years and made the possibility of her becoming a nurse much more real. Besides the fact that it is wonderful to enable a child’s education, I am thrilled because little towns like Los Izotes need nurses. It’s an hour walking to the nearest nurse for the people of Los Izotes. A whole day to get to a doctor. They need better health care. And it’s my hope that in accepting Karen, we’ve not only helped her, we’ve helped a whole town that she might some day serve.

Make a Donation to the scholarship fund.

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 pretty well from coming to Los Izotes every Friday.

One of the girls is fourteen, the other is twenty. I told them about the scholarship, and then sat down to answer any questions. To my surprise, the 20-year old, Ana, bombarded me with questions. I sat talking to her for 45 minutes! Normally it takes me 5 minutes.

Is there an age limit? How important are grades? What else is it based on? What does it cover? -- I could tell by all her questions that she was very interested.

And then she asked me if she could take the scholarship and go to school in Talanga.

Let me do a little bit of background here. Los Izotes is a small aldea of about 300 people. It is about an hour away driving from Talanga, where we volunteers live. Talanga is a ‘big’ town of 30,000, with four secondary schools. Los Izotes has no secondary school. But there is a nearby, larger aldea, which does. That school is about an hour away from Los Izotes walking. With a bike, which is included in the scholarship, it’s 15 or 20 minutes.

So I was surprised that she would prefer to go to a school in Talanga, which would mean she would have to live with relatives during the week. Going to the nearby school, she could live at home with her family.

So I investigated more. It turns out that girls do not feel safe making the trip to that high school alone. They don’t even feel safe walking with other boys from the town. Ana told me that two girls would have to go together for it to be a safe venture.

As a result, no girls from Los Izotes currently go to secondary school. Three boys do. As I thought about it, I realized people had been talking around the fact all along. One mother earlier that day said she’d send her daughter to school if another girl went.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “I was in this for social justice, and lo and behold, it intersects with feminism too!” (Maybe I wasn't that eloquent when I was thinking to myself, but you get the idea :).

But that’s not all. I asked her why she had never gone to secondary school, since she’d graduated from elementary school some five or six years earlier. She said that she enrolled in school, but that after a few months, her father pulled her out. “He said he didn’t have the desire to be putting a girl through school anymore.” As it turns out, the same thing happened to her 14-year old sister.

Feminism again. I guess there are two things going on here. First, there are these two girls, at least one of whom clearly has great desire to go to school, and they can’t because of their family structure, and because they’re girls. But giving them a scholarship would enable them to go, even if they didn’t have that support from their father.

And second, there is the fact that one girl alone can’t get to the secondary school. I think it’s a bit of chicken-and-egg: the few girls who want to go to school are all waiting for someone else to commit to going before they commit themselves. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “What if we funded two?” If we could fund two girls, not only would it be getting those two girls to school, it would be opening the door for other girls to go as well.

Secondary school in Honduras is three years long. For those three years, any girl who wants to go to school will know that there are at least two other girls going with whom she could go safely.
As it turns out, we did commit to fund two girls from Los Izotes. And Ana was one of them. And in addition to those two girls, two other girls (for a total of four) will be entering "colegio" this year. I am so excited about that! Although I admit, I was a little surprised to find that in my pursuit of social justice I was doing a little bit of feminism on the side (my sister will be proud :) .

Make a Donation to the scholarship fund.

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 cost is too high. So it seemed a natural idea to try and organize a scholarship fund to help "apoyar" (support) education in the aldeas. And it's not just a matter of paying for one kids to go to high school. My hope has been that the scholarships will also be "icebreakers" - that once the children see several kids going to secondary school, the barrier will be lower for them to want to go as well, even if they don't have a scholarship.

I priced out what it would take to send a kid to secondary school, which is three years in Honduras, with everything they could conceivably need paid for. I came up with a sum of $700, to which I added an extra $100 for unforseen expenses.

So for $800, we can put a kid through all of secondary school. $800 doesn’t seem like a whole lot, especially when compared with, say, tuition for a year at college. But many of these families live on $15 a week. You can see how the cost is prohibitive.

