chicks

So our neighbor kids come over almost every night to play with us and to get a decent meal in their bellies. Well they came over last night and brought some little friends along with them... baby chicks. Not just any chicks, dyed chicks. There was a purple, pink and yellow one (yes the yellow was dyed too). It was quite a sight. Apparently they used to dye chicks back in the day for Easter in the United States, but stopped because they realized it was bad for the chicks and hurting them. Oh but in Honduras, anything goes. These poor baby chicks were chirping non stop and shaking because they were so scared. Sergio kept saying they were cold and he thought that was why they were shaking. haha. It was awful. Come to find out, they started out with 4 chicks but the 2 year old, Estefany, apparently murdered one earlier in the day. Yes murdered. She squeezed it too tight and straight up killed it. Every time she would pick them up last night, she was holding them so tight or just holding them by their heads. It was painful to watch. Ada kept dropping hers all over the place. I would put money on it that they didn't make it through the night. Needless to say, we enjoyed playing with the poor little chicks and I'm sure we all probably caught some weird chicken disease now. Here are some pics of the chicks. Enjoy and please don't call PETA on us. thanks.

Semana Santa In Guatemala

Sorry I have not written on this thing in 10 years. After the science fair, I got busy with report cards and laziness. But now I'm back in action, don't fret mom. Last week we had off for about 10 days for Semana Santa, which means Holy Week in Espanol. They go all out down here in Central America for the whole week before Easter Sunday. This is why we got ourselves a nice little vacay. A group of 5 girls, including myself, took a little trip over to Guatemala for the break.

Let me just start off by saying that every time we leave Honduras, it makes me realize more and more how far behind Honduras really is as a developing country. As soon as you cross the border, you can really see how Honduras is the poorest of the poorest in Central America. It makes me sad because every other country is working towards bettering themselves while Honduras is sort of rotting away and not improving.

Needless to say, Guatemala is absolutely beautiful. We spent half the week at Lake Atitlan and the rest in Antigua. Lake Atitlan is sort of a hippy area that has pretty much been taken over by gringos. We stayed in a town called San Pedro on the lake. A lot of the restaurants and hostels are owned by Europeans, Americans or other white people. But if you walk 5 minutes up the hill to the middle of the town, you will find Indigenous Mayan people. Talk about awesome. The women are all dressed in their traditional clothing and it was so neat to see. The lake was full of AMAZING food. We kayaked to another town on the lake which turned out to be a bad idea because it was super windy that created crazy waves. My friend Colleen and I were in a 2 seater kayak and at one point I didn't think we would make it to shore. We got about half way across the lake and we couldn't go any further. Every time a boat would pass I would yell for help, kinda kidding but secretly hoping they would really stop. No one did. Thankfully we finally made it back ashore and my arm muscles are super strong now... or at least they should be. We also made a bad decision of hiking a dormant volcano at 3am to see the sunrise. We were told that waking up at 3am was totally worth the view when the sun was rising. So we gave in to peer pressure and tried it out. The dang hike was straight up and down. About 4 hours in the hike, the sun started to rise but we couldn't see it because we were still an hour away from the top stuck in the woods. I wanted to cry. I thought all my organs were going to fall out of my butt about 2 hours in. Hiking that volcano was one of the worse decisions of my life. Yes, it was worse than the horseback riding decision in El Salvador. I think I fell at least 15 times. My leg was all scratched up and bleeding. We finally made it to the top 5 hours later... sat there for about 30 minutes and came back down. Our legs were like gumby when we got to the bottom. We were all in bad moods, dirty from head to toe, hungry, and of course worn out like no other. I decided then and there that I was not made for mountain climbing. Other than the hike, I absolutely loved the lake and want to go back again some day.

