Visita de Courtney

I arrived back in Honduras from Miami on Tuesday, June 12. Courtney, my friend and roommate from grad school, arrived in Honduras from Grand Rapids, Michigan on Wednesday, June 13. I barely had time to get unpacked and say hello to my girls before I headed back to the airport to pick up Courtney. Yayo and Dina (año familiares on the ranch doing their year of service) provided transportation, which was much appreciated because Courtney brought with her a huge red suitcase filled with ranch donations -- a stereo and boom box that I will be giving to my hogar as part of my despedida, and tons of Courtney’s old hand-me-downs to be distributed amongst the older girls on the ranch. I took Courtney to the Metro Mall food court to give her a first taste of Honduras. We were surrounded by Wendy’s, Burger King, and Church’s Chicken, but we chose to go the Honduran route and ordered pupusas (tortillas filled with cheese and meat) from Paseo Universitario. We sat out on the terrace and were able to get a nice view of Tegucigalpa as we caught up. We made it back to the ranch in time to get quickly settled in and then we headed to hogar. Actually, we were tackled as we entered hogar. The Cuba versus Honduras soccer game had just ended, and Honduras won. Seeing as how I am half Cuban, my girls felt the need to come and rub it in my face (literally) that their team was superior to mine. What a welcome for Courtney. We spent the night playing blackjack with the girls. Courtney got to practice her Spanish, which is quite good actually. The girls were utterly amazed when they found out that Courtney had brain surgery and they asked her to repeat her story countless times in every little detail. Courtney promised she’d send post-surgery pictures to show the girls what she looked like with all the scars and facial paralysis. After hogar we went to Casa Personal and hung out for a bit. I was able to catch up on some of the ranch gossip and introduce Courtney to some of the other volunteers.

The next day we headed to La Tigra. La Tigra is a national park just past Valle de Angeles, not too far from Tegucigalpa. In fact, you can see La Tigra from the ranch. It is situated in the mountaintops and is a cloud forest. It’s one of those things you’ve got to do in Honduras, especially since it’s so close. I introduced Courtney to her first, of many, jalons/hitchikes. We hitched a ride from the ranch to Tegucigalpa from a gringa working at a religious organization in nearby Talanga. From Tegucigalpa we took the Rapidito/little bus to Valle de Angeles for 14 lempiras (about 60 cents) each. From Valle de Angeles we hiked along the road until we caught another jalon to the entrance to La Tigra. This time we were greeted by a car that looked like it was from the 1950’s and could fall apart at any minute. We squished in beside Honduran girls on their way home from school. From the entrance to La Tigra we hiked a little more on our way to San Juancito and were surprisingly picked up by el policía/police. That was fun. They were very friendly and dropped us off at the base of the mountain in San Juancito. Now we either had two options: we could hike up the steep mountain about one kilometer carrying our backpacks, or we could call to our bed and breakfast and have them come and pick us up for a fee. Our intentions were to hike up, but just as we started walking, it began to rain. We waited it out for a bit, but then decided it would be way too hard to trudge up the mountain in the mud with our big backpacks on. So, we called Monica and Jorge, a couple from Germany who run the bed and breakfast, to come pick us up. As we waited for them to arrive we saw two gringas walking by. They stopped to chat, asked where we were from, what we were doing, etc. and then told us that they were planning on staying overnight but had no place to stay. Luckily the German couple had an extra cabin for them, so we all rode up the mountain together. Thank God. It would have been a miserable hike in the rain and mud.

When we arrived at the top of El Rosario it was a stunning view. Our bed and breakfast was literally on the edge of a mountain. It was very rustic, yet clean and up kept living conditions. Courtney and I shared a cabin with a great porch overlooking the valley. The bathroom was outside, was very cute and had hot water. The sink and mirror were outside so we felt very close to nature as we washed our face and brushed our teeth. It rained for the rest of the day, so we just relaxed for the afternoon, took a little nap, showered and got ready for dinner.

Dinner was served in Monica and Jorge’s dining room. They have a great house that they built themselves. They also have great food! Everything is organic, vegetarian and most of it is grown in their garden. The four of us sat down to dinner (Courtney, the two gringas, and me). For dinner we had quiche and a wonderful salad. After dinner they served us homemade lemon grass tea, which was so good. Courtney and I headed back to our cabin. It was raining pretty much all evening and all night, so we turned on the iPod, played cards and had many long, deep chats until we fell asleep...ahhh.

The next morning we headed out to hike La Tigra. Before leaving we energized ourselves with a wonderful breakfast. Homemade integral and sourdough bread, homemade jellies, cheese, coffee, mini-homegrown tomatoes, freshly squeezed juice, and peanut butter. Courtney and I took a half-loaf of bread to bring with us on our hike. We chose to do the easiest, shortest of the La Tigra trails. At the visitor center, we learned that the visitor guide was an ex-pequeño named Carlos. We chatted with him for a bit and he gave the gringas a discounted entrance fee. Since I am a Honduran resident, my entrance fee was only 20 lempiras (one dollar). The others, however, being 100% gringa paid an extranjero/foreigner price of 200 lempiras (10 dollars). Crazy! We did a six kilometer hike to La Cáscada/waterfall. It took us about four hours. It was a beautiful hike; it reminded me a lot of the cloud forest hike Anna and I did at the Lago de Yajoa. Courtney and I took many pictures and enjoyed all the vistas and flora. When we made it to the waterfall it was raining a bit, but that just added to the charm of the cloud forest. We were pretty tired (and surprisingly sore) when we returned to our cabin. We relaxed most of the evening. The power went out, so we had a nice dinner of vegetable stew by the candlelight, listened to the iPod and played cards for the rest of the night.