My next step was to organize a group of Talangans to administer the scholarship, for two reasons. (1) I'm leaving in August, and someone needs to make sure the scholarship continues. (2) Talangans know much better than I all the little nuances - where to buy school supplies, what constitutes good performance in school, etc. etc.

As it turns out, the "Comite Economico" (economic committee) from the Catholic church in Talanga was really excited to take on the project. This is the group that organizes fundraising for the church - they just finished with a big raffle of a car. They are perfect, because they know all about managing finances! Plus, there are several teachers in the group.

About four weeks ago, we picked our scholarship winners. We have six (all of them girls, actually) from four different aldeas. The past two weekends I've gone shopping for school supplies with them (in Honduras, the school year has just started), and they were SO EXCITED at buying shoes, clothes, and a bike. it was really gratifying to see the looks on their faces.

On top of that, it's even more fulfilling because I know several of these girls pretty well from my work in their aldeas. So I know their stories, where they're coming from, and what the scholarship means to them. That's really neat. I think that's really a strength of our focus on accompaniment. I'm not only giving aid, but I really know the people I'm helping. In fact, I'll put up some more posts about them so you all can know them too.

At this point, I will put in my fundraising blurb: I am still trying to raise the money to cover the rest of these girls' educations. I've got enough for this year, but I am still working for the next two. Any money that doesn't get used this year will be used next year, for someone else just as needy. So, if you have an inkling, even a small donation will be helpful, since the dollar is so strong.

You can see the post here for how to donate. If you want to earmark your donation specifically for the scholarship fund, please put "Honduras Scholarship Fund" in the comment field. Thank you.

It's a really neat project. I'm always thinking about ways to make sustainable changes. Education is a sustainable change. It’s an opportunity for these kids to learn skills and have a better life beyond just my short stay in Honduras or three years at school.

And let me tell you one more story - this is really, really neat! Last year, there were four students, all boys, enrolled in secondary school from the aldea of Los Izotes. We gave two scholarships in Los Izotes. This year, there are SIX students enrolled in just the first year, four of them are girls. At least one was definitely not going to go until she found out our two scholarship winners were going. So I think we really have helped break the ice there, which is GREAT!!!!

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. If someone asked, “Do you have any nines?” they would answer yes or no at random. They really couldn’t play, because they’ve never been to school.

We were in the aldea of Terrero Colorado. James and I roll into “Terrero” every Tuesday morning, and into another aldea, Los Izotes, every Friday. It takes us 30 minutes on ugly dirt roads to get to the first, and a full hour to get to the second. The towns are small – about 300 people. They have no electricity. Some houses have running water that comes to a valve outside. The vistas are gorgeous – green mountains swooping up to meet a bright blue sky.

James and I have worked on getting to know people and building community. We typically spend our mornings playing with the kids who swarm around as our truck pulls in. Later on we visit houses – just spending time with people, in the Passionist spirit of accompaniment. In the afternoons we run a youth group and an adult group that helps us plan activities..

We are also working on some projects for the future. The two biggest needs that we see are health care and education. We plan to bring doctors in for free consultations and to offer public health education. We’ve set up a scholarship fund so that some of the kids will go to secondary school.

And we’ve hoping to get school supplies donated from Talanga, so that kids too poor to get to primary school won’t have, for example, uniforms as an obstacle. That way, everyone could play Go Fish.

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 from the outskirts of town to the church in the center. The processions follow a decorated pickup truck, bearing a statue of San Diego.

Today is the actual feast day of San Diego. The processions have been leading up to it all week. Yesterday was the "tope" - the really big procession the day before. They went all out. There was a pickup decorated with palm branches leaves and little girls dressed as angels passing out candy. Then there was an ox-driven cart loaded up with little kids dressed as campesinos. Then there was a big flat-bed truck with models of all of Talanga's traditional productions - they had a fake bread oven, a fake "fogon" (basically stove-top) for tortilla making, a machine for grinding sugar cane, and a fake oven to make "cal" - a traditional Honduran construction material made from stone. The models were all "manned" by little kids dressed up as Honduran campesinos. And the statue of San Diego was borne on a litter, carried by, of all people, four old ladies.