After the lake, we traveled to Antigua where all the Holy Week festivities were happening. They have the biggest Semana Santa celebration in Central America. Every day they had processionals throughout the streets. Thousands of people were in the town that week for the celebrations. It was such a cool experience. They even had processionals at 4 in the morning one day. My favorite thing about it were the sawdust carpets in the streets called alfombras. They are designs made out of dyed sawdust. People would work on them all night long and then the processional parades would walk all over them and they would be remade differently each day. They were up and down the streets everywhere you went. So cool. The whole experience was definitely a great one and would advise anyone to experience Antigua during Holy Week.

The view from the top of the Volcano... might look pretty but so not worth it!

The view of San Pedro on the lake

An indigenous woman in the market.

Two young girls in the market selling fruit.

The lake.

Antigua..

An alfombra being worked on in the streets. Some of it is designed by hand and some of the parts they use big stencils.

Antigua was so colorful!

My favorite picture of the trip. The cobblestone streets looked so beautiful after a rain and all the kids were playing in the puddles.

Another alfombra.. they would sit or lay on wood to hover over their work.

During one of the processionals on Good Friday. They all wore black on this day for the mourning of Christ. They carried tons of these floats for each parade.. marching to a beat by a live marching band. It was amazing.

science fair fashion show

We had the science fair Friday and it's a pretty big deal around here. Parents, aunts, grandmas, brothers, and dogs all attend from everyone's family. I'm always curious as to what these people do for a living around here because they always seem to be able to take off work for every silly occasion... but whatever. The kids have to wear their cute little nice outfits with red ties that they only wear for special events. So I bring my camera for the sole purpose of taking pictures of all the kids projects and such related to the science fair. I ended up leaving school Friday with a memory card full of Honduran fashion instead. Ever since I arrived in this fine country, the things people wear has blown my mind. First, the women do not wear shorts, skirts or dresses. Every now and then you might see one wearing a dress, but not a casual dress.. only nicer, dressy dresses. Second, everything has to be 4 sizes to small.. its ridiculous. Bringing me to my third point, women often wear very inappropriate outfits to events where they should not. So today I have compiled an informational photo gallery to educate yall on Honduran fashion.

(I am well aware that some of my fashion choices are not the best and I should probably be the last person critiquing fashion... but I'm going to anyway.)

First up, we have what I like to call "Tight Britches" (not bitches, bRitches, just for you fast/skimmer readers out there). The women here LOVE their clothes tight... like I said, 4 sizes too small.

Next, another example of the tight britches. According to my calculations, when you wear your pants too tight, they tend to ride up your butt cheeks.. not a good look, ladies.

Next, we have the "Matchy Matchy". Coordinating colors is key to a good Honduran outfit. We are talkin matching shirts, shoes, jewelry, eye shadow and sometimes even purses.

If you have noticed thus far, we like our heels... the wedges are especially in this season. The heels are just riDONKulous due to the fact that the roads are out of control. I'm trippin all over the place in my flat shoes so I know I'd break an ankle if I were Honduran.

Next we have my personal favorite photo of the day, the "Professional" look. Nothing says 'professional' like a blazer if you ask me. Especially a blazer with no shirt underneath and your pretty purple bra showing. (it was crucial to get 3 different angles of the photo of the day)

Next, the "Peasant" look. This style of shirt is the most popular shirt in Honduras. The kind with the elastic, followed by the flowy look at the bottom. They are usually see thru and most of the time worn with zero cami underneath and just the bra showing. This lady was kind enough to wear a cami.. thank you lady.

At this point, you might be asking yourself "I wonder what the men wear in Honduras".. OH don't you worry, I have included some men fashion too. So this mans name is Marco Tulio (which we call him Marco Foolio behind his back because we are rude). He teaches my students their spanish and history of Honduras classes. He loves his colored jeans, just like many other Honduran men. Instead of wearing the usual slacks to work, they choose to wear odd colored jeans. At the science fair, Marco Foolio was sporting his burgundy jeans (my personal fav of his wardrobe). Enjoy..

