one foggy morning

Walked out the door to go to school this morning. "Whoa, it's foggy," i mentioned to my roommate as if she couldn't tell. It wasn't incredibly foggy, it was just the first time it had been foggy that I remember since being here in Tegus. Now, being from Arroyo Grande, CA... i know fog. People from Colorado know snow,people from Seattle know rain, but if there is one type of weather I'd say I'm fairly familiar with, it's fog. I remember chilly mornings at CCS, I hardly can think of one that began with sunshine. I remember fog so thick you couldn't see more than 7 feet in front of you. I remember Jared accidentally getting off the freeway because the fog was so dense he didn't notice the road turned. Fog can be a nuisance, but you live with it. Oh, and keep in mind, the fog this morning was nothing compared to these experiences.

So, I get to school and my assistant comes into the classroom. "I've never seen it like this before!" she says. "The fog?" I ask. "Yeah, this is crazy. I thought school would be cancelled... I couldn't even find the school!" I thought to myself, if this weather warrants a cancelling of school, I would have finished High School having attended maybe once a week, if that.

......another example of the difference between home and here.......

oh, and then this afternoon for lunch I was eating apples and peanut butter. my students thought that was the craziest/nastiest thing ever. they all gathered around my desk to watch. Oh the things that so deeply affect a five-year-old!

after the break

So I went home for Christmas. It was nice, busy though. And here I am, back in Tegus, dealing with a lot of different feelings. I can't even put most of them into words, and when I tried, I just started crying... hmm. I have a feeling i'm just going to bury them, cause it's easier than dealing with them. I've never been very good at talking about my feelings, so why should I start now, right? God, give me wisdom. Help me in my weakness.

hormiguote

not only do we have the smallest ants you have ever seen that tend to show up in mass quantitles, we also have the occasional monstrous thing reminiscent of the early 90's favorite: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!



double click on the pic for the full effect

Keepin' it Rural

So I realized something last weekend… Tegucigalpa is not the reason I love Honduras. I mean, some things about it are nice, like running water, electricity (except of course right now while i’m writing this), grocery stores, pizza hut, and paved roads. But this city is not the place I fell in love with. It was the rural towns, where everyone knows everyone else and there is no fear in walking down the street at night with nothing to light the way but the lights that God put in the heavens. It was El Naranjo, El Diptamo, Ochoa, and Arriba. It was the faces of kids who walk around selling donuts and oranges for 1-2 lempiras just so their family can survive. It was the taste of a charamusca on a hot dry day, and the hope for some shade and a nice breeze. It was being in a third-world country and really feeling like it. This city is just not Honduras to me. There is so much more – so much better in my opinion.

Last weekend Megan, Allie, Betsy and I took a little trip to Gracias, Lempira. We got to drive through the rural of the rural. My heart felt so at home. I wished I could be out there all the time. And it was even more beautiful than I remembered, because I’ve always come in the dry season, and this time everything was so green. I loved it. But of course we had to come back to the big city… to the smog and the noise and the people – lots of people, everywhere. I’m still trying to get used to it.

felix

... 2:15pm September 4th.
it has finally started raining.
felix is on his way.
excited to see what the next couple days will bring.
i've never been in a hurricane before.

All around the mulberry bush...

...the monkey chased the weasel. That's the tune that just came blaring through my front windows as the ice cream truck made a five-point turn to head out of our cul-de-sac. So this is Honduras. I look out the front door and see the sky, smiling a beautiful shade of blue. A more brilliant blue than you would ever see in Southern California. And it is dappled with the typical Cumulonimbus clouds that make it a breathtaking sight every time. (the picture doesn't do it justice)

I can faintly hear the sound of the neighborhood kids, while the dogs have taken a brief cessation from their barking. The unusually cool Honduran afternoon is beckoning me to come outside, yet here i sit. The weekend is rapidly coming to a close, and I have so much to do to prepare for class tomorrow. Lesson plans to fix, a sore throat to tend to, and enough curriculum to read to keep me busy for days. Thankfully I can take "make cookies" off my list as I just finished the third batch of those delicious pieces of heaven that I have made in the past week. I am seriously their biggest walking advertisement right now. And here I am writing on my blog. I better get back to work, so that I will be able to go to the soccer game this afternoon at the big stadium downtown. It should be exciting, I've never been to a professional soccer game, so it will be fun. Please keep my health and my sanity in your prayers if you don't mind. I really don't want to be sick for the second week of school!

pray for passion

well, i spend all my free time shopping/planning/packing for my upcoming journey to Honduras, but something is missing. I've been so caught up in getting ready that i haven't had time to get excited. does that make sense? i don't feel terribly passionate about what i am going to do. i'm just praying for God to change that... and quickly. when I went to Honduras in April, that trip was my life. I lived and breathed that trip. Nothing made me more excited than planning and praying and preparing and even doing the tedious logistical things for it. i'm praying that God will give me passion like that for this trip. please pray with me.