For the tope, the aldea that came was "La Ermita" the biggest of the aldeas that pertain to Talanga. They brought in a big tractor dragging a truck bed. The truck bed was super decorated with plants and arches of leaves, and little kids in beautiful dresses and suits, plus an image of Our Lady of Lourdes (who is La Ermita's patron; our Lady is the Virgin Mary, but Mary has about a million different incarnations especially in Latin America. Lourdes is one of them). From the arches dangled letters spelling out, "San Diego, Lourdes te saluda" (San Diego, Lourdes says hi).

The whole procession looked AMAZING and so beautiful. One of the things that I really liked is that in addition to being a celebration for a Catholic Saint, it was also a celebration of Honduran culture. All the decorations were themed around typical/traditional Honduran products and people. And these decorations were incredibly elegant - an enormous amount of work must have gone into them.

The Hondurans love setting off these explosives that make loud noises. They've been doing it all week at every procession and during every mass. Basically, they are just rolls of gunpowder that explode and make a big bang. There are two major types. "Carreras de Bombas" (runs of bombs) go on the ground and have about a dozen charges. You light a fuse and the bombs explode one by one = huge racket. The other type are called "cuetes." They launch into the air, and then have two explosions. The two explosions go off sequentially, anywhere from a split second to five seconds apart. And I don't know if I've made this clear - the sound is ENORMOUS from these things. If you're not expecting it, it makes you want to cover your head and hide.

The cuetes are used much more, because they explode in the air, so you don't need a big clear space to shoot them off. For the processions, they set them off about every five minutes. You always here a whistling, then the first explosion, and then you wait until you hear the second explosion that you know if coming.

This was a scary thing that happened: I was at the back of the procession before we started, complimenting the leader of the crowd from La Ermita on how beautiful their whole setup was. I heard a cuete go off, and I watched it shoot up. But instead of shooting off 50 or 100 feet into the air like it's supposed to, this one seemed to fizzle. The first explosion was only about 20 feet from the ground. I had a moment of utter horror, because I knew their was a second explosion coming, and that cuete wasn't going anywhere but down. I can't really describe the scaryness of it - the moment seemed to drag on for a long, long time, and all the while I was thinking, "where is it going to land?" There were people all around.

After what seemed like minutes, but was really only about five seconds, suddenly there was the explosion. It was on the Ermita flatbed, right next to this little five-year-old girl in a pink dress. There was a moment of silence, and then the little girl screamed and started crying and everybody rushed to her. I could see that the lower part of her dress was in tatters. Her mom grabbed her and started crying. A man picked her up and put her in a nearby car - as he carried her, I could see some flecks of blood on her arm, but I couldn't tell how badly she was hurt. They drove her off to the red cross."

I'll save you the suspense I had and tell you that she was just fine. The procession passed her about 30 minutes later, and I stopped by to see her. She just had some minor burns on her arms and legs, and a few dots where gunpowder had spattered onto her cheek. But no serious damage or scarring. She was just shaken up. I guess that for all that noise, the cuetes aren't that powerful, because the explosion couldn't have been more than two feet from her.

But it certainly cast a pall on the rear end of the procession. I was quite shaken up. All along, I'd been thinking how dangerous all these explosives seemed, and then, right in front of me, there was this worst nightmare scenario of what could happen. Geez. And I will never forget how those seconds just dragged on and on while I wondered where that explosion would land.

On a funnier note, the man who was in charge of the La Ermita cuetes (who did not send off the one that hurt the girl - that was someone else) seemed petrified of shooting them off for the rest of the procession. Poor guy.

It seems odd to now go back to describing the fiesta. But after finding out the little girl was fine, I was able to relax and enjoy the procession. There's actually not a whole lot more to describe.

When the procession got the church, there was a big mass. The altar was decorated BEAUTIFULLY with palm fronds and branches and an arch of leaves flowers. The church was packed - standing room only and people crowded out the doors. And of course, bombs and cuetes going off the whole time. During one part of mass (the offering of the gifts), they brought up a bunch of typical Honduran products (cane, bread, tortillas) to offer up to San Diego. Again, I thought it was a really nice celebration of Honduran culture as well as a religious service.