I did find one cute mom at the science fair. She was super trendy, which is very rare here. I probably just think she was super cute and trendy because she wasn't overweight, which doesn't seem fair,I know. AND her shirt was a little see-thru but I'm choosing to overlook that because she was cute and so is her daughter.

Just another fine example of the "Matchy Matchy" again... gotta get me a pair of those red pumps!

You might be thinking "Lori, you are so mean!" but the focal point of this photo is not the lady with the tight black shirt on... it's actually the lady with the off the shoulder shirt to the left with matching watch... simply called the "Off the Shoulder" look.. so fancy Honduras. *note, it's also see-thru.

Lastly, we have a nice combination of many of the styles going on. No this woman (who I'm sure is a super kind) is not pregnant. We just have a prime example of the 4 sizes too small, matchy purple, and athletic pants combo going on.

That's all for the fashion show today, but since I thoroughly enjoyed being a creeper photographer this day I will most definitely be doing this more often.. so until next time...

out of control.

There must be something in the water here that has gotten to the Honduran's heads and made them completely crazy. At about 3am this morning, I woke up to a loud speaker blabbing Spanish right outside my door. I sat up in my bed so confused trying to translate the nonsense. I can't make out anything it's saying thru the muffled speakers. Then the loud speaker starts blaring spanish music. And when I say 'blaring', I mean so loud my ears felt like they were bleeding. I have no clue whats going on but it sounded like whoever was playing the music was having a good ol time. So I lay back down and can't go to sleep because I've just been totally freaked out by whatever is going on at 3am. The music continues to fade in and out because the speakers are on a car driving around. So just when I think it's gone, I hear it coming back around the corner to our street. About 10 minutes in I hear huge boom noises going off... first I thought it was gun shots but soon realized it was just fireworks. Oh the norm... fireworks i the middle of the night.. why not? At this point I'm just raging in my bed because I'm so angry I can't fall back asleep. I get super fired up that I start sweating and this makes me even more angry. I finally fall back asleep until 5am when the musical car comes back. I was not a very happy camper this morning. Come to find out, it's Fathers Day today in Gracias and they like to celebrate special occasions in the middle of the night. My roomies said that they have been woken up before for birthdays, funerals, and holidays before in the middle of the night because that is when they start their celebrations. So not cool Honduras.

i hate horses.

We got a Friday off from school so we decided to take a trip to El Salvador for the long weekend. Its amazing how big of a difference El Salvador is from Honduras being just one country over. I mean its definitely still a developing country, but its a whole step up from Honduras. Less trash on the streets, nicer people, more english speaking people, less cat calls from creepy dudes and so forth. I loved it! We first traveled across the border to a town called La Palma…. only the cutest little artsy town ever. Murals were on every building. It was amazing. There were artisan shops every where and it just had a super fun vibe throughout the town. After La Palma, we went further into El Salvador to a quiet town called Suchitoto. This was also a really cute town with a beautiful lake. We got really excited about the lake only to find out that we couldn't get in it because it was contaminated with who knows what. Sad day. So at the tourist center we were told that there were horseback riding tours up a volcano… sounded like a blast at the time so we said sign us up. The next morning we woke up bright and early for our horseback tours. We had to ride a bus out of the town for about 10 minutes that drops us off in the middle of no where. There is a cute lil dude with 5 random horses waiting for us. Are these trained trail riding horses you might ask? Oh no, no they are not. Come to find out, these are literally 5 random horses that Luis, our guide, rounded up for the day. Some belonged to his neighbor… another belonged to some man down the road. So as soon as we arrive, Luis begins to ask us to range ourselves from most experienced with horses to the least. I decided to take the least experienced spot due to the fact I've only been on horses twice in my life and couldn't tell you a dang thing about riding them. So he pairs us up with our best matched horse. I got a white horse named Julia (pronounced Hoo-lia in spanish)… I decided to call her Princess Hoolia because we started off as best friends.. this name was later retracted when she kicked Colleen in the leg. So we started on the most interesting/terrifying journey of our lives up this "volcano". Was this an actual trail? Nope. It started off great on this dirt road, we were feeling real good about the horse ride at this point. About 10 minutes in, the ride took a turn for the worst… we ventured into the woods, then on the ledge of a cliff, and then up HUGE boulders where our horses were tripping all over the place. I literally thought I might lose my life. I was pretty much doing my nervous laughing the whole time because otherwise I would have been crying. Princess Hoolia also loved to eat. She always had something in her mouth at all times. When we passed a mango tree, she made a b-line off the trail to get her a couple mangos. At one point Carole's horse got hit in the head by a mango falling off a tree and her horse proceeded to buck. I witnessed the whole thing and thought Carole was a goner. Luckily she stayed on the horse. The tour took us up to these battle grounds from the war between the rich and the poor in El Salvador. It was pretty neat to see the battle grounds. This whole adventure was about 4 hours long. On the way back down the volcano our horses were trotting pretty fast because they knew they were going back home (so said Luis). The last 20 minutes I got off my horse and walked because my legs were numb from holding on for my life. When the ride from hell ended, we all just kind of looked at each other and laughed about how lucky we were that no one got seriously injured.

