Proyecto Cumpleaños/Birthday Project

There are 26 girls presently in my hogar. There is no way I am able to celebrate each girl’s birthday. Instead, we have “proyecto cumpleaños”/birthday project. Once a month we set a date and all the girls who have a birthday in that month come to Casa Personal for a birthday celebration. First we go to Santa María Reina, the special girls’ house, and buy popcorn and pop. One bag of popcorn for each girl and they each get their own bottle of pop. Then we go to Casa Personal and bake a cake. While the cake is in the oven we watch a movie. When the cake is ready I sing “Las Mañanitas” (Spanish “Happy Birthday”) to them and then we pig out on cake. It’s a fun way to hang out with the girls in a small group, enjoy a fun kid flick, and end the celebration totally stuffed!

Easter

I awoke on Easter morning at 3:00am to the sounds of blaring reggae music and banging on the doors. Max and Miguel were acting as our alarm clocks to wake us up for the ‘rancho’s’ Easter celebration. To commemorate the rising of Christ we had a humongous bonfire at 3:30am with everyone in attendance. The padre/priest carried the Easter candle, said some things, and then we all lit our own little candles and followed in procession to the church. Misa/mass lasted about two hours, with the Hallelujah song being sung right as the sun rose. We also baptized one of the babies, Benjamin. I have to admit, I was not really looking forward to all of this, but it wasn’t that bad. After misa I gave all my girls Easter gifts: a bottle of chile and a bag of salt tied up with a hair tie. They were really excited. They brought their condiments down to las canchas/playing fields, where all the kids were getting ready for Easter breakfast. It was a very typical breakfast of refried beans, bread, plátanos/plantains, avocado, and chocolate milk. I usually don’t like ranch breakfast, but after being up for almost five hours, it tasted really good. I passed out after breakfast and watched 24 during the day. In the evening we had a volunteer Easter barbecue. The boys rigged up a crazy grill to place over the bonfire and roasted chickens. Each person provided food – we had a great feast. The greatest thing about it was that we were all so tired from waking up so early and ate so much good food that we all said “buenas noches” at 8:00pm!

Visita de Amy y Kristin/Amy and Kristin’s Visit

Sunday, April first (April Fool’s Day), Amy and Kristin – my two good friends from Chicago -- landed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It took us a little while to get our car (our silver Chevy Aveo), but soon enough we were on the road. Our adventure began with a road trip across the country – destination Sambo Creek.

Sambo Creek is a small Garífuna village about 20 minutes east of La Ceiba on the northern coast. We had a great day driving through the country, listening to our iPods and catching up on eight months of drama, gossip, and stories. We arrived to our hotel in Sambo Creek just before sunset. It was beautiful – called Le Canadien. We checked into our room, had grilled cheese and french fries delivered to our room and went to sleep at a decent hour. The next morning we headed back to La Ceiba to take care of a medical issue Kristin was having. We described all the symptoms to the pharmacists to make sure she received the right medications, and even called our volunteer “enfermera”/nurse back on the ranch. We had a typical Honduran breakfast of baleadas and licuados at the mall and then drove back to Sambo Creek. From there we headed just down the road to Glenda’s Canopy Tour. We were suited up in all our gear and harnesses, got a quick demonstration and run-down and then saddled up on our malnourished horses. My horse was named Palomo, Amy’s horse was named Kurt, and Kristin’s horse was named Marijuanero (Pot Head). The name suited them well because they barely made it up the mountain. At certain points we offered to get off and walk because we felt so bad for our bony, breathless horses. Once we reached the top of the mountain we had a great vista/view of the Caribbean Sea, Cayos Cochinos, and the coastline. We zipped down 13 cables. It was so much fun. I felt like I was on Road Rules zipping through the rainforest treetops. After the 13th cable we reached natural thermal hot springs. The first one was boiling hot (over 400 degrees Fahrenheit!). The closer we got to it, the more it steamed. The hot springs lower down the mountain were cooler (100 degrees) and we were able to soak and relax. We had our guides (I forgot their names again) take our Playboy cover photo underneath a waterfall. Afterwards we just laid there next to the hot springs, relaxing and enjoying our surroundings. The relaxation didn’t last too long though because before long we had to re-suit up and zip down six more cables. This time the guide offered to help me do some tricks. On one cable I went upside-down and another I did the “Superman”. That was fun!! After our exhilarating adventure we went back to the hotel and laid out by the pool for a happy hour. That night we ventured into the Garífuna pueblo and had dinner at a nice restaurant called Kabasá. We enjoyed seafood oceanside.
The next day we had breakfast atop our hotel terrace – eggs, beans, fruit, toast, cheese, yum. We decided we wanted to do something besides just lay by the pool and ocean, so we consulted our Honduras guidebook and headed to La Laguna de Cacao. Our Chevy Aveo braved the dirt, pot-filled roads. When the road ended we were greeted by a handful of locals. Two of them volunteered to be our guides and take us to the beach at the end of the lagoon in their homemade dug-out canoe (for a fee of $30). We agreed and hopped into the canoe, which was docked at an old Colombian movie set. They rowed us out and we spent the afternoon wading in the lagoon and chatting it up with a local girl named Claritza. We were also approached by a guy from Switzerland named Mark. He is living in La Ceiba for a few months working as a doctor in a hospital. We decided that we would meet up in La Ceiba later in the night for drinks and dancing. We had a late lunch at the hotel, napped, showered, and drove into La Ceiba. We indulged in a nice drink at La Quinta Resort in La Ceiba and later met up with Mark at La Palapa. From there we headed to El Monstruo (or something like that), which is a discoteca on the beach. We had some drinks and took turns dancing with a guy from Tegucigalpa named Mario.
The next day we hit the road. We drove through Tela to do some shopping and buy some coconut bread, which Kristin found out is actually a spice called “cardamon”. From Tela we headed to...El Lago de Yajoa, the D&D Brewery; my now-known favorite place in all of Honduras. We had a late lunch and happy hour and were greeted by Kris and her parents who were visiting from Belgium. We hung out, played cards, ate a lot of food, and drank a lot of Bob’s beer.

