Pictures from Copan Ruinas

The street our host family's house was on.

The same street, looking the other way. We took this road up the mountain one day and were surprised by the quick change from middle class houses to extremely poor clay homes.

Another typical street in Copan.

A toucan in Copan's beautiful tropical bird sanctuary.

Our new friend, Eric Shultz, talking to the birds.

More touristy bird shots.

The president leading the Independence Day parades. The streets were packed with school children who paraded on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The corn maiden.

Dulce Maria, our cute-as-can-be host sister, is on the right. She attends the bilingual school in Copan, and had the honor of holding one of the school's banners.

Dulce Maria; Ernesto, our host father; and Amanda at the Saturday parades.

The Guacamaya Language Institute.

The goose in our back yard. At night, when the roosters were screaming away, the goose would get into the action with her sad-