Whatchu know about that

Oh its been awhile, but I don´t always feel like blogging because sometimes I just gotta live…ands not write haha. So I just finished my fourth week here in Honduras and now it´s time for the last week in Honduras. It´s been wonderful here and I know for a fact that it´s going to be really hard to leave. Being here for these last four weeks have felt like I´ve lived here for 5 years. I mean I have a job, even though I´m not making money. I have hobbies like playing basketball, learning how to ride motorcycles, and cutting hair. Yes, cutting hair! Everyday after work I go to this barber shop and help out by doing whatever. They teach me everyday some new things and since I´ve been around hair (My mom and Auntie are stylists), it has began to feel like home. Also I have friends that I hang out with, I go to church, and I even know the local spanish slang that helps me get by. The crazy thing about all of this to me is that it´s only been 4 weeks. I can´t believe that a life can set itself up in another place in such a short amount of time. I ask myself did I just get lucky with how great everybody is around here, or is it always like this for everybody that goes to another country for 5 weeks. Honestly though I think it´s a combination of luck and the good ol honeymoon phase. Maybe if I were stayin here longer I wouldn´t feel all cozy here, but whatever. So these past couple weeks I have been hanging out with friends, working oh so hard at work, and watching the bootleg movies from the streets of Honduras. At work this week I have been helping out with this program called program Deborah. This program tackles the issues of domestic violence. There was a group of gay and transexual people that came to our work to learn some skills/trades. There was also the people who work with us at Proyecto Aldea Global who were teaching things such as how to curl, straighten, and even cut hair. I was one of the ones teaching how to cut hair and it felt good being able to use some of my knowledge and skills to help out. Also another thing that has been weighing heavily on my mind is privelege and people taking things for granted. In Honduras a lot of things have begun to make me think about my life and others in America. In Honduras and even in Guatemala I really get to see first hand people who don´t have very much. When I say very much I mean, food is not to be wasted, but only saved, money is to be spent on the necesities such as food and water, and love and happiness is what everybody lives on down here. Happiness down here is not the same as happiness in the states. Maybe we could call it joy here in Honduras because joy doesn´t come from material things like shoes, or clothes, or video games, but it comes from something else. Joy comes from loving each other and being happy with what you got not because it´s pretty or because it makes you feel good, or because it makes you stick out above everybody else, but because you can share it with others and see their joy and it´s just enough to get by. I think back to the states and think about my friends who collect hundreds of Jordan´s, go to fast food restaurants and buy more than they can eat, or who go shopping and spend hundreds of dollars on new cell phones or new clothes, and then I think about the people here in Honduras. In the states we complain about wanting more, the nicer prettier things, and all of the latest and coolest stuff, while everybody down here buys our used things. They have brick homes, no heat, but a home. They live in houses smaller than ours, but with twice the amount of people. Their extended family is valued much more and they live together as a family. In the states sometimes we cannot wait to leave the house when we´re 18 or after college. Here they have enough food to offer their guests, but not always for themselves. They have enough time to spend time with you after long hours of work. They never complain about not having access to a good education, clean water, and about the small amount of money they make. They enjoy what they have, because they have enough to get by and they share it with each other. The people here are not distracted with video games, or material things, but they are instead focused on their family, their joy, and their love for other people. I really admire this about people here and I hope that I can really learn to never take things for granted and always remember what privileges I do have. The end.

