where did it go?

I am sitting here trying to figure out where the time has gone! Only one post in September--sorry about that. The month passed by in such a whirlwind I can't believe it's October now!

September involved: a 2 week visit from my boss, a workshop with all of MCC's current partners, a team meeting with the new workers that came on board in August, partner visits in Teguc and a general assortment of reports and plans due to MCC in the US.

whew.

I get tired all over again just reading that list.

I did manage to take some pictures along the way so here is a look at the last month in more of a photo-essay style :) Oh, and the rodeo was the very last weekend of August...

the copaneco ready for the rodeo & fair, notice boots & belt buckle.
it is serious business.

the bulls for bull-riding

at our partner workshop, keeping ourselves awake :)

teaching some BIC pastors how to play dutch blitz. hilarious!

another "stay awake" activity. I promise we did do a lot of work

the participants at our partner workshop

preparing our reactions for the Honduras goal in the world cup qualifier that night.
sadly they didn't win.

oh--here is the proof we worked at the workshop...

hanging out at team meeting

our whole Honduras team (for now)

Thankful that TOMORROW I head to the capital city (once again) for a weekend of festivities for the wedding of two really great friends! Taking some vacation to enjoy the celebration, and a little beach trip on the side before I return to reality.

where to next?

I haven't been much for bucket lists, but I do make lists! My longest list is "where to next?" or places I want to travel. This list includes many global destinations, but since coming to Honduras, there have been many in-country spots added to the list. It can be a challenge to try new things and stick within the budget, but since the beginning of the year, I have been priveleged to go several places that have been on my Honduras list:

January: Cayos Cochinos (tropical keys off the coast), Sambo Creek
March: PANACAM mountain lodge, near the lake
April: Celaque National Park, Gracias, Lempira (tallest mountain in Honduras)

This past weekend, Henry and I went with our friends Daniela and Humberto to hike part of Celaque and camp for one night (Celaque means "box of waters" in Lenca indigenous language, for all its rivers) . We made some lists to prepare (of course, the Hondurans thought our lists were crazy but were happy when we had LOTS of food!) and left Saturday morning from Santa Rosa. The trip was about 2 hours in car to get to the park, and then a few hours of hiking up to the campsite.

making good time, so we stop for a sweaty picture

The guide told us the hike is usually 2 hours to the campsite, most foreigners take at least 3, and some even more. We are proud to say we made it in 2.5 hours...the guide was even impressed with the gringas and how serious we were (ha!).

It was a strenuous hike, and carrying pound of supplies (tents, mangoes, cucumbers, hot dogs, liters of water, just to name a few...) only made it tougher.

Looking back at the climb, I think the altitude change affected us a lot more than we planned! To give you an idea:

• Santa Rosa is approximately 1,150 meters (3,773 ft) above sea level. One of the highest cities in Honduras (yes, even higher than Teguc)!
• The elevation of Gracias (town nearest Celaque) is at 800m (2600 ft) elevation. 
• I can't be sure what point we started at, but the trail was 2.8 km, ever upward, and we camped at 1,940 meters (6,364 ft).

So, even if we didn't start at zero...we started lower than where Santa Rosa is and ended 800m higher than where we live. I just read on Wikipedia that "Celaque’s terrain is very rugged, two-thirds of the area has a slope greater than 60 degrees." It was an incredible climb, but we didn't even go all the way to the top! Even so, we had a good time and were happy to make it to our campsite on Saturday afternoon. We enjoyed a rain shower, building and rebuilding fire, eating lots of hot dogs, making smores with peeps and enjoying the fresh air together. 

happy to be at the campsite!

hot dogs!

So this is part one of "where to next?" Stay tuned for a Part II coming soon.

re-discovering teguc

I was "forced" to make another trip to Teguc this month to take care of the next step in renewing my residency. Although I enjoy visiting friends and family there, it is 8 long hours in a bus that I don't relish doing all too often.

So I decided to make the trip more fun and spend a couple extra days with my host family...oh, and I took along a traveling companion :) I haven't posted too much on the blog, but I have been dating someone for several months now and decided it was time he (Henry) met my Honduran family.