Needless to say, El Salvador was a good time and I'd definitely go back.. minus the horseback riding.

Our group at the top of the volcano.

A man made hole that was dug during the war where they kept the injured soldiers.

Colorful buildings in Suchitoto.

A small town in El Salvador we stopped in to switch buses.

The start of the horse ride while we were on a nice trail.

Princess Hoolia eating as usual. And my cool hat I bought since I broke my sunglasses.

Murals in La Palma.

Artwork in Suchitoto.

fact: i got my hurr cut.

So I got my first and last Honduras haircut...

The story goes: My friend and fellow house mate Annie said that she cut her friends hair in the past and felt pretty confident about her haircutting skills. I decided I wanted to get my hair cut a little shorter for easier maintaining purposes (and when i said "maintaining" I mean throwing it up in a messy bun, of course). So I get real brave and let Annie cut my hair. When I say a "little above my shoulders" that translated to "a little below my ears" in Annie's mind. So I now resemble Ramona Quimby Age 8 from back in the day. For those of you who were not Beverly Cleary fans (which is very unfortunate for you) I have generously created this lovely photo for your viewing pleasures.. so enjoy.

los ninos

There are 4 kids who live a block over from us who always hang out at our house. They come from a very poor family who lives in a shack with 2 rooms and one bed. It's a really sad situation, but the kids are super fun and cute. We have to limit how much they come over or else they would be here every second. Their parents sell hotdogs from a cart they push around at night up in town. The oldest girl, Karla, goes with her parents to help sell the hotdogs. So their 10 year old son, Sergio, takes care of the 5 yr old and 2 yr old (Ada and Estefany) every night. We usually feed them when they are over because they are always hungry. You can tell they are malnourished by their brittle hair and skinny bods. One of the American teachers raised money over Christmas break to get Karla into our school. So she started after Christmas at Minerva. She seems to like it, but we are pretty sure she gets made fun of for coming from a poor family because its a small town and everyone knows her family. But she has high spirits and is a very sweet girl. We have taken them swimming twice now and they love it. The teachers at Minerva have free access to a pool here in town at a ranch that the principal of the school owns. Good times. We also just had a birthday party for the youngest, Estefany, who turned 2. She looks a lot younger just because she is so small. Here are some photos of the kidos.

Estefany taking a snooze at the pool in Annie's lap.

Ada being a model as usual.

Ada.

Estefany still snoozin in the shade.

Sergio, Estefany and Ada playing with Estefany's present.

Colleen and Estefany.

Ada, looking like she has been busted for eating too much cake. (representing America with our hammock in the background)

Estefany, the birthday girl, digging into our homemade cake.

Some other people joined with another cake... singing happy birthday.

Karla.

Good times in the neighborhood.