Hace Calor, Hace Mucho Calor!

Hoy es jueves 25 de Junio del 2009.

Greetings from Honduras! Today Carl & I are celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary. We are done with our classes for the day and Carl & I plan to take a walk to the Spanish school to send this blog, and then visit the mercado again. What a blessing these years have been and now at this point to be on this adventure…I look forward to many more years together, Lord willing!

Backing up just a little bit, on Tuesday we had our classes which begin each day at 8 a.m. Our host mom or dad always take us and pick us up. In the afternoon we went to the beach. We were allowed to swim at the beach in front of the hotel. (The director of our school is a friend of the owner). The water was so warm, just like warm bath water. (By the way we are taking cold showers here, as they have no hot water, which is very refreshing for us because of the heat.) We enjoyed relaxing on the very empty beach, finding sand dollars in the sea, and swimming. As we would look around while swimming, we could see the mountains. That was a new perspective for me since there are no mountains near the Jersey, MD, or Florida beaches.

There are many taxi cabs in La Ceiba and the traffic patterns are quite unique! Our taxi ride home from the beach was like an amusement park ride. Our driver must have been in a hurry, and on the main road he decided to drive down the middle of the road…as the oncoming traffic was coming. It’s just more common here to pull out in front of people, create your own driving lane and bikes or motorbikes drive wherever they want. The roads seem chaotic, yet everyone works together…so far we haven’t seen any accidents.

Our host mom has made us some traditional foods like pastelitos (fried meat pies), baleadas (avocado, beans, cheese & tortilla), also lasagna, and lots of rice & beans. Many hours are spent talking with our host family, especially Carlos (Alberto) the oldest son. He teaches at the Spanish school and his English is easy to understand.
They are a caring, Christian family and are so giving. Gloria & Hugo speak some English and we work together to understand each other’s language.

Wed. we went to school from 8-12 and then home for lunch. After lunch Deanna & Steph stayed home with the host family and Katrina, Carl & I went to visit The Peace & Justice Project/ministry that was started by the Honduran Mennonite Church with support from Mennonite Central Committee. Ondina Murrillo, the director, via translation by her granddaughter, shared with us about the four programs they have. Most of their work is with youth who are caught up in gangs and end up in jail, or working preventively with those youth at risk to end up in gangs. They also have conflict transformation workers they offer to the national church.

About 2 hrs. later, we left and walked to the mercado (market) and bought some fresh fruit and souvenirs. We looked at some hammocks but will do some comparison shopping before making a purchase. On the way home we made the mistake of jumping into a too-new cab that had not only ice-cold AC, but also an outside thermometer that read 95 degrees. We hadn’t really wanted to know how hot we were! The humidity is likely 95% as well.

Well, off to town, we’ll type later.
~Carl and Rochelle