That night, there was a two hour sing-along/concert leading up to midnight. At midnight, they sang Happy Birthday to San Diego. At 4am this morning, there was a prayer service. Or so I'm told, because I did not actually attend :)

Then, lastly, there was another huge mass this morning at 10am. A bunch of priests from nearby towns came in to celebrate as well. And again, they offered up a bunch of typical Honduran products during mass. The church was even more packed, if you can believe it.

But I think with that, the religious part of the fiesta is over. There is still a carnival set up in lower Talanga for the rest of the week, complete with Ferris Wheel. And there's a stunt car show tomorrow. But it's been a fun (and busy) week.

¡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, and sent me on my way. I had an international driving permit that is supposed to accompany my US one here, but they didn't even ask for it.

It's interesting, though, because Lauren, who has driven around much more than me, has never been stopped even once. I don't know if it's because I'm male, or because I look more Honduran, or what. But it seems like more than just chance now that it's happened several times.

I also think that as soon as they realize I'm American (ie as soon as I open my mouth or show my license), they leave off. Once a police officer asked for license and registration, and when I said, "Just a moment," he said, "It's OK, you can go."

So yesterday morning, when they motioned me to the side of the road at the Puesto just outside Talanga, I thought, "Here we go again." And then, to my surprise, the police officer asked for a ride to a police station just outside Tegucigalpa. I was so surprised at first I didn't even know what to say. It's common to get asked for a lift, but this is the first time I've gotten it from a police office. After a brief debate, Fr. Lucian and I figured it could only help to make nice with the Talangan police.

She was a nice passenger. I realized later, though, I should have asked her why they keep pulling me over!

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, the festival for the patron saint of the parish, San Diego. It will last from the 5th to the 12th with processions, Masses, and all sorts of carnival-like fun!

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 least not too noticeable. People here tell us how it is and they didn’t say, “ew, your ear is twice the size of Texas!” so I guess it wasn’t too bad.

And the lady that lives in the vegetable house (the house we go to to buy vegetables) around the corner is recovering from dengue. I am wearing bug spray like crazy, that’s for sure. And sleeping under a bednet, which I have found 3 dead spiders on in the last 6 weeks but no mosquitoes so I guess that’s good news if I haven’t seen any of those pesky buggers. We have window screens on our two windows in our house so that helps keep the pest population down as well. And Father Neil lived here six years and never got dengue so I guess that’s good news that as long as we’re preventative we’ll be okay. Though our new friend Shapell, a Peace Corps volunteer, told us that he got dengue once. Yikes! We invited him to help with Earth Day since he’s pretty bored right now. He only has about 5 months left on his tour so he wouldn’t get to see the real Earth Day celebration, but he knows people in the mayor’s office and things like that so he could be a good resource at the least.

We are starting to get more into our work and projects and that’s been a good change from sitting around going to meetings and trying to find out what kind of work we can actually do. It feels good to be starting to act!

It’s getting colder here and I’m excited to go to Tegus tomorrow to buy a blanket so I don’t have to wear layers to bed to sleep under my two thin sheets. I’m also excited not to be sweating all the time or having the sun beating down on me. That means I can wear my shirts three or four times before I wash them now if I want. Just kidding, though I do wear them more than once. That pila is hard work and if they don’t sink or have stains on them, why waste the extra energy, right?

Well, that’s my two cents for now. And two US cents, not Honduran cents, which aren’t worth much! Take care and God bless you all!

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 picking up here and we're getting busy (noted by a lessening of blog entries). The girls and I are making plans for Earth Day, hoping to start cleaning up Talanga. If our buddy Roosevelt, who has his round face on three huge billboards in Talanga, wins the mayor election we have grand aspirations of getting our faces up there saying something like, "The gringas say throw your garbage in the trash can!" Only more witty...like Smokey's "Only YOU can prevent forest fires." Something everyone will remember.

I have developed a new appreciation for the sound of running water. The pila and reserve tank only fill on Monday and Friday unless there's an exception and it fills on a day in between or does not fill on those days. The sound of that water trickling and giving us the water supply for the next few days is music to my ears. We feel like everything is right in the world those mornings. Especially now that we have the floods under control! And for the past 3 days I have woken up at 4am to the sound of water running in the pila, which I think may start driving me crazy if it keeps up, but I'm not going to complain about having water. If we run out we have to call a truck and buy water to last us in between.

