A Honduran Thanksgiving

In case you were curious how a handful of North Americans might celebrate Thanksgiving in Juticalpa, Honduras, allow me to explain how we did it.

The morning began with a few of us going for a run.

That's right...Juticalpa Turky Trot 2K9

Then we cooked all day. It was a potluck. My house brought roles and veggies. Carlos, one of the Olancho Aid staff had to go the capital, Tegucigalpa, three hours away to get the turkey (pavo). In this picture is Annie, our principal, Sarah, the pre-school and kindergarten volunteer and me. The turkey cut like butter!

Carlos pointing out his personal touch to the food table to Kate, the 4th grade volunteer.

It was quite a feast!

Cheque (the common term used in Honduras to mean just about anything you agree with).

We sat around, talked, ate and later played some Apples to Apples.

Here we all are...happy and thankful.

Hope your Thanksgiving went well too.

Las Cuevas de Talgua

We volunteers have spending a good amount of time making lesson plans, grading papers and doing the things required of a teacher. We thought it would be a healthy idea to get away from it all and so we asked one of the administrators here at Olancho Aid, Francisco, if there was anything we could get out and do. So Francisco came up with an idea...hiking the caves in the nearby town of Talgua.


Here is Francisco with his girlfriend, Roxanna...




and this is Francisco's family's front porch...I could get used to that.



Arriving the at park where the caves were.



A nice trail...


next to a beautiful river...


surrounded by a beautiful forest



Into the depths...


the ceiling was not very tall...

although it was great to look at...


really cool to look at.

There were even little caves within the cave...


and intricate stalagmites (estalagmitas)...


The guide (guia) led us to "The Cathedral" which earned its name because of the high ceiling and and numerous stalactites (estalactitas). It was quite impressive...


as were the walls further along on our exploration.


Danielle.


Those must have taken a long time to form...


in fact, at the farthest point into the caves we came to a place where the guide told us that just a little farther up the path was an ancient grave yard for the people who used to live here 900 B.C.

It was kind of eerie...especially when the bats flew by us, which I couldn't get a picture of. But the scariest thing of all was

just kidding.

We then followed the river back to the entrance of the cave.

We made it!

This was the visitor center...check out the growth on the roof.

There was coffee growing outside.

That about wrapped up our trip to the caves, although we took a minute to dip our feet in the river. The girls being silly on the card ride home.

Dia de los Muertos

Today was Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) or All Soul's Day here in Honduras (and I believe all over Latin America). This is a day when families go to the cemetery to spend time with their deceased relatives.

They bring flowers...

to decorate the graves with.

The families make the cemetery look lively.

This is Annie, her husband and family as well as Danielle, another volunteer.

The families might spend a good part of the day here.

They chat, eat and straighten up their relative's grave.

There were quite a number of people.

Just hanging out on Dia de los Muertos.

Dengue Dan

Hey Ya'll,

As you can guess from the title I just discovered with certainty I have dengue fever. I am in a state of amazement because I thought dengue was always this foreign disease that only the unlucky traveler gets. Well, call me unluckily, but at least I can call myself Dengue Dan, lol. You might say, "Dan, you sound to chipper to have dengue." Well I am just getting over it and so now I can laugh about it, although there isn't really anything funny about it besides this picture and blog title.

Saturday morning, while tutoring some students, I started feeling general flu symptoms: body aches and some light-headedness. I took it easy the rest of the weekend. Monday through Wednesday saw me dragging myself to school each day, which in retrospect I probably should have just staying home. Symptoms included more light-headedness, body pain, fever and feeling exhausted. I was thinking last night that if I wasn't feeling better in the morning I would have to stay home today, but when I woke up everything was good except this irritating rash on my arms. So I went to school and now the rash actually worse (I am itching like crazy), but all the other symptoms are gone.

I thought that my previous symptoms were somewhat general and so I didn't pursue investigating what I might have, but when I got this rash I decided to check it out and the my symptoms fit the bill perfectly. Luckily it said that the rash is the last part of being sick. So I feel like I have really lived....or really itched...either one. Also, I found out I am not that special beause a lot of people are getting it now that it is the rainy season.

