letter to 17 year old me...

I read a post on a blog a few days that got under my skin...in a good way. The blogger wrote a letter to herself, as if writing 10 years earlier, reflecting on what lessons she had learned and what things she shouldn't have taken so seriously. At the end she threw out a question: What would you say to your former self, knowing what you do now? 

A flood of thoughts rippled through my mind, as if I was floating in a canoe down a river of memories from the last 10 years.  Would I give myself more work and career advice? Would I focus on relationships? Should I warn myself about mistakes that, if given the chance, would be convenient to "undo." The list was unending, the memories rich and vivid.

I thought how perfect it would be, now on the near-eve of my birthday, to look back 10 years and think about what I would have liked to know when I was a dorky, 17 year old girl in the midst of a stressful senior year, weighing the decisions of which college to attend.

I could tell her that Messiah was a great experience, that it was definitely a good fit for her and she will make some really awesome friendships that will last a long time.

I could tell her that life DOES get better than high school. It gets a lot better than getting turned down for prom, or not being athletic, or not getting a role in her senior musical. 

I could tell her that all her fears about going to Spain and all the tears she cried are not even worth worrying about because it is one of the best decisions she ever made.

Or maybe warn of some pitfalls with those guys who shall remain nameless. Or tell her that she really will cross paths with someone special that loves her for who she is.

Maybe it would be good to tell her about all the really fun stuff that she has to look forward to, 

the sights she will see, people that will shape her in measureless ways.

Then I stopped to think about this cumbersome list. I realized that that 17 year old girl desperately wanted someone to tell her all of that. She needed to know what the path ahead looked like, where it was going to twist and turn. She had to figure out where she would fall down, and who was going to be there to dust her off.  

But life doesn't work that way. 

And I'm actually thankful for that!

I realized that all of these "warnings" were moments where I had to take a step of faith. I had to make choices and live with my decisions. These were the moments that shaped me and made me the person I am. You can't go back and "re-do" it because there is a strength gained from the fear and trepidation that accompanies each new step of the journey. It's what we draw on when it is time for the next step.

As much as I think I could fill a whole notebook with advice for my darling 17 year old "carisita"...I can't! 
And this is a powerful realization--because it gives me courage to tell the 27 year old me to not be so afraid of the next steps. The path is unknown, and you can't see around the next curve--but that is just the moment where it starts to get interesting!

quarter century update

A lot has happened since my last blog post, including the fact that I celebrated a quarter century of life! CraZy! Not only was my last post rather intense and so requires a more light-hearted follow up, but I also have lots of visitors who deserve a shout-out :)

So, the 7th of November was the big birthday...but the day seemed to drag by in its typical-ity (english check, please?). My coworker didn't think I needed to work, so I had the day to myself. I slept in, video chatted with my big sis and favorite niece, took some time to bake, and went to the gym. I did receive lots of b-day wishes on Facebook, via email and on my phone. Finally, around 7 pm my birthday visitors showed up in Santa Rosa and took me out for a delicious dinner and a piece of b-day cake :)

Virgil & Kathy (MCCers from Teguc) were on their way home from Guatemala and took a day to get to know my life in Santa Rosa. It was so great to have them here, to have them go along for a community visit, and try out some good local restaurants.

Then, on Friday of last week, my 2 best friends from Teguc also came to visit me. It was so fun to have Elise and Allison here, to show them around town and have them hang out with my friends. We got to shop, eat some good food, and visit the hot springs in Gracias. Oh, and they even got in on my longest church service yet--3 hours!

While of course it is fun to visit with my good friends from Teguc and catch up on life, there was another element of their visits that was really good for my own self-esteem. First of all, it was great to share my struggles with them and hear their advice and perspective on things. This is definitely something I miss dearly now that we are not living in the same neighborhood!

Secondly, having the opportunity to show them around town and introduce them to my community here was a great way for me to see how far I really have come in these 2 short (LLLLOOOOONNNG) months. I can get around town, and I do know some stuff, and I really do have friends who like hanging out with me. It was super fun to hang out with the youth from church, really feeling like part of the group, and to have them interested in getting to know my other friends. It's a good step forward in my social life.

Don't have pics from the girls (yet) but here are a few others:

look~ i teach about hygiene and health!

this is where i get to work :)

loved having them visit!

3 gringas with the boys of the church youth group... watch out.

a day in the life...