The next morning we enjoyed our final breakfast at the B&B, bought some exotic jellies (including matasano, which I had never heard of before) and a loaf of bread, and checked out. We hiked down the mountain and jaloned it to Valle de Angeles where we spent the rest of the day and night. Valle de Angeles is a traditional pueblo and is very cute and touristy. We did a lot of souvenir shopping, walking around, and had a nice lunch. After lunch we were exhausted. We headed to our cabin in Villas de Valles, which is a short walk outside of the city. Our intentions were to rest up, shower, and head back to the city for dinner; however, we were so tired and it started to rain, so we stayed in and watched TV and ate our bread and jelly from La Tigra.

The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel, did some last minute shopping in Valle de Angeles and then crammed into a Rapidito back to Tegucigalpa. In Tegucigalpa we enjoyed licuados, checked our email and made some phone calls (called Dad for Father’s Day), went to the grocery store, and then jaloned back to the ranch.

We dropped our things off at San Cristobal (the visitors’ house) and headed to la posa/swimming hole, which is where all the kids were having their Sunday afternoon activity. We arrived just as they were serving lunch. After lunch we swam with the kids for a while and then went back to San Cristobal to shower up and rest a bit. That night in hogar the girls decided to put on a fashion show for Courtney and me; we were the judges. We had just gotten through our second round, when a few of the girls came in telling us that one of the pequeños had drowned in la posa.

The next couple hours were quite confusing with everyone saying different things and such. However, as it turns out, earlier in the day, when the ENTIRE ranch was at la posa, an 18-year-old pequeño named Zael did in fact drown. The details are pretty unclear, but here is what we think happened. Zael was a high school/bachillerato student in Tegucigalpa. He came back to the ranch every other weekend to work. His job on the ranch was as a tío/caregiver in San Francisco, the young boys’ hogar. Supposedly one of the boys from his hogar was having trouble in the water and needed help. Zael jumped in (with his clothes and shoes) to help him. Some say that the little boy was grabbing on to him around his neck, that Zael got a cramp, tired out, we’re unsure. Supposedly Zael was able to get the boy to safety, but was then unable to save himself. Some of the kids say that they saw Zael struggling, but either thought he was joking or told some adults and they didn’t believe them. Who knows? It wasn’t until later that evening, when he didn’t show up for an evaluation, that the ranch realized he was missing. Some of the older boys from his hogar went out to la posa to look for him. Roberto, one of the older pequeños, found his body and dragged it out of the water. Roberto spent the next few days in the clinic recovering from post-traumatic stress; he was a mess.

It is just unbelievable to me that something like this could happen. I guess in the back of my mind I always thought that la posa was a dangerous place to bring close to 600 kids to swim with little to no adult supervision, buddy system, or lifeguards. However, nothing had happened before to raise any questions or doubts. The water of la posa is so murky that you can’t see anything beneath two inches of the surface. In fact, when Courtney and I jumped in, I was scared to jump on another kid because I couldn’t see beneath the water. From what everyone says, Courtney and I arrived just after it happened. It’s eerie to look at Courtney’s pictures she took that afternoon of la posa knowing that Zael’s body is somewhere beneath the surface. God, two funerals within two weeks. Three deaths in one month (yes, there is one I haven’t mentioned yet). What is going on?! I felt a little bad for Courtney because it kind of ruined the plans we had for her vacation; however, she was able to really see the daily workings and culture of the ranch.

On Monday night we had a mass for Zael and a viewing of the body. Over 50 family members came from neighboring pueblos and communities. Things like this are really hard for the kids because it brings back so many memories of their past and losses.

The next day was the burial. Courtney and I decided not to attend. Instead I took her to school to do some speech-language therapy, seeing as how she is also a speech-language pathologist. I gave her a tour of the school, we cleaned my aula/classroom (since it hadn’t been used in over two weeks and during that time put windows in), and saw a couple students. That evening instead of going to hogar, Courtney got to partake in proyecto familiar/family project. I have mentioned proyecto familiar in past blogs. It is where a volunteer is paired with a family (brothers and sisters) so that they get to spend a quality evening with one another cooking dinner, playing games and hanging out. Courtney and I did proyecto with Bessy and Julissa, two sisters. We made baleadas, chocolate cake, listened to music, danced, took pictures, played blackjack, and had a really nice time. The next day Courtney and I headed to the airport. Her whirlwind week of Honduran culture and sightseeing had come to an end. Although we stuck close to the ranch this time around, Courtney was able to see and experience all Honduras has to offer through the people, sights, food, music, joys and sorrows. While Courtney was rather paranoid during her time here --constantly putting on sunblock and bug spray, asking about every little thing she ate or drank, washing her hands every five minutes, worrying about getting lice and/or a parasite, etc. I think that she did a great job immersing herself in the culture that I have come to love, respect, and appreciate.