Locked out or in?

This past week was rather uneventful. At this point we have sort of gotten in the groove of going to class each day for 4 hours in the morning and then we have culture class or talking to people on the street each afternoon.

The other day we went to use an internet cafe. Our one brother had come over to ¨house-sit¨ at our house. (There always has to be someone in the house and our host parents were away and we left to use the internet cafe, so our brother came over to house-sit). He was supposed to stay there until we got home, but when we got home he had left. We rang the doorbell numerous times and nothing happened, we also tried knocking on the door...still nothing happened. After waiting on the front porch for about 20 mins, our neighbor from upstairs let us walk through her house to get to our room located at the back of our house. Unfortunately once we got into the back hallway where our room was we realized that we still could not get into the main house, because the back door of the house was also locked! We could get in our room. However, now we were locked in because you have to go through the main house to get back outside. Needless to say we found it rather humorous later on that we had been locked out of the house and then locked in the house!!

Yesterday Jenny and I got to go to the first soccer game of the year of the Honduran Professional league. Montagua, a team from here in Tegucigalpa (the team we were routing for) played against Real Juventud from Santa Barbara. Montagua was a better team, and hit the post once and had a couple of great opportunities to score but failed to do. The final score was 0-0...kind of boring, but it was fun to see the national stadium and experience a Honduran crowd. The ¨student section¨ was hysterical. They sang the whole game, sometimes about the game, many times making fun of the opposing team. They also set of fireworks and started a few fires in the stands. One guy tried to body surf down the fans and flew off and landed on the cement stands...he was probably drunk. The best part was when they gathered around the police and started singing songs to the policemen! The cops didn´t find it too amusing...but we thought it was funny.

Copan

This past week, we took a trip to Copan Ruinas where we visited the Mayan ruins. We left early Monday morning and we were expecting to be able to sleep on the way there but.... First of all, the vehicle. It´s a 12 passenger van with over 200 thousand miles. The air conditioner doesn´t work and remember it´s 90 degrees down here. The shocks are completely shot and when you open the windows, the rubber around the windows as well as the pealing tint make a horrible rattling noise. Also, there is an ugly exhaust fume that comes out of the vents in the front of the van so you have to keep the windows open! Second, there is the road. Honduras is only mountains so you´re always driving up and down really steep slopes. There are no guard rails and many times half the road is missing so there is only one lane. Futhermore, there are potholes everywhere and no road rules. People drive as fast as they want and pass when they feel like it. Not the most conducive conditions for sleeping. (oh, and did we mention that the trip is 8 hours long?)

Finally we arrived in Copan about 4 in the afternoon and decided to take a trip to a nearby bird park. We got to ride in a mototaxi which you can see in one of the pictures. At the bird park we got to not only see the birds but interact with them too. Jenny really enjoyed the bird park because there was not only 1 bird whistling at her but about 100!

On Tuesday, we went to the ruins. We got a tour guide and to walk through all of the ruins and the tunnels under the ruins it took us about 3 hours. It was truely amazing! It´s really hard to describe using words so we posted a few pictures (we have many more we´ll show when we get home).

Happy New Year everyone!!

Christmas in Honduras 2008!!

This is our house in Kennedy. It's one of the biggest houses in the colonia we live in. There are always kids over at the house!!!

These are our host "parents" Pompilio and Gollita. They are soooo funny. Gollita stuffs us full of food everyday and Pompilio loves to talk politics and he loves John McCain. It's histerical!!

This is our shower. Almost everyday we have hot running water!!! But, there were about 3 days when the pipes broke and so we had to take bucket baths. It was very entertaining and I'm glad it only lasted for 3 days!!!

This last picture needs a little longer of an explanation. Every year at Christmas in the US, my (Jenny) family goes to a restaurant called "The Cozy". They have a huge seafood buffet and everyone on my dad's side of the family attends. So, the night my family went to the Cozy and got seafood, salads and any dessert you could ever want, Shaun and I were eating fried eggs, beans, pupusas (the thing Shaun's eating in the picture) and fried plantains (what Jenny's eating in the picture). It wasn't a bad meal but it was no match to the Cozy!!!

Today I got to help make nacatamales which are a traditional Honduran Christmas food. You put a cornmeal mixture, some kind of sauce, rice, potatoes, olives, capers, raisins, and either pork or chicken in a banana leaf and wrap it up. Then you cook it for 6 hours in boiling water. We get to eat them tomorrow for Christmas!!!!

