Our Honduran friends...

Ok it is Ash Wednesday at the moment, the evening of, although I do not know what mr. blog is going to put as the date stamp. But here it is at the moment. Today was the third day of classes with the PC gang. We are currently in Santa Lucia, Honduras, a remarkably picturesque town northeast of Tegucigalpa, the capital. From 0730 to 1630 (military time is easier, no?) everyday we are in class, half of which so far is “Survival Spanish” as they say, and the other having to do with medical and safety and housekeeping issues.

Basic stuff: we arrived in two groups from DC this past weekend because that East coast town somehow does not know how to handle snow—two inches kept us from leaving as a group last Wednesday. There are around fifty of us total, from all over as you might imagine. Each of us is currently living with a host family and in most cases all is well. My host mother is also a grandmother but does more than most people I know, of any age. She is apparently the town’s mother as well because on our way to church on Sunday every one on the street, both young and old, stopped and talked with her. She volunteers her time and her house to teach children in the town that were not accepted or could not pay for school here, she volunteers with readings and prayer sessions at the church and is almost always gone doing something. This is in addition to cooking me three meals a day and laughing at my attempts to communicate.

On that note I will say briefly that I am no stranger to Spanish, as most of you know, but have been disappointed to this point by how vocab and verb tenses and other things have not been coming back to me like I had hoped. Our group is fairly diverse and accomplished—only one of the fifty plus had never been outside the USA—and there are any number of very accomplished speakers. Solid group so far, impressed with the Spanish, but clearly I am still getting to know them…and then we’ll be reassigned to different posts and hardly have any contact for two years! It goes without saying, of course, that every last one of them is far cooler than any one of the friends I have made from previous experiences in my life. Just kidding.

I write all this as a brief and uninteresting introduction to what has been going on. Here were today’s events, in a nutshell, because today was the kind of day that makes a person feel lucky to be alive. Got up at 0530 to go running; left the house at 0545 (yes, my Hondurena mother was already up as well). Did I mention that Santa Lucia is nothing if not massive hills and spectacular views? Anyway, the hills destroyed me but a morning run is like a slice of pizza—even when it’s bad its really pretty good. Returned home, showered, ate breakfast, chatted a bit with mi madre, got to class on time. Left class around 5 (sorry, 1700), returned home to see the group of students in the kitchen listening attentively to mi madre’s direction, changed and met some fellow trainees on a nearby soccer field—it is on the side of one of these massive hills and overlooks Tegucigalpa…ridiculous. Played for over an hour with fellow trainees and a couple of local guys—extremely tiresome but obviously very fun. Ran home, jumped in the shower quickly, changed into nice clothes, devoured the delicious plate of food mi madre had prepared and then the two of us walked to the church for Ash Wednesday services. Quite a town event and, of course, mi madre was the first one to speak during the services…I had no idea! Bueno, that’s enough rambling for one entry. Alive and well here in the lovely Santa Lucia.

I should also point out that its the cool thing to do now to write your entries and emails at home on mr. laptop and then save on a flash drive and cut and paste to save time. As such, I have just now read some of the ¨comments¨from my previous entries...good job, everyone. Very impressed and I will respond in kind. Until next time.
Joe