In other sad news our shower head is not functioning properly and only trickles, but at least the water that comes out is warm. If we let it drip into a paila (basin for carrying water from the pila) for a while, we can dump it over our heads and take what we now call a "paila shower." Either way it gets you clean and the water is warm!

Other than that we have been having a great time showing Father Neil around, who arrived two weeks ago, is living at the Casa Pasionista, and is jumping right into pastoral work at the parish here in Talanga. The people love him and he has also been sharing his Tegucigalpa friends with us, who he knows from when he lived here 15 years ago. It's been good to have him here because he knows the ropes, culture, and language very well and has a lot of expertise to share with us.

Well, that's my two cents for now, I promise to try to be more up-to-date on my entries in the future!

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 or surgery, but they can give consultations and provide medicines.

There are about half a dozen private clinics in Talanga, but, since many people can't afford those, I've visited three clinics that try to minister to the general population.

THE CENTRO DE SALUD (in Talanga)
The Honduran government, via the ministry of health, sponsors "Centros de Salud" (Health Centers) in most major towns. As it turns out, the Centro in Talanga is in charge of all the Centros in the area. We took a tour with the director, who's also the director for the other Centros in the area, two Wednesdays ago.

Centros have varying personnel, depending on the size of the town where they are located. Some of the smaller ones have only nurses. The one in Talanga has some 4 or 5 doctors and a dentist, in addition to nurses and support staff. Many of the doctors are just out of medical school; Honduran medical students are required to do one year of public service upon graduation.

The doctors provide health care and medications for 1 Lempira (basically for free). The problem is that there is very little money for medications, and they frequently run out. A very common complaint is that the Centro will give a prescription, but the patient doesn't have the money to actually buy the medicine. Another example: the Centro here has a half-constructed maternity ward that has been sitting for several years. The big problem is not actually the money to build the ward, but the money to pay the personnel once its constructed. So it sits unfinished.

To reach to communities where there is no Centro, the Centro de Salud has representatives who can provide very limited medications, and refer people to the Centro in Talanga. In addition, the Centro sponsors public health educators, who work in various communities educating people about healthy behavior.

LA CLINICA SOLIDARIA
I thought this clinic was a really neat idea. It was started less than a year ago by a pharmacist from Spain, who was working at an orphanage and left to help the public health sector.

The clinic is private, but non-profit. The basic idea is to provide self-sustaining, quality health care. Everyone who visits is charge a flat fee of 70 Lempiras ($3.50 in US dollars, although it goes a lot farther here). With that 70 Lempiras, they are given a consultation with a physician and any medicines they need (that the clinic can provide).

What is really neat is that with that 70 Lempiras per patient (actually, there are some types of visits that cost more, but that's the basic), the clinic is self-sustaining; it pays for medicines, doctors, and electricity. And 70 Lempiras is very cheap compared to the private doctors.ç

It was very high-tech - all the medical records and pharmacy orders computerized. New developments (building, technical machines, etc.) are paid for with donations from Spain. But everything else is self-sustaining. A really neat idea, I think.

And here's the neatest part. It is called "Solidaria" (solidarity) NOT because the doctors are in solidarity with the patients, but because the patients are in solidarity with each other. As the director explained it, some patients cost the clinic more than 70 Lempiras. But they make it up because other patients cost less. In essence, some people help pay for the health care of others, even though they don't realize it! I thought that was a fabulous idea.

Of course, there are lots of people that can't afford the 70 Lempiras. But for what it's trying to do, I think it does a very good job.

THE CLINICA IN GUAIMACA
The last clinic we visited was a free clinic run by the Catholic Church in Guaimaca, a neighboring town. It was started by a nun who is also a nurse practicioner about 3 years ago.

Basically, they have a team that is a combination of Hondurans and long-term (1 year or more) volunteers from the States. The one doctor is a Honduran woman. The money and medications are all provided for by Catholic parishes in the States that are connected with the parish in Guaimaca.

The clinic sees fome 40-50 patients a day. They also take medical brigades into the aldeas (mountain towns) every so often - particularly when they get a big short-term volunteer group.

