Now I'm getting closer to being caught up with my blog entries. This trip to Honduras and Nicaragua only took place four months ago!
This trip was special in that it was the fulfillment of a promise I made back in June of 2011, the year I left Honduras after teaching junior high there for two years. I promised my, then, eighth graders that I would come back for their high school graduation in four years. I feel lucky that I was able to make good on this ... some of them distinctly remember me making this promise ... but I have since learned not to make promises when traveling about returning given how unpredictable life can be.
(the graduation invitation)
However, it was not just me that went. Four other past volunteer-teachers went down as well - (from left to right) Bridget, Jessica, Carrie and Andrew. Of course we visited our good Honduran friend Mario.
We visited some of our old stomping grounds like the Hogar del Niño (Children's Home) which is where Mario and I worked on its organic farm during the summer between my two years there. Mario still works there with his primos (cousins ... and buddies).
After visiting memorable places and seeing past friends for about a week ...
the day of the graduation arrived!
I know this makes me sound like an adult, but it is amazing how much the students had grown up from 8th to 12th grade, both physically and mentally.
These students were the first graduating class from Instituto Bilingüe Santa Clara (IBSC). They were also the first students of Padre Ricardo's bilingual elementary grade school Centro Escolar Santa Clara (CESC) when they were pre-schoolers. They've been working their way up ever since.
They are now proud bilingual high school graduates. Many of them, like Carlos Osorio here, told me that they are going to college to study medicine, law, architecture, etc., either locally in Juticalpa, in the "big city" Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras), and one is even going the USA to study at a JC in Florida. This is monumental given that, according the CIA World Fact Book, the "school life expectancy" (SLE) - the total number of years of schooling a Honduran child can expect to receive - is 11 years.
OAF has been growing in other ways besides education too. They are doing clean water projects and setting up communication systems like this one way out in Los Condes.
This is a receiving/transmitting tower ...
that will allow for communication between larger cities like Juticalpa and small remote villages that are separated by long distances and rugged terrain.
It is solar powered too! Go Honduras!
We had some fun learning how it worked and climbing around on it while the engineers checked up on how it is maintaining.
Our time in Honduras was coming to a close and on the night before we left there was the graduation party, a separate event from the graduation ceremony (sort of like a wedding ceremony vs a wedding reception).
One thing that Honduras (and all Latin America in my experience) does well, is go all out for special occasions.
Four strapping gents from the graduating class.
And Luisa with her mom to the nines!
There was an immaculately decorated reception hall, through which parents escorted their sons/daughters to a front stage, and a delicious, catered dinner for well over a hundred people.
After eating and many speeches, which we volunteer-teachers were asked to give as well, there was dancing ... some of it formal...
and some of it crazy. Check out this guy on stilts!
That wrapped up our time in Honduras so we hit the road and headed to Nicaragua where Andrew, one of the five of us, had been managing a travelers hostel for the past year.
¡Vamos a Nicaragua!
Andrew's hostel was located next to a lake called Laguna de Apoyo a couple hours southeast of the capital Managua and just west of the city of Granada.
In addition to hiking around the lake and swimming in it, we also took a guided boat trip on Lago Nicaragua, which is by far the largest lake in Central America. This lake has recently been involved in some controversy around the building of a canal across Nicaragua, using the lake as part of its passageway. According to the locals, however, it doesn't look like it is actually going to happen.
We also took a chocolate-making tour in Granada...
where our guide explained to us how the ancient Mayans used to make chocolate from cacao seeds.
Los cinco amigos!
We traveled north to Leon where the girls went volcano boarding, but since I was sick with the latest mosquito-transmitted virus chikungunya, Andrew and I took it easy by walking around the city and eating.
Here's the cathedral in Leon, which is the largest cathedral in Central America.
We also took a tour through a museum dedicated to the Nicaraguan Revolution - a conflict between the Somoza dictatorship and the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Here's our guide, who actually fought in this conflict, taking us on the roof of the museum. We definitely thought we were going to fall through and die especially when he started jumping on it to show us how sturdy it was.
Finally we couldn't leave Nicaragua without visiting one of its many volcanos. You could walk right up to the ledge of this one, Volcan Masaya, to see the still-smoking crater.
We did some hiking upwards for some great views...
and downwards into some lava tubes.
We enjoyed our time in Nicaragua - the land of lakes and volcanoes - but perhaps more, we enjoyed being with each other.
