March/April + 25 facts about living in Honduras

How do you know that you live in Honduras? 1. Hall’s are not cough drops. They are candy. 2. Trash is a popular toy for young kids. They make toy cars and all sorts of things with trash. Their creativity amazes me. 3. The ground is a trash can. I’m always looking for trash cans, but their so hard to find because everybody just throws their trash on the ground. Finished your coke or bag of chips? Throw the empty bottle/bag to the side of the road. Got leftover food? Toss it to the side of the road. The dogs will appreciate you. 4. Leashes are very rare. I’m starting to think that dogs are the real owners of Honduras. This is their country. 5. Cows, horses, and an occasional donkey wander around Honduras. They are allowed to roam pretty much wherever, but people don’t usually steal them. The owner just drives them back toward home later. Also, I’m in love with Honduran cows. Don’t know why, have been since 2011 when I came to Honduras for the first time. 6. If you buy meat from the deli section, you get it in a clear plastic bag. And it looks like it came right off the cow. It’s extremely red. And it’s delicious. 7. Handmade tortillas are dirt cheap. And so good. You can buy them fresh and hot. And on your way home, it’s almost inevitable that you will eat one or two. My other staple is avocados. Yum! 8. Every birthday has to be celebrated with cake and coke. People may not have a lot of money, but if it’s someone’s birthday, we get cake and coke. I’m going to get fat with all the birthday’s at school. 9. Death is normal in Honduras. Graphic pictures are shown on TV, telling news of murders. 10. Hospitals are always really busy. You may be forgotten about if you don’t speak up. 11. Jeans are what almost everyone wears. Rarely you see shorts, skirts are not as frequent as jeans. 12. Soccer is big. And Hondurans don’t like to lose. They are very competitive. Real Madrid and Barcelona teams are really popular here, but you’re either on one side or the other. You can’t be both. 13. Little stores in people’s houses called “Pulperias” are everywhere. They can sell meat, groceries, shoes, phone cards, lottery tickets, cookies, cleaning sponges, big bottles of filtered water, everything. 14. Things break. and sprout legs. You have to keep a good eye on your things or they will just disappear. 15. Your business is everybody’s business. period. 16. Worms are occasionally found in vegetables. 17. Things live in your ceiling. You never know what they could be. 18. Roosters crow the entire day. They don’t limit themselves to the morning. 19 If you're a female gringa (white foreigner), you will get whistled at, cat-calls, and maybe even a song. 20. The water you use to wash dishes, take showers, etc., likes to decide when it wants to work. It has its own mind of its own. And you don’t drink it. You have to buy separate filtered water for that. 21. People speak by gesturing with their lips and bodies. You don’t have to even say a word to get a message across. 22. Taxis are as frequent as people. You don’t go after one, they go after you. They desperately honk their horn at almost everyone they pass. Buses are cheap. And they drive on roads that I never thought a bus could fit on. It’s terrifying. 23. There is no right of way for people. You just have to keep walking, and take every chance you get to cross a street. Because the cars aren’t stopping for you. Look out for bikes and motorcycles too. They are everywhere, and the amount of people that they fit on one is mind-blowing. 24. In the U.S., we study to work. Here, you work to study. School isn’t guaranteed. Many people stop after sixth grade because of the cost. 25. There is a lot of love here. Friends are family, a friend’s hurt is your hurt. If a friend is in trouble, you inconvenience yourself to help them. Your love for God is displayed openly and freely. Family is important, even there is turmoil inside of it. You share your food, your home, your things with those around you. You are Honduran. This is my home. There are gorgeous mountains, dirt roads, lakes, waterfalls, people. They are my family, I love them more than I can express. This month has been really interesting. And hard. I spent two different weeks out of school because I had salmonella and an inflamed colon. One week in, one week out, one week in, one week out. I’m still in the process of healing, but I’m back in school thanks to God’s sweet and loving power. I’ve been on different diets, different medications, seen lots of medical personnel, taken lots of tests, it’s been pretty exhausting. But God has been good. He has put certain people in my life to encourage me and spur me on in this work that God has for me now. I’m back in school with my 53 wonderful kids, whom I love all dearly. Their behavior can be frustrating, sometimes they just won’t pay attention. And I’m learning their strengths, and their weaknesses. I’m learning their hopes and dreams, and I’m learning how to keep trying, even when it seems like a child isn’t responding. We have lots of activities at school. In this month alone, we have celebrated Earth day, Day of the Spanish language, and day of the Americas. We celebrate lots of birthdays, for teachers and students, sometimes for the same person multiple days in a row. In February, we celebrated Father’s day by making lots of cool projects to show our love for our Papi’s. One of my favorite books in the world is Kisses from Katie. She felt the call to missions from a young age, just like me. She faced difficulty, she faced people who couldn’t understand her longing to give up normalcy, and the “american dream” to live somewhere in violence and poverty to serve until she fell into bed at night. That’s where I feel I’m supposed to be. Home in Honduras, helping one person at a time. I don’t feel the call to go to college. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t want a nice car, a nice suburban house, a high paying job. I don’t need a lot of friends, I just want a few close friends who encourage me and understand me. Does this make me a better person than anyone else? Of course not. Is it wrong to want a nice car, a comfortable home, good money to feed your family? Definitely not, these are all good things. The problem comes when these things create a wall of ignorance toward those suffering in this world. For me, these are not important thing. For other people, they might be. For right now, I’m going to do what Katie says, “I just keep filling up my little eyedropper, keep filling it up and emptying my ocean one drop at a time. I’m not here to eliminate poverty, to eradicate disease, to put a stop to people abandoning babies. I’m just her to love.”