The nun in charge was a wonderful guide. She had lots of pearls of wisdom about health care, two of which I'll share.

First, that one of the big challenges here is making long-term changes towards healthy behavior. She says they see lots of patients who come in every three months with the same problem because they persist in unhealthy behaviors.

Second, "en Honduras no falta doctores, falta la 'con que hacer'" (Honduras doesn't lack doctors, it lacks the 'with what' [ie supplies] to work).

The Centro de Salud has the same shortage of medications, so they help a lot by being able to provide medications for free. It was really neat to see the positive impact an organized faith group can make.

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 to - as in the road is UGLY - first gear 80% of the time driving there.

There are some 34 aldeas that pertain to the Catholic parish at Talanga. Padre Daniel circulates around them, visiting a few each week. Most of them see him about once a month. So far, we have made quick visits to about 12 of them. For the visits, we go with Padre Daniel, and celebrate the mass. Afterwards, some family usually invites us in for coffee or a snack or even a meal.

Some of these aldeas are quite poor. Many do not have electricity, a few don't even have running water. Virtually none has direct access to medical care.

We are now investigating ways we can work in the aldeas. Last Friday, James and I went to visit one called Camalotal to ask about the needs. Today, all five of us went to visit another, called Terero Colorado, way up into the mountains.

It's amazing to me how hospitable the people are! We just walk up to their houses, unannounced, introduce ourselves, and ask if we can chat for a few minutes. And invariably the people (usually women since the men are at work during the day) invite us to their house or front porch to sit and talk. Sometimes they offer us food or drink. And they are happy to talk.

We want to visit a few more to get a clearer picture. But the aldeas look like a very promising area for our ministry.

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 about every day here. And not just rains. Pours.

We're talking get yourself soaked in 1 minute pouring. As in, "You are riding in the back of Padre Daniel's truck and you are done for" pouring. It's quite funny, actually. Sometimes it goes from overcast but not a drop at all to completely pouring in 30 seconds. And since all the streets in Talanga are dirt roads, the whole town becomes a quagmire.

It's rained every day this past week, sometimes twice a day. But I guess we're getting accustomed to it. And I love that poncho! The next thing is big rubber boots for us all, so that we don't have to play hopscotch through Talanga in every rainstorm :)

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 after a rainy October day (we've been warned about the nasty rains coming our way), I'll be glad for the hot shower before going to bed. And nothing makes me feel truly clean like a little bit of warm water.

I've been enjoying the visits to the aldeas and the fact that we're picking up the pace. We are hoping to get insurance on our truck soon so that we can drive it, but we'll see. Things just don't work here the way they do in the US so you have to take it as it comes. I don't have a whole lot of interesting things to say, but for some reason I felt the hot shower was newsworthy.

It's getting rainier here and that means we're having more power outages, but so far it hasn't been a big deal. As long as we can cook, I'm happy. The other night we were without it for the whole night and it was pretty hot without our fans! That was the longest we've ever gone.

We had a great day cooking for the internos at the Casa Pasionista on Monday and it was a relative success. Except that the faucet in the kitchen broke and they have to turn the water on with pliars until they get it fixed. And a few oil burns. Some of us are still mastering the art of cooking with hot oil, which is involved in most meals.

Well, I had better go find Todd for lunch, we are the 2 staying in Talanga today and had to split since this internet cafe only has one computer working with the internet today. The smell lunch of the family who owns this one is making me hungry!

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 beans, rice, and bananas. And then, during the week, they visit again.

I went along today with two nice ladies to visit 6 "enfermos." Two of them were "niños especiales" (children with mental disabilities). The rest were elderly who were either bedridden or unable to make it all the way to church.

At each house, we'd walk in and say hello, and set up a candle and the communion on a table or stool. We'd then have a little miniature 'service' - say some prayers, sing songs, give the communion, and exchange the sign of peace. After the little service, we'd usually stay and chat for a bit, and give the food we'd brought.

We stayed about 10 minutes in each house. Even more time was spent walking (we covered a lot of ground!), so it took over 2 hours in total.

My favorite visit was to one of the niños, a little girl who smiled and giggled at me the whole time through. Her mother held her in her lap through the entire service. She also had three brothers and sisters looking after her.