Stay well and wear DEET.

soccer - a national pastime

In you weren't watching ESPN this past Wednesday night, you obviously aren't Honduran, because every Honduran was watching. The race for entrance to the world cup is underway and on Wednesday Honduras beat El Salvador 1-0. That combined with USA's win over Costa Rica put Honduras in a secured position to go to South Africa to play in the next round of the world cup tournament.

This is a local gas station where dozens of people, if not hundreds come to watch the game being projected onto the walls for all to see. You have to be careful when Honduras scores a goal. People are cheering, honking and firing off their guns (which are in no short supply here).

After the game people got in their cars and paraded down the main street. This was taken at 9:00 at night.

They hang out their windows honking and cheering.

The government even called Thursday a national holiday. All the public schools had the day off. We didn't because we're private, but I still had a number of students absent. Some of my students had to give presentations on Thursday. Some of them asked if they could reschedule because they had lost their voices from the night before while they were out to 1:00 a.m. in the streets and parks celebrating with friends and family....good times.

catching up on things

(top to bottom this time)

A couple weeks ago we had the week off for the Central American independence day and Dia de la Maestro (Day of the Teacher).

So we took off on a bus at 4:45 in the morning to the north coast to a small city called Trujillo.

It took us about 7 or 8 hours on a cramped, hot, yellow school bus during which I had horrible stomach gas from something I had eaten.

Getting to the beautiful beach was worth it though.

With a bit of luck we found a cheap hotel on the beach called Casa Kiwi.

Two awesome ladies from New Zealand, Joy and Jazz, run the place. They made us 3 meals a day, provided us with snorkel gear and charged us a whopping 100 limpiras (about $5.00) a night. Highly recommend this place.

It really was beautiful location right on the beach.

But you have to be careful about laying on the beach because there are vicious sand fleas.

and stinging jellyfish.

These guys didn't bother us though.

We knew we had done good when the gave us the room key.

Teresa, Beth and Sarah (my travel companeras) getting used to the room.

It could have held 10 people, but we had it all to ourselves.

The view from our room.

Which was a hundred feet from the beach.

Days started with breakfasts like these banana pancakes.

The afternoon's were difficult ... but someone had to do it.

One day the four of us decided to explore the town of Trujillo.

Smoothies are crucial with the heat.

We saw the old fort that used to defend the town from pirates of the carribean, literally.

statues in the central park

central park

The Catholic church.

The cool thing we learned was that on Christopher Columbus's fourth voyage to the Americas, which the first time he landed on Continental America, he landed very close to Trujillo. It was here 500 (V Centenario) years ago that the first Cathloic mass (primera misa) was said.

This is the door on the church, a tribute to this 500 year mark.

I took this because everyone drinks soda down here. It is more common than water.

William Walker, a crazy American who tried to conquer Central America, is buried here.

How about these beams...think they would pass building code in the states?

Then we walked a bit outside of town to check out this cool hotel we were told about.

A local Honduran had spent 8 years carving the wood inside the hotel lobby.

I took this just before we got to the hotel which was a long way up a hill. But on the way back from the hotel, a guy was waiting on the intersection you see above. We didn't think anything of it, but the next thing we knew he pulled out a pistol and made us give him our belongings. No one got hurt and everything that was taken was replaceable. We were pretty shaken up for the rest of the day though. He didn't get the camera hidden in my pocket though, haha.

We didn't let that keep our spirits down though. Joy and Chazz let us (including a British couple we became friends with at Casa Kiwi) paint the pillars in the bar/restaurant.

Helen was probably the most talented.

I should stick with math and leave the art to those who know what they are doing.

Tim, is a veteranarian, who is now living in Indiana with his wife Helen where he teaches at Tufts University.

Nice Beth.

You too Sarah.

Overall, it was a great week off even with the robbery. We all hope to return to Casa Kiwi someday and get some more of that great Kiwi hospitality and sunny beaches.