Henry is from Santa Rosa, or as they say here "Copaneco" (meaning, someone from the department of Copan). He has not been able to travel much outside of this town where he has been born and raised, and our trip was his first time ever in the capital. It was fun for me to show him around, teaching him the ropes of public transportation along with other "tips" about living life in the big city. The best part was watching him take in all the new stuff around him and asking questions about everything. I loved re-experiencing the craziness of a city I have gotten to know over the last 2 years and share it with a Honduran who has never lived outside of his pueblo.

We did all sorts of stuff...rode rapiditos, took colectivo taxis, visited the mall, ate frozen yogurt (oh yeah, that was just me...), went to Picacho park, checked out some women's small business endeavors, hung out with my Honduran host family, hiked the mountain behind Nueva Suyapa, spent time with some MCC friends and ate lots and lots of food.

Thankfully there were no major incidents (H was nervous about this after hearing all kinds of news reports about the capital city) and we had a lot of fun with my host family. When my host mom found out what a handy man he is, she put him right to work fixing things around the house...kind of reminds me of some shingle-fixing experiences forced upon my brother-in-law when he started hanging around our house ;)

Here are some pictures of our weekend in the big city!

out to eat baleadas at our favorite place. L to R: Josue, me & Henry 

Yosua and Axel 

jam session for the new church band we are forming haha

the Christ statue at Picacho park

the handy-man earning points with my host mom

bird-watching with Virgil on our mountain hike!

beautiful view of the city

at the top of the mountain!

going to miss this lady a lot...

good friends! L to R: me, Virgil, Franklin, Kathy

with the boys. to be fair, i think Franklin was on lower ground...

behind the times

Life has been pretty busy lately and I'm so behind in blogging (not to mention journaling!) Between moving apartments, spending an entire weekend away at a church retreat and a full week in Tegucigalpa visiting the host family, dealing with residency stuff and an MCC team meeting, I feel a little crazy. Oh yeah, and did I mention that I leave for a visit home in less than 2 days???!!!!

So, I will try to fill you in later. The church reatreat itself deserves its very own post...and I should write more about my immigration and residency fiascos. Oh, and of course MCC life. Hopefully when I'm on VACATION with my FAMILY I will have some time to catch up on the blog.

Here's a pic of the very best team anyone could ask for! Love you guys!!

MCC Honduras May 2012

tour of the countryside

Last week was a busy one for us at work. We were out on the road almost every day, running to San Pedro for a meeting, visiting Mennonite churches in our region and meeting with some other people working for NGOs here in Santa Rosa to see if we can work together.

While it has been tiring in many ways, it has been a good way to see more of "occidente" or the western region of Honduras, while also giving me time to talk more with my co-workers.

Although we are still working with women's community groups in 4 different municipalities (see earlier post on work life) we have started to venture into a new project.

Ruth has a vision to work with Mennonite churches here in the western departments of Honduras because many of them are the most rural and impoverished of the denomination. There are 14 churches in Occidente, and we asked the regional pastors to help us identify 6 where we would start working first. Of course, all of them wanted to be included, but we have to keep reminding them that we have to start with a few, but our hope is to eventually work with all of them.

Once we had the pastors on board and decided on 6 (which has morphed into 8), we went to visit each congregation and do "prioritazation of needs" within each individual church. The idea was to have the members of each church identify what their needs are, whether in training, education, health, home needs or church improvements. The whole idea was to not tell them what they need (as many organizations come into a community and dictate what will be done)...and this kind of worked, for the most part. It was some times hard for my coworkers to not jump in with ideas when people didn't talk much, but overall I think we have a good idea of what each church needs.

This whole process has been interesting for me and there have been plenty of frustrations along the way. The largest challenge is that we don't have funds to carry out any projects within these churches, but my co-workers are convinced I will be hooking them up with that. It has been hard for me to bite my tongue against some pretty unrealistic expectations, or when I hear a lot of things I don't agree with...or when they do things in ways that I don't think are the most appropriate.

But I am learning to take these things one at a time and address them constructively, as I am able. On the good days, I think it's getting better. I have also really enjoyed visiting the different Mennonite churches, getting to know the pastors and personality of each church. It is a privilege to get to know and share in the global church.