And I traveled far and wide - we were really on the outskirts of Talanga. Our last two stops were in a barrio on a hillside that looked much, much more rural than the rest of Talanga. Instead of dirt roads they had grass, the houses were spread out and much smaller. And every house had a penned in area with chickens and horses and pigs. You see those animals in the streets of Talanga where we are too, but here they were just all over the place.

It was a very interesting day. But I am a little pooped! Until next time...

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 the past when I do my laundry because you have to scoop water out of the pila into the washbasin area to wet your clothes, sprinkle detergent, and scrub away. Then it takes quite a bit of water to rinse each garment. The clothes are line-dried and have the texture of cardboard when done. It's not that bad, but bad enough that I iron every single thing I wash after it dries down to my underwear. It takes quite a while to wash the clothes and you know they're pretty clean when you're sweating profusely and soaked down the front of yourself from the vigourous scrubbing and rinsing. It's actually a lot of fun, I never thought of doing laundry as a form of exercise!

It's the cleaning of the pila when it empties that's not so much fun...it collects algae and dust and forms a nice, brown mud (spa treatment, anyone?) at the bottom. Our neighbor was going to teach us how, but we were completely without water and I knew that the water was going to run yesterday so I decided to take matters into my own hands. There's a plug in the bottom that Todd pulled out and then I had to sweep the nasty mudwater out of a hole that's about the size of a 50-cent piece (the drain is not in the low spot, go figure). This was all while standing inside the pila. Then I had to bleach the walls and sides and sweep THAT water out. Afterwards I put the baggies of crystals that keep mosquitos from making the pila their home on the bottom and plugged it up and prayed that the water would come soon. Thank heavens it did, within half an hour of when I finished! And not while I was standing inside the pila, though on hot days I'm often tempted to jump in to cool off...except that we need to keep the water clean.

Other than that we're staying busy and starting to visit the aldeas and caserios (outlying communities) with Padre Daniel for masses and to get to know the areas. They're very rural but the people are very nice and hospitable and the kids don't know what to make of us. Mostly they just stare but some of them are okay with talking to us if we start a conversation. And they're all so dang cute!

The country is also beautiful. When we went to Valle de Angeles and climbed in elevation on the way, the valleys were so green and the hills in the distance were such a great backdrop. And it reminds me a lot of Washington with all of the pine trees. So amazing and green and still rather natural! I can't describe it! This really is a beautiful country.

¡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 came to his door with fireworks and gave us a huge fright (see earlier post).

This is us at the Casa Pasionista, about to have lunch with some of the internos. Puri, the director of the Casa, is the man in the red shirt on the left.

Another photo of us at the Casa Pasionista.

And here we are, the volunteers, riding in Puri's enormous, 12-passenger van on the way home from Tegucigalpa. Let me tell you, Puri sure can handle that monstrous van on the hectic streets of Tegucigalpa!

That's all for now. More soon!

¡¡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 - it´s the red sector in the map above.

And here, finally, we have Talanga from the ground. This should give you a feel for the town. All the streets are dirt roads, the houses are all one story. Most of the streets around town look like this.

Here´s another typical street. What you don´t see is all the stray dogs that are everywhere. Nor the chickens. Nor the holes that are always popping up as they put in an underground sewer system.

This is the "calle principal" - the main street of Talanga. It´s formal name is the "calle San Diego", named after San Diego, the patron saint of Talanga. This is the busiest street in Talanga. It´s lined with shops on either side, and it´s usually teeming with cars, bikes, and pedestrians.

And, while we´re on the subject of streets, this is our street. You can just barely make out our house on the left. It´s the first one that´s strikingly white.

One very convenient thing about our street is that on either end there is a "mercadito" (a little market). So we actually don't have to stock a lot of stuff in our house. When we want to eat, we can just hop on down to a mercadito and by what we need for the meal.

This is a shot of the church from outside. We spend a lot of time in the church, since we're so involved with the parish here.

And here´s the church from inside. It´s pretty simple: stone walls, wood benches, plain scaffolded ceiling. On Thursdays, the have an "hora santa" (holy hour) and they decorate the altar beautifully. They put tons of effert into it. Also, you can´t make it out, but the crucifix is extremely lifelike.