I think I've probably said something like this before...but it's nearly impossible to capture what a typical day is like for me. Some days are pretty dull, with nothing more exciting than buying chocolate ice cream at the corner store or taking a trip downtown to have coffee.

But some days, things are just completely ridiculous. And when it's happening, nothing in and of itself seems so crazy. It's only later, when you reflect on the day, that the sum of the parts amounts to something that you just think people not familiar with Honduras might not believe!

Yesterday was my host brother, Josue's birthday. Tradition (in my host family at least) means waking up early to sing to the birthday person before they even get out of bed. My host mom woke me up and we all tried singing outside Josue's door...let's just say, we were all half asleep and it was a pretty terrible rendition. No one was singing together, and half way thru my host mom forgot the words (in her defense, it's a longer song than the English version) and we all broke down laughing when she ended with a "cha cha cha." I think Josue just turned over to sleep again because it was pretty pathetic.

Monday mornings usually start out with a rousing office meeting of the Income Generation Program. At the beginning of my time here I understood maybe 40% of what was going on. Now that I am more accustomed to the terminology of the bank program, the speed at which Hondurans talk, and the joking nature of the men I work with, I think I understand 86-93% of what goes on :)

Today's meeting did not lack for drama. One coworker confronted the rest on their lack of respect for personal property. Mostly, this is not a very Honduran concept, but I was glad she spoke up. People do not respect anyone's desk or personal things and are continually fighting over lost items, whether it's calculators, staplers, printers, helmets, or keys to the moto. It gets a little out of control. And so did the discussion in the meeting!

After the meeting I did some more work til lunch. Lunch was pretty normal, at home, watching a family-favorite dating show while we eat. The show is out of control, as it's called "12 hearts" and tries to make matches of couples, loosely based on zodiac signs and physical preferences. Awesome.

In the afternoon I was quietly working in my office. Allison, my fellow gringa friend who works at the ministries calls me and says "are you bored? if so, come to my office, now." So, of course intrigued, I ran upstairs for a break. I found 2 children who we know from the school, plus their mom (a teacher) holding a mangy looking pigeon. The basic rundown was they pigeon fell from the ledge outside of Allison's window and they wanted to put it back on the ledge. Since I was the tallest (and by default must have the longest arms) I was elected to stand on the chair, reach out of the window with the pigeon in a dust pan, and deposit said pigeon on the window ledge. So I did. No big deal :) We watched him for awhile but he didn't do too much. You know, rescuing pigeons, all in a day's work.

pigeon in the dust pan, about to go out the window.

The evening was a typically Honduran birthday celebration. There wasn't ever a plan, and earlier in the day no one knew if we would actually have cake, but somehow, everyone in the family knew when and where to show up, my host mom made tacos for all, and we shared a cake for Josue's 24th birthday.

family chaos + cake

I have come to love family birthday parties with my host family, all of the craziness and awkwardness. Last night did not let me down :) Not only did we have 20 some people in the house, but we had our usual photo-taking frenzy. One of the cousins, who will remain nameless, is rather obsessed with taking photos of the gringa (yep, that's me). But not just when I know it's happening. Like also when I'm not looking, he's taking shots with his cell phone. Then he supposedly wanted a photo with the birthday boy, but at the last minute was like "no, with the gringa too!" So...I posed for about 15 photos with the cousin and my host brother. It was rather embarrassing. Then I was reassured by their uncle that I am more than welcome to take his son to the US...just as long as he gets some US dollars in return.

I still haven't figured out a good response to these innuendos. Thankfully there are some other cousins who look out for me and tell me not to pay attention to their crazy uncle. But I know the matchmaking is never over!

By the time all the pictures and cake and family stuff was done, we were pretty tired. We still had to watch the Honduras vs. Guatemala match on TV...and, though I didn't know it, I had to help a kid from church with 9 pages of English homework!! So...I did. It didn't take me too long, and I had a good time berating Axel for never practicing his English and talking with Lucia (my host mom) about everything under the sun and her childhood growing up in Olancho.