Here are some photos from our visits last week:

Since I have the nicest handwriting, I get to be the recorder...and it means I don't have to talk as much :)

my boss, Ruth is the lady in the middle w/ the blue coat

yep, I get to work here!

you'll easily notice I am more than a head taller than EVERYONE in the photo (and below). Welcome to my gringa life in Honduras :)

semana santa

So it’s back to reality after a long week of vacation here in Honduras. Holy week is basically like spring break for most of central America. It’s blazing hot, and everyone either takes off for the beach, or possibly to visit family.

Of course, I’m no beach bunny, so I opted for a more culturally interesting kind of vacation…but people had a hard time figuring out why the gringas were not heading to the beach—I say, who wants to be there when it’s hot, crowded and more expensive?

So, for the first part of the week I ventured to La Tigra with my MCC friend (and Suyapa neighbor), Elise. La Tigra is the national park just above Tegucigalpa, high in the mountains, with beautiful views of the valleys below and some nice hiking options. I had not yet been to explore this important national treasure, so we decided to go this week in our free time.  The hike was a bit hot, and rather steep to start, but we had a nice time in the cool forest and enjoyed the waterfall tucked away in the mountain.

Elise had also scoped out a German bed and breakfast a few weeks earlier with her mom & aunt, so we decided to splurge and spend 1 night there. It was the perfect relaxing way to start vacation week! The little cabin was set in the hillside overlooking the valley below. Although simple, it was very clean, and we had the place to ourselves. The German proprietor even made us deep dish pizza for dinner and had a beautiful European style breakfast. It was so tasty!

On Wednesday, Elise and Allison and I left Tegucigalpa for Comayagua. We were not sure what we were getting ourselves into…we were invited to stay with the daughter of an old lady who sells mango at the elementary school where we work. We don’t even know her that well, nor her family; however, the call of an adventure piqued our interest.

There is a tradition during Holy Week in many parts of Central America (particularly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) that involves brightly colored sawdust made into colorful, artistic “carpets” in the streets of town. After people have enjoyed their detail and beauty, catholic churches have processions through the carpets as part of their holy week tradition.

Comayagua is one of the oldest towns in Honduras (the former capital) and with its history and rich catholic tradition is said to be the best place in Honduras to see these carpets or “alfombras.”

Let’s just say the weekend turned out even better than we could have expected! The family hosting us was so hospitable and friendly. They took care of us from the moment we arrived and gave us a complete tour of Comayagua…churches, museums, early morning carpet-making and great food. We were blown away by their generosity and had a fun time getting to know another place in Honduras, while enjoying a cool tradition for Easter week.

Friday morning (or possibly even Thursday evening) groups of people start the labor-intensive work of creating these carpets. The day before they dye the sawdust with a powdered pigment to give it such rich and vibrant colors. Around 1 or 2 am people fill the streets of town and by the light of street lamps, head lamps, flashlights and even headlights, they are on their hands and knees laying out the design of the carpets. Some groups are from churches in town, others are family groups or even business. Most use some kind of stencil, made of paper or cardboard, along with many other tools to craft their sharp edges and elaborate artwork.

we were very tired @ 3am...

We got up at 2:15 am and were in the center of town by 3 am to watch people work. It was so cool to see the process from the beginning (though we were tired!). We walked almost the whole procession route (about 24 city blocks of carpets that all together measure more than 100 meters long) and saw some groups just getting started as others were adding detail to their designs.

We went back to the house around 5 and slept til about 8:30. We got up again to check out the local procession through the carpet our host’s church had made. From there, we went back down to the center of town to see the finished carpets in daylight. There were a mountain of tourists (including us :) but it was worth it. We tried to get pictures, but it doesn’t quite do it justice. Some of the carpets had ladders out so you could climb up and get a better ariel shot.

Here are some of our favorites! 

here you can see one of the stencils...later on you will see a photo of this completed carpet

here they are pouring the sawdust on top of a paper design

you can see the stencils in more detail

This one was right on the pavement. Every color you see is sawdust!

the finished product!

 

one of my favorites...

the family we stayed with

I hope everyone had a great holy week, remembering why it is we can rejoice in a risen Savior! Although I missed some of my favorite traditions of this time in the church calendar (lent, Maundy Thursday, sunrise service, church pot-luck brunch and Easter morning hymns) I was able to appreciate other ways of commemorating these important events. It was great to be part of some very old traditions, reflect on the suffering and pain that will always be part of this world, but then looking to the hope and joy we have of a resurrection morning.  Happy Easter to all of you!