So this weekend we went to the ancient Mayan site called the Copan Ruinas. This was home to ancient Mayan people. This site is special to the mayan people because it has the largest and oldest ball court of the Mayan civilization. Basically the winner of the game would be sacrificed and would go up to the heavens. And as you can see I won this last game so... haha. These ruins also are known for its intricate detail unlike the Tikal Ruins of the Mayans in Guatemala which are known for their height. Copan the city is beautiful in itslef. Aside from the ruins there is a beautiful river that runs through tghe city, canoes, ziplining, horseback riding, lots of great restaurants and a lot more. Luckily for us we made the best of our time in Copna and I mean that. Although I cannot speak of all the experiences in Copan it was definitely one of the best weekends I've had in Latin America. Things in Copan were also very sad as well. The things people would do for money, the way they got their hustle on, and conversations that made me think about life, values, and just what is really important in life. I feel like having a great time and enjoying life and working hard (minus the opportunities) is played out so much better in Honduras than in the United States. I really enjoyed the way this looked this weekend. It's crazy to think how so many Hondurenos have family woring in the U.S. I don't think I met one person who didn't. So anyways we got there on Friday and man it took about 5 hours to get to Copan. After a couple bus changes we finally got there and began looking for a hotel. There were so many to choose from, but this man named Mario stopped us on the street and showed us the rooms and they looked comfy so we took it. He then offered a nice horseback ride and since we didn't have much planned in the afternoon we decided to do it. It was a three hour horseback ride up to La Pintada, an indigenous village up in the mountains. When we began I was a little nervous because i have never ridden a horse in my life, but it was time. It WAS fun! Too soon I told Andrew that maybe I would get one because it was really fun and soothing just to ride up the mountain by horse, but of course i spoke too soon because I started sneezing a lot and my face swolled up lol. But the guide helped me by taking these leaves off this plant and told me that its the plants that they use to make Vicks and so I smelled it and it calmed my allergies a bit. It was pretty crazy. When we got up there we could see the ruins a bit, but we wouldn't see them until the next day. Once we got up there we began playing some football with these guys and I was playing with a swollen eye and blurred vision from my allergies. i then ran after the ball and ran right through some barbwire. I didn't feel it at first, but things soon got better as the locals took me in to bandage me. You should see my right leg, it was a little worse than the left, but not as deep. They were very kind to share what little they had. It's weird too because in Copan they get a lot of tourists and people would be curious about where we are from. We met a a handful of people from Seattle and it's super weird because a majority of the people we meet are from the West Coast, if not Washington state. I guess we just like to travel. Anyways it's fun to have them guess where we're from and I got some weird guesses. Of course i got the typical oh is he from Mexico answer, but I got a guess that I was from Spain and even INDIA! I never got those before lol, but it;s fun anyways. The next day we hit up the ancient ruins and that was super fun. There were parrots, ancient tombs, big pyramids and a lot more. It definitely took a long time, but man was it beautiful. We hit up some tunnels, the museum, the ball court, and after we went ziplining. It was my first time ziplining and i was pretty scared because I have never been that high in my life, especially just hanging there lol. I got a video so you can check that out. My face tells it all. Just a little bit. It seemed like a lot of people went to the ruins by themselves and some people were on some spiritual highs lol because well you would just have to see it for yourselves. But yea the ruins were worth it and ziplingin was too. Our last night in Copan we just chilled right outside of our hotel hanging out with the local homies who chill on the corner. It was one of their birthdays and so we celebrated a little with them and learned lots about the Good LIfe in Copan! It was fun, and super chill. I LOVE HONDURAS and COPAN, but we bounced early and now we just watched the Saints win. I 'm happy for them, but I wanted the Colts to take it. Oh well they'll be back and so will I. Work tomorrow. Peace Easy

Second Week in Honduras!!!