The following day we did a quick hike in Los Naranjos and then hit the road – leaving tranquil northern Honduras and returning to Tegucigalpa. I gave Amy and Kristin a driving tour of Tegucigalpa and we had a pincho/shish kabob lunch at Los Criollos. Then we headed to the ranch. We went to hogar, and being it was Semana Santa/Holy Week we participated in all the religious activities on the ranch. On Thursday night we went to La Adoración/Adoration, which is like going to a wake for Jesus. On Good Friday we did the stations of the cross, ranch style. The kids acted out all the stations, which was a little creepy.
I took Amy and Kristin on my running trail, which was fun to share with them. Kristin informed me that I am not a “road runner”; I am a “trail runner”, which is something I will now pursue when I return home. Since it was a Friday during lent the ranch was only serving bread and milk for dinner, so we jumped into our car and searched for a local restaurant to have a real dinner. We found a cute, typical place about 10 minutes down the road. Afterwards we had a party back on the ranch in la hortaliza. Amy and Kristin finally got to see La Punta, danced by an ex-pequeño Edwin, me, Max, and Miguel. Kristin even joined in for a bit. It was really funny.


The next day we went and said “adios” to my girls and then we headed to the airport, did some last minute souvenir shopping, and said our goodbyes. This was probably one of the best, most relaxing, with a bit of adventure vacations I have ever had. I am very lucky to have such great friends to have shared it with!

P.S. If you are interested in reading about our vacation from Amy’s perspective, check out her blog: http://mysocalledlifelessons.blogspot.com/

Pucha

I have lots to share and write about my friends’, Amy and Kristin’s, visit from Chicago. Before that, however, I’ll fill you in on how daily life is going on the ranch. My schedule is pretty jam-packed. If you’ve read my past blogs you’ll know that my work load has increased, which is causing me to be pretty busy. I am enjoying it though. My days consist of speech therapy, emailing, proyecto familiar, reviewing applications, taking a little siesta mid-day, running, yoga, and my new obsession…watching 24. Since we do not have T.V. here on the ranch we rely on our lap tops for entertainment. Many volunteers have movies, T.V. series, etc. that we all trade. Well, Tess from Boston, brought the first three seasons of 24, and I am now addicted. I am almost finished with the second season. It is a great way to end the day, lying in bed with the head phones, watching Jack Bauer save the world over and over again.
In other news, Pucha, our cat, is pregnant. She’s only eight-months-old, so it’s hard to imagine, but she is definitely pregnant. This has caused me some stress because not too many of the volunteers are very fond of Pucha, so her kittens are not going to be very welcome around Casa Personal. She is eating tons of food, acting a little weird, and her belly is growing very rapidly. The other night Kris and I could see the babies moving around in her belly and we could feel them. It won’t be long before there are little gatitos running around. Not sure what we’re going to do with them yet. Some of the tías mentioned that they would take one if it is a certain color. We had an Easter grill out this past Sunday and we made a pool, betting on the date that Pucha will give birth and the number of kittens. I will keep you posted as to the results. Stay tuned…