Overall, it was a good night of memories with the host family...just nothing that will ever be easy to capture in photos or words. But...here was my attempt!

weekend win

Lest you be worried that I was moping around all weekend and wallowing in my homesickness, I want to reassure you that I found some good ways to fill my time. Here is a rundown of my typical a-typical weekend pastimes in Honduras. I assure you no two weekends look alike :)

Friday evening: My gringa friends' host father (also my coworker's father) was in the hospital for an accident that occurred at work on Thursday. His fingers were cut pretty bad, but they were able to reattach them after a 3 hours surgery. So, I was invited to go visit Arturo in the hospital. I was really glad I went for several reasons. One, it was a good way to see the public hospital, and a good way to know I never want to be admitted there! Two, it was fun to cheer Arturo up and see the reaction of other patients to the gaggle of gringas he had visiting him. Apparently he was quite popular among the patients after we left :)

So after that excursion, I hung out with Elise and Allison at their house and had a fun time chatting and eating and generally forgetting why I was bummed about not being in Virginia on Friday.


Saturday: I made plans to run some errands and go to the mall with Elise and Johanna. We had coffee together  and caught up on life, then wandered around the mall, shopping for random things that each of us wanted. Then, on a whim we decided to catch an afternoon movie at the cinema in the mall. It was fun to just relax and enjoy a movie--something I rarely splurge on here. The movie was in English (with subtitles) and for a moment you can almost forget you're not watching in the U.S.

 
So we did a bit more shopping and then headed back to Suyapa before the daylight went away. When I got back to my street, my host mom, my aunt and our two neighbor ladies who run the pulperia were making pupusas and selling them on the corner. This was part of a project from the church...we were all given a talent of 100 Lempiras (about $5) and within 10 days we have to invest it and bring back more than 100. Our group decided to pool our money and sell food together. Since they had started without me, I figured it was only fair to join in and help with the marketing and selling. It was really fun hanging out with these ladies on the corner, an activity usually only enjoyed by Honduran men...and it was nice to have some fun with them. I personally sold 11 pupusas, and they were extremely impressed. One man only bought 5 because I was part of the group...the other 6 I sold to my gringo friends, Virgil and Kathy.

Sunday morning: I went to church with the family. It was communion Sunday so I helped Lucia with the cups and soda and bread and then joined the service. Of course, it always goes long when communion is involved. Then the church ladies were selling pupusas at the chuch (to raise money for the new building) so I had to support the cause (again!). Delicious.

After church I took a nap, ate lunch with the fam, and retired to my room to do some reading. Around 2:30 Elise called and invited me to the Via Olympica (outdoor sports facility) to exercise with her and Allison. It was blazing hot, but I went any way. We walked around the track for awhile and sweat enough, so we didn't feel the need to run :)

When I got back from the Via, our "talent" group was selling tacos to further increase our return on investment. I was given a hard time for skipping out, but sales turned out fine without me. I took a quick cold shower to refresh before the family birthday party at 6. We went to Aunt Lila's house to celebrate Uncle Telmo's birthday. The usual chaos ensued...women cooking up a storm, children running wild, older men watching futbol on TV and generally being in the way ;) We had a delicious dinner of pincho (grilled steak), chismole (fresh salsa), beans, rice, cheese and tortillas. yum.

Everyone left kind of early, which is rare for this side of the family. My household was the last ones hanging around, helping to clean up. This was about the time their uncle pulled out his bb-gun rifle and challenged me and my host brother to a best-shot contest. I am proud to tell you I shot a Coke bottle across the street 3 out of 3 times! Axel was shocked. As was his uncle! I knew I would not live it down if I missed it...and now I have full on bragging rights! I think Axel was like 1 for 4. hehehe. awesome.

So...with all that random-ness, it was suddenly Sunday evening and then my alarm was going off for work on Monday morning.

I am thankful for a good host family who keeps me entertained and their extended family who always welcome me with open arms. It is also great to have some close friends who invite me over just when I need a break from moping around in my homesickness. Love you girls!

parties, paint y mas

I'm just going to warn you that there isn't much cohesion to my post today...I've been trying to come up with some fun little tidbit to blog about, but really, the last week and a half has just been kind of hectic.

For one thing, there were 5 birthdays within the extended family within 7 days of each other. It is fun to celebrate with people, and of course, who doesn't want to eat cake every other day?...but I have to say that week was exhausting. The socializing and 5 hour long parties can be a little draining, especially when you don't know everyone and you kind of run low on small-talk (hard to believe, i know).

Thrown into that socializing craziness was an overnight "campamento" or camp-out with staff and co-workers of the ministry (MCM). The church owns a camp a little outside of Teguc where we hung out and spent the night. I was really not looking forward to going, but it ended up being a pretty fun time. Of course, there were plenty of awkward moments, like Allison and I being asked to sing a song in English for the talent show at the last minute, a gift exchange we found out about 10 minutes before we left the office, and a variety of other things...but it turned out to be really good. There was LOTS of volleyball time, good food, and it gave me a chance to get to know other staff who I rarely interact with.

