Just a girl living in an extraordinary world : Week Two in Honduras

Have you ever heard of a 'plantain'? Neither have I. It looks like a large, green banana and tastes like a potato and they're everywhere in Honduras! Today I bought banana chips for my granola at the 'pulperia' but turns out they were plantains, thus actually potato chips. If I'm lucky, sometimes after class on my walk back home I'll run into Isabel, a local woman who carries fresh homemade pastries in a huge tupperwear bowl above her head to sell. She has banana bread, ginger cookies, coconut buns, cinnamon rolls and sometimes pineapple flatbread/pie for 5 lemps each, about 20 cents. Milk comes in liters of plastic bags, and I'm starting to think that 'leche' sounds tastier than 'milk'.

I love it when it rains here. The heavy clouds block the burning sun all day, and then the rain pours graciously over all the cement houses, the unkept fields, the rocky dirt paths. Sometimes we're outside and there's nothing we can do but embrace it-we're already usually soaked in sweat and coated with dust anyway. When the rain passes, which it never ceases to do so quickly, the air is cool and relieving...and even if for just a few hours, it feels clean.

We got a few more volunteers in this week which really helped liven the beach house up! I've also been making new friends around the village and I'm learning new words and phrases in Spanish everyday, like "I think..." "Should I...?" and things to say to students like "Sit down!" and "Come here!" I even have a language exchange buddy group who meet me by the beach on Mondays, and we get carried away speaking in broken English/Spanish about sushi and robberies.

This week, we started a regular schedule for Kinder which was wonderful to be a part of! The kiddos say a prayer every morning and before snack time, thanking God for the flowers, animals, their homes and their cuteness...?! I question my Spanish comprehension a lot. We also started following a weekly lesson plan I wrote for PEP classes that put me at ease. I have taken teaching into heart more than I had realized during my time in Taiwan. I am growing quite fond of my new students, because they are so expressive and impatient! They don't take themselves too seriously and make funny faces when they don't understand me. And yes, they are cute as well.

Last weekend I hopped on to a local bus and headed for San Pedro Sula on my own to meet up with my old Shida (Chinese school) classmates whom are Honduran! Actually, it was partially because of how much I loved them that I choose to volunteer in their homeland. It was around a 4 hour bus ride from La Ceiba, and the bus had no AC and dirty seats but I made it there alive. I actually went with them to the airport on Sunday to see them off as they went back to Taiwan for more years of school! Weird!

So, I guess I'm adjusting. Things are uncomplicated here. Not that my life was complicated before, but like, I don't even need a key to get my house, we just holler and since all the windows are open screened, someone always hears and lets us in. I wake up when sunlight spreads over my room and I am attempting to make tortillas later on. So like, uncomplicated like that. I'm happier than I was last week, and I will be happier next week.