Adventures in Honduras: November 2015

Time has been flying by here. I can’t believe we’re already into November! This time last year I was filling out paper work, making doctors appointments, researching storage units, putting in notice at my job, and preparing to move my life to Honduras. To think that that was an entire year ago already is incredible. A favorite expression frequently heard around the volunteer house is "can't stop, won't stop." For example: "I am going to eat this entire bag of chips by myself...I can't stop! Can't stop, won't stop!" Or: "I'm so tired, I should go to sleep but I can't stop marathon watching How To Get Away With Murder...can't stop, won't stop!" This expression, although used as a semi-literal joke, also is a fact of life around here. Things never seem to stop moving, it's always full speed ahead. Can't stop, won't stop...or you might get run over.

These last two months since my last post have been jam packed with fun events and activities. We celebrated 15 de Septiembre (Honduras Independence), had the long awaited Olimpiadas, my parents came to the Ranch for a visit, family vacation to Costa Rica and another volunteer retreat.

15 de Septiembre was a really fun day. The entire Ranch went to the nearby town of Talanga to march in the parade. A lot of my girls were either in the band, pom pom dancers, or baton twirlers. One of my girls had the honor of carrying the Honduran flag in the color guard! It was a very long day but so fun and exciting to see all of the kids promoting and supporting NPH and their school as well as showing their patriotism.

The first week of October was the long awaited and delayed Olimpiadas or Olympics. Olimpiadas is normally held in August but were pushed back this year because of some difficult losses. Every year a committee comes up with a theme. This year the theme was wild animals. The entire Ranch is then split into teams and given a wild animal, a value, and this year (a new twist) we were given an artist. It takes weeks of preparations to put everything together for the big weekend. The weekend of Olimpiadas consists of two parts: Friday night is the team presentations and Saturday is the games. On Friday every team has to do a skit and a dance. The presentation has to incorporate the team’s assigned value and we could only use music from our assigned artist. My team were the Honest Bison and our assigned artist was John Travolta. I was super lucky and had another volunteer on my team with me, Jess, who had participated in Olimpiadas last year, so she had some experience. We tried to point out that John Travolta wasn’t really an artist but an actor who happened to sing in some of his movies, but that didn’t seem to matter. Jess and I were put in charge of the remix and the dance portion of the presentation. We made an AWESOME Grease remix and had a lot of fun doing it. Every team also has to make a flag, a mural, design matching shirts, and come up with a slogan. It’s intense. The night of the presentations was so impressive. All the teams did an amazing job. The next day we did relay races, played tug of war in mud pits, volleyball, did an amazing obstacle course and many, many other games.

The following weekend my parents arrived! It was so great having them here and to get to show them the ranch, my girls and what my life is like here. On Saturday they experienced a VERY rainy mass at the church. We all had to shuffle and huddle together in the middle of the amphitheater to keep from getting wet from the rain blowing in from the sides. Sunday we walked to the represa and then that evening they got to experience a Cena Amistosa (friendship dinner) with all of the volunteers. Cena Amistosa is something that the volunteers do every month but this one was extra fun because we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. We have one Canadian volunteer, Marija, and she did a great job making a delicious meal with lots of wonderful food. On Monday my parents (both nurses) got to go with me to the External Clinic and see what a normal day was like, although, it wasn’t a very normal day because we started out with 2 emergency patients. On Tuesday they got to help me with patients because Steffi wasn’t there. We took vital signs, my dad helped me with a tough IV start, and they helped the doctor and I with a 3 year old who needed stitches in her forehead. Pretty eventful two days in the clinic. Monday was also very special because we did a Proyecto Familiar with a girl from my hogar and her brother. My parents got to learn how to make baleadas and spend some time with just two kids, definitely a little less overwhelming. On Tuesday we had a big party in hogar with cake and jello. My mom had made all of my girls gift bags and they were super excited to spend some time with my parents and, of course, get presents!

On Wednesday we left for Costa Rica. It was such a nice, relaxing, laid back vacation. We spent time driving along the coast, went to la Isla Tortuga, walked through the canopies of the rainforest in Monteverde, and survived 40km driving on dirt roads. One day towards the end of the vacation we were all tired and suffering from colds and we did literally nothing all day. It was amazing. We left our air-conditioned room exactly three times that day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we spent the rest of the day napping and watching TV. Now, I’m not normally one for wasting vacation days in a hotel room but it was nice to be feeling under the weather in air-conditioning and with TV, something we definitely don’t get spoiled with on the ranch.

This last weekend was my second volunteer retreat. I cannot believe I’ve been here long enough to be on my second retreat already! And I can’t believe that the group that arrived in June has been here long enough to go on their first retreat! We went to Valle de Angeles, a really cute tourist town about an hour outside of Tegucigalpa and about 2 hours from the Ranch.

The next few weeks (and months) are going to be full speed ahead. Coming up in the next few weeks: Home Stay, Quinceañera, American Thanksgiving, and I’m going to El Salvador with the NPH soccer teams for a week!

Enjoy the photos…