Here´s a shot of the "plaza central." I think it´s so pretty. Out of view there are basketball courts where kids are always playing.

This is a shot of the office building for the municipal government. We got a tour a few weeks ago and got to meet the "alcalde" (mayor).

This is a gigantic tree that grows on the outskirts of town. It is ENORMOUS! I think it must be a thousand years old. They call it "La ceiba." Ceiba is the type of tree. I guess when you´re that big you earn the "La."

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 cerrito and taking a nice shower, which I hadn't done for real in almost 3 days. If a cold shower can be considered "real." Instead Lucian was chatting with us over the watermelon when he got a call from Todd...

Todd woke up to the reserve tank filling in the middle of the night and everything was cool, but at 8 this morning we woke up to a puddle. Fortunately the boys we able to move our dressers in the living room and dammed off that room and the kitchen in order to keep the water mostly flowing out the front door. The culprit was our toilet, which had a disconnected hose. I'm sure most the reserve tank water wound up in our house. It wasn't the first flood since we've been here and I'm sure it won't be the last. We cleaned up and made ourselves a brunch, after which I finally got my cold shower. It was the best one I've had so far.

In other news...I often feel like an animal in the zoo due to the fact that many rural people have not seen white people before, at least not too many. We went to visit Olma's (our neighbor) classroom last week and when we walked by one house a little girl asked her mom who we were. The mom replied, in wonder, "Se llaman GRINGOS." Later that day we sat down by a group of schoolgirls and one sat down next to me and started showing me all of her homework. Her friends followed suit and I was surrounded by a crowd of staring girls. Slightly disconcerting, what do you say/do when surrounded by staring eyes?

Like Kathy, I too have found a Honduran boyfriend, but he is 2 years old. His name is Daniel and he is the son the people who run the internet cafe we frequent. He is probably the cutest 2-year-old I have ever seen. I have a year to devise a plan of how to kidnap him. Ok, maybe not a boyfriend but still, I love that baby, we're buddies when I come to the cafe, right now he's sitting next to me eating an apple.

Well, until the next time...hopefully the water will be running then and not flooding.

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 sultry than Brittney's so they don't get tired of our moves. And I found out, thanks to the moves of our friend Alberto, that shaking your butt in front of the congregation is not taboo so dancing like Brittney may just be ok. At any rate, we have windows in our house now and the curtains for the doors have been made. I'm glad that a call to the US is only 20 cents a minute via internet since we can't use phone cards. Talk about being cut off, at least we have internet cafes at our disposal!

Katrina is all over the front page of the news here and I am aghast at how poorly the disaster has been managed. The US is being ridiculed for how it has handled things and even the gas prices here are spiking. Over $4/gallon. Well, I had better post this and get off to lunch. The boys are living in the house and we're cooking there now. I would also like to start moving some stuff into my room now that the windows are in and I can somewhat keep the dust out. Take care and keep us in your prayers!

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 celebration, we had barking dogs outside our window going nuts and I thought it was a gunfight. Fortunately, Kathy and I were able to seek refuge in Lauren's bed where she comfortingly wrapped her leg around us.

In other news, James, Kathy, Lauren and I went to the children's Mass this morning and Lucian was presiding. He did such a great job! He introduced us to the kids and some drunk guy said something unintelligible in the middle of it, to which Lucian replied, "Excelente." I almost died laughing. Then Alberto, the keyboard player, invited the 4 of us up to the front of the church and had us dance while he sang some song I couldn't understand except that part of it was shouting out the movements. Super fun, making myself look like a goon is one of my favorite hobbies as most of you know. :)

The Hondurans have shown amazing hospitality so far and they are so interested in us and happy we are here, it's wonderful and makes the transition a lot easier. I just hope Olma, our next-door neighbor, will be ok answering all our questions about how to survive. Literally...we don't even know where to buy food or how to wash our clothes. It's crazy...like I'm starting over again and have to forget just about everything I learned growing up. What an adventure!

Well, I think I've gotten my money's worth...off to the rectory to entertain myself somehow. Maybe I'll finally try to reorganize my bags.