I said it. SO after this first month away from home I can know how I feel. I DO miss home. I do miss family and friends, but if I were home I would also miss here. Entonces I am where I need and want to be. I have already completed 1 and a half weeks of my 5 week internship and it's flying by. We work with an organization called Proyecto Aldea Global (Project Global Village). This organization offers a wide variety of services to the community. Services offered include HIV preventative measures, family plannning, microcrediting, nature preservation, domestic violence prevention and more. We work in the health section collecting and organizing data from the community. Work varies for us in the office. Sometimes we just sit and put numbers into excel ferom the community. These numbers usually incude how many females are pregnant, if they have a plan of delivery, and how many months they are along with more data. On other days we actually get to go out in the community for various reasons. Sometimes we organize bags for children and adults. These bags include shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, and other hygenical things. Sometimes when i get bored at work I just get my boogie on in the office YOUUU knowwwwwww (pictured above)! Then after work I usually go out on the motorcycle to practice or go to a barbershop to hang out and learn a thing or two. The people here are super nice. They just taught me how to ride a motorcycle and they even let me ride their own. I asked if they were nervous, but they didn't seem to be at all. I also asked the friends I made at the barber shop if they could teach me some things. They insisted right away that I come back to learn. i was super excited. Life in Honduras just seems really chill and super laid back. When work is over at 4 and people see us leaving they ask me why I'm leaving so early. TIME in Honduras means so much and so little at the same time. it's so much different than the United States. We also made some friends with a few of our coworkers at work. They are super cool and very helpful. They help me with whatever I need and its a beautiful thing. They are taking English classes at a local school and Andrew and I are learning Spanish so it really works out well. This last weekend Andrew and I wanted to go do something, but we didn't really know what to do. So we asked them to come along with us to go do something and they agreed. They said they were going to miss English class, but we told them that we would teach them all they needed to know : ) So everything turned out GREAT! We ended up going to a smaller city named Otorro and we really had fun. The sun was blazing and we went swimming in a river, I got my suntan on, and we even hit up the local pool. We also hit up our other co workers house to eat some spaghetti and of course some cow tongue. YES cow tongue. No we really didnt eat it, but we could have. Maybe one day... Anyways yea life has been good, a little stressful at times, but we manage. We also ran into this one guy, as we normally do a lot of people. I blame it mostly on Andrew for being the tallest and whitest guy in Honduras, but he cannot help it. Everybody looks at him like he's a giant, and he is in Honduras, but was more in Guatemala. Anyways yea so when we're together we definitely get stares. I can only imagine how he feels hahaha. But yea so this one guy came up to us adn he looked pretty hood if you can imagine. He had some scars on his face and a rough sounding voice and look. He asked us if he could come with us and I said sure come on. So were walking and hes speaking to us in some decent English and he's saying that he's from New York and that he just killed a guy in this city near here called San Pedro Sula. he goes on to describe how he stabbed him three times in the back and is now in this city trying to get away from all of that. He said he's in a gang in New York and i told him that I was in New York last January. He was then trying to ask us where we lived, and that's when I drew him away. He soon asked for money and was telling Andrew not to mess with Brown blood. I began to tell the guy that Andrew is one of our friends and that he was okay. The guy soon took the money that I gave him and asked what he was going to buy with only two lempiras (equivalent to 10 cents). And I simply explained to him that he can buy whatever he wants but thats all I got. There are some pretty interesting people here in Honduras. Don't go thinking that it's all scary here though because honestly it doesn't feel any scarier than Tacoma or Spokane haha. It's honestly a really beautiful little town. Siguatepeque has some great people. We got into this conversation the other day with our friend Mario about life in Honduras. He explained to us how corrupt it is in Honduras and how he doesn't see opportunity as an easy thing here. He explained how the police can just pull you over and make you give them money or they will just write you a ticket. Negotiating deals here is very common. He later explained how there are no scholarships for him and the ones that he has applied for are for the upper class because they can pay the college more or the people more in the future. But he felt that he might as well try. It's very sad to me because this guy is super smart, lives in a smaller town, and has limited options. In my opinion he is smarter than me, yea it doesn't really take too much for me to admit that but I can tell by the things he does and the way he acts. He explained also how his father passed away a few years ago working in the United States just to send money to his family. It's very unfortunate that this had to happen because I see so much potential in this guy as well as a lot of our friends here. We also went with our family to this lake this last weekend which was super nice by the way. It really was a relaxing weekend. We also played some basletball and this court is pretty decent considering how little basketball is down here. I am grateful for what we got. Awwwww so many stories, but too little time. This next weekend we plan on going to Copan, these ancient ruins a ways away from here. We are leaving in the morning so wish us luck!