Also, the other day we went to a restaurant for lunch. Everything was going really well. We walked in and found seats and we didn't have any problems talking with the waitress. We got all of our food just as we had ordered. We were feeling quite proud of ourselves for our success in ordering in Spanish. After we had finished eating, we sat and waited for our bill...and we waited and waited and waited. We probably waited for about 15 - 20 mins and we at this point we thought for sure we must be doing something wrong and we were beginning to feel embarrased for not knowing what to do next. So, we finally asked one of the waitresses walking by how we could get our check. And much to our surprise she said our waitress was supposed to bring it out to us. Our waitress had been wiping off tables and talking with her friends and had simply forgotten about us! So, we finally got our bill...with the help of the other waitress and went on our way. Adventures in Honduras!!!!

This past week was great! Mainly because I got to play soccer...a lot! On Monday night I went to play soccer with about 10 other guys from the church. We started playing at about 10pm and we were planning on playing until about midnight. I knew had class at 8am the next morning but if it comes to soccer or sleeping, that's a no-brainer. About 30 mins. in, one of the guys was dribbling next to the wall and a guy from the opposing team ran at him to try and steal the ball. In the process he took the first guys feet out from under him. The guy flew up in the air and hit the wall. He hit the ground and started screaming...I have never heard a grown man scream so loud. Here he had completely dislocated his shoulder and broken his arm. It took about an hour for the ambulance to arrive and as they put the temporary cast on him and put the stretcher under him he would scream and scream. He is doing better now and obviously needed surgery to fix his arm.

Jenny also had a unique experience. We have a bird...a green parrot (Lolita), that lives right outside our room. The parrot likes to talk (only in Spanish). Any way, Jenny was using the restroom which is also located right outside our bedroom. As she opened the door to the restroom and walked out the parrot started to whistle at her!! It was whistling, like you would if you see a pretty girl walking down the street. It was hysterical. Not long after this Jenny wanted to take a nap and the parrot started talking really loud. So she walked out of our bedroom and began telling the parrot to keep quiet. And the parrot started to laugh at her. Needless to say, Jenny has found a new friend!

Well, we finally made it to Honduras!!!!! We left Harrisburg for the airport at 1am on Thursday morning and arrived in Tegucigalpa at about 4:30 (5:30 home time). It was a long day of traveling but we are pleased to inform you that we made it safely and with all of our luggage. We have been staying with the Horst's since we arrived and we'll be moving in with our host families tomorrow. We explored the neighborhood (colonia Kennedy) we'll be living in yesterday and today we went downtown Tegucigalpa (el centro). We had our first experience with the bus systems and even ordered ourselves some smoothies. Please ask us any questions so we know what you want to know.

Well the past couple of weeks have been really busy.

We spent this past weekend in the Bronx, NY. This was quite a unique adventure as it was Halloween weekend. In the Bronx, Halloween is considered the biggest holiday of the year. It tends to be the week that most gangs to their initiations. During the week leading up to Halloween there were 20 stabbings in the Bronx all directed at females. So, on Friday night (the day we arrived) we had to be in the house by 5pm and were not allowed out until the next morning. We heard that Halloween evening 4 more stabbings occured somewhat close to the place we were living.

We had the opportunity to help out in a few soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Our team (Shaun, Jenny, Gina, Leo) got to pray with an older gentleman in the streets that we met, named Freddie. He wanted us to pray for forgiveness in his life. He had AIDS and was living in an AIDS shelter.

On Saturday evening we had a cookout on the streets and invited anybody we could find to come and join us. We grilled hotdogs, had popcorn, cookies and lemonade and we handed them out to anyone who was willing to join us. I (Shaun) got to play soccer with a couple of young boys on the streets which was really cool. Jenny, did most of the grilling and showed a new side, by being very outgoing and aggressive in inviting many people to come and join us for the picnic.

On Sunday evening we went to Manhattan. We arrived at the Rockafeller Center and it was so beautiful there. We saw the skating rink and the buildings were decorated in red, white and blue for the elections. We walked down Broadway, visited a Toys-R-Us that had a ferris wheel inside and we visited a huge M&M store. We walked down to Time Square and then down to the Empire State building. Then we took the subway to the site of the World Trade Center. It was a great evening!

This past week we had, "World Awareness Week" here at the center. We were without running water, electricity and we ate foods from all across the globe. At one point we ate 6 straight meals of rice! We were so excited for this morning as we were able to take nice hot showers.

Well I guess that's all for now. We'll try to keep you updated as we go.