I would like to pause here and make a comment in reference to my measurements of time like "last minute" and such...really, there is no last minute here. They are all Honduran minutes. And no one is given advance notice for anything...you just roll with it as its happening. So, even though it is starting to drive me crazy (like the fact that Monday is a day out for our office Christmas party and at 11am on the Friday before no one knows anything about it)...I'm trying to learn to stop asking so many questions in 'advance', and be a little less American. But its a struggle.

Ok. So...after all these social events, I was hoping for some down time this week. But...that wasn't really possible. In my household, we have been finishing the ceiling in the kitchen & dining area (it was just the tin roof, but now its closed in w/ drywall-ish material like the rest of the house)...putting ceramic tile down, and painting this same area. Of course, my host sister picked the paint color and the house was divided (boys hated it, the girls were for it)...but after 2 days of discussion, debated and general mayhem, we started painting (see photos below). However, once the "recorte" was done (all the edges and corners) and one patch of said color--we decide its not good enough. We need to buy a different color. So...yesterday was day 1 of the new color, and today they should be finishing up the kitchen. Aside from my opinion, and my height, the only thing I really contributed was the idea of taping the edges after the ceiling was painted. They enjoyed this idea. Overall, it had been a stressful, but also a rather dramatic part of family life that I was glad to be a part of :)

I also threw in a trip to the mall because I needed an obligatory gift for the office gift exchange. Still need a present for the family gift exchange and the one with our church bible study group (yeah, its just as bad as being in the states! so many random people to buy things for). And last night I went to a Christmas concert/fundraiser at the American School of Tegucigalpa. So...really, never a dull moment.

Here are some photos of the fam working hard on the house to get it ready for Christmas. Enjoy!

The before (kitchen...)

dining room

See! I can help too :)

Josue hard at work on the white ceiling

The middle stage...everyone was up in arms

Axel hard at work on the yellow details. and hating it.

the after stage:

post drama--we have pink walls now. 

somehow, this is more calming than the yellow :) but everyone is happier!

mas cumpleaños

Here are some photos of me with my coworkers (who are a little crazy, i might add)...

We were celebrating my birthday and Karina's birthday (lady sitting next to me).

no Honduran party is complete without a few 'dinamicas' or games...

we had to do this stupid egg on the spoon relay

cumpleaños!

It has been a whole weekend of birthday festivities for me. And it's not even over yet!

Yesterday I celebrated my 24th birthday with some good friends and Honduran family. The day started with people singing outside my bedroom door at 7am...everyone in my house got up early to serenade me with well wishes. I was kind of out of it when the song started, and really confused...then I remembered it was my birthday!

We went to church and I had made plans with another friend to go out for lunch. I felt bad about not being around to have lunch with familia, but they didn't really say too much...they seemed pretty calm about it (this should have been my first clue). Also, they mentioned nothing of cake (a Honduran standard for birthdays) and didn't seem to worried about me not being around. I was a little sad, but thought, 'no big deal. i'm a grown-up now...its just another birthday.'

Then my lunch plans fell through, but my fellow SALTer and good friend Elise called (almost immediately) to invite me to her house. She said her family wanted to wish me happy birthday, have coffee, etc. Again, my host mom was very calm about me leaving for the afternoon. When I got to Elise's house, most of her family wasn't even there...but we had a relaxing time, even took a nap. Ok...so to make the long story shorter--we got back to my house around 4:30, some cousins and grandma were waiting outside, and no one was opening the door. I was a little confused...finally, when we got inside I realized they had asked Elise to occupy my time all afternoon so they could decorate the living room and prepare the food! They had planned a surprise party but I was the first one to show up!!

It was really sweet and we had fun celebrating and eating cake together. I was amazed to find out how many little lies had been crafted throughout the weekend to keep the party under wraps. Made me feel very special though :)

The other fun thing was opening my email to have more than 95 emails awaiting me. Many were facebook posts, but still it was great to feel so loved and missed by so many people.

All in all, it was a good Honduran birthday. Today there will be a celebration at work (for me and another coworker) and tonite I'm going bowling to celebrate with some friends too. I guess I'll just keep stretching out the celebration!!

Enjoy some fotos of my birthday weekend...

favorite friends who took me out for dinner

the cake! didnt really spell my name right, but thats ok

the family + extended family at the party