First Impressions

I have now been here for three weeks.  Three weeks of meeting people, making new friends, learning about the language and culture.  It has passed very quickly.  I thought you might want to hear a little about my neighborhood.  Unfortuantely, I have pictures, but don´t have the proper equipment to upload them.  Hopefully next week I can show you the neighborhood also.  For now ... i will describe my neighborhod.  What I see here isn´t all of Honduras. It is simply my neighborhood.

Everymorning I wake up to rooster´s crowing, dogs barking and the sounds of children and adults talking as they walk past our house on their way to school or work.  Our neighborhood is full of noises ... the men talking as they hang out infont of our house (their favorite impromptu gathering place) ... firecrackers which the kids love ... trucks and buses passing by.  And it is full of the smells of cooking ... tortillas made fresh each day, plantains, beans, fried pigs skins and occasionally chicken or meat.

Tegucigalpa is built in the mountains.  It´s streets resemble those of San Fracisco in the grade as many are very steep and others not so much.  Our neighborhood has some very steep streets, like the one directly in front of my house where cars have to gain momuntum to go up the hill.  Many of our ´streets´are narrow alleys which are also stairways.  Others are just normal alleys.

Out side out neighborhood the streets are paved, but in our neighborhood only the five main streets have pavers, the rest are dirt.  Homes are all built next to each other usually sharing walls.  The nicer homes like ours have brick or stucco exteriors with a tin or terracotta roof, concrete walls and tile floors.  Other homes are make of tin or wood often with holes.  Rooms are often devided by curtains rather than walls and curtains often serve as doors as well.

We have lots of plants growing in our neighborhood ... hydrangea, hybiscus, azaleas, fruit trees and various grasses.  It really is beautiful in its own way.  Many of the homes are painted reds, blues and yellows, but many are also hues of brown.

The reason I love my neighborhood already isn´t the dogs and cats and chickens which wander in and out of houses or the close proximity of the homes of our friends, but the inhabitants who are warm  and whose children are playful and loving.  I am happy to be beginning to form friendships with them!

Bienvenida in Honduras!!

I arrived in Honduras one week ago.  I have been overwhelmed by the warm welcome by the people of my neighborhood - hugs and kisses on the cheek, invitations to visit their homes and gifts of food.  They are teaching me what a welcome truely is.

The night I arrived, I came by bus from El Salvador.  It was a beautiful ride.  Padre Jose, one of my fellow volunteers, and one of the teenage girls from the neighborhood came to meet me.  They waveds as I pulled up, a welcome sight after 8 hours on a bus, and hugged me as I came out.  Then, after we had a good laugh about the amount of luggage I had and after I blushed more than I would like to admit at my american sense of 'need', we headed by cab to my new neighborhood.

The taxi could not enter our neighborhood, because the street was too wet (i think), but the driver still insisted on helping carry one of my three checked bags to the house a few blocks away.  There the other volunteers greeted me as heartily as Padre Jose and my lovely new friend had.  Nicolas and Padre Jose are both from France and both speak portugese as well as spanish, french and english!  Rita is from Brazil and speaks the same number of languages.  These three are all about 10 years older than I and all permanent members of Heart's Home who have given their lives in compassionate service of the poor.  Flor, my bunkmate, is a few years younger than me and from Argentina.  She will be in Honduras another 10 months.  We are already becoming very good friends.  I am grateful for their patience with me as I learn the cultural norms of our neighborhood and the way of life in our home.  And they are very generous in explaining things to me in simple spanish when I don't understand.  I am grateful to have such kind companions in this journey who also love to laugh.

That first night Flor was the cook. We had a traditional Honduras meal Beledas (spelling??), which she prepared with the brother of the girl who met me at the bus stop.  It was delicious - a honduran version of our borritos which consisted of wheat totillas (corn for me), refried black beans, guagamole, scrambled eggs, cheese and plaintains.  I think I could eat it every night!  Over the table where we ate hung a lovely 'Bienvenido Victoria' sign.  Unfortunately, my camera was not charged to send you pictures.  I will try take pictures this week though!

Estoy aqui´!!!!!!!

Finally, I arrived in Honduras on Tuesday.  I spent four days in El Salvador before coming to Honduras.  El Salvador was wonderful.  The first three nights I stayed at a retreat center run my Sisters in the hills an hour from San Salvador.  It was beautiful at the center.  The grounds are a garnden with a farm going down the side of the hill.  They grow coffee, oranges, avacados and many other fruits.

On the third night, I went with the Sisters to visit a delightful family which lives a few minutes away.  They invited us for a dinner of papusas - a traditional El Salvadorian tortilla filled with beans and cheese or other delicious fillings -  and hot chocolate spiced with cinnimon.  It was delicious!

The family was very jovial ' A husband and wife who are newly married and their parents and one aunt.  They live together in a beautiful home decorated with columns and cement work wich the grandfather has done and takes great pride in.  The grandmother, who sings beautifully, enjoys games.  So she taught us a song - Quien sera´- in spanish of course.  Then she asked each of us to sing it.  I was the second and sang it as poorly as you can imagine.  But the beautiful thing is the quality didn´t matter, only that i tried.  We all laughed heartily.  Then one of the sisters sang.  She sang the first verse, then the chorus, then in the same tune changes the words.  She sang that she did not want to sing more, but that someone else should sing.  The others began responding in the same tune that they did not want to sing and joking with each other.  This ended in much laughter.  Finally, the young bride sang a farewell song which rhymed well to one of the Sisters who is leaving next week for Argintina.  It was beautiful and moving.

So I left El Salvador for Honduras excited to arrive and sad to leave behind my lovely new friends!!

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

Today I finally leave for my mission in Honduras.  I am going first to El Salvador and then on to Honduras in a few days.  I am so excited I can't sleep.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible, especially my family and my sponsors. 

I will let you know when I am settled!

T is for Time

Written in September ...
I blinked and summer is ending.  As usual, my time has not been my
own.  When I was little it belonged to my parents, then school seemed
to own it, then work.  If I learned anything this summer, it is that
there is a time for everything.  Time to travel, to move, to study, to
make new friends and to say goodbye.

In July, it was time again for camp.  My "maybe one more year" came
true as I went back to the place where I have received so much in the
hope of giving something back.  Instead, I received far more than I
could ever hope to give.  I went back this summer living, as Merry Dad
says, every Mystic mom's dream of going back when I am still young
enough to enjoy everything and old enough to try to savor each
fleeting moment - each swim in the Guad, each trail ride, each cabin
devotional, each Sonic Slushy filled night off and each time someone
stopped me to chat or invited me to go on a walk.  Deep in the heart
of Texas, I went home to one of my many a homes, one full of many
happy, summer memories.

It is amazing to me how richly blessed I am with friendships.  The
time I had this summer was short, but full.  And if home is where the
heart is, then I have homes all over the country thanks to this oasis
in the middle of the Hill Country.  A part of my heart will always be
in Hunt with the beautiful family who invites so many girls into
their hearts each summer. But it is also in Boston with my boss who I
call sister.  In New York and in Penn with my co-counselors who are new,
life-long friends.  In Dallas with my first camp friend who is now
playing house with her husband.  And with my new cabin scattered
across the state and around the country.  I will forever smile when I
hear Celine or watch a wobble ... thinking of the cabin time we had.
So as summer ends, it is time to start thinking about packing I should
soon have a ticket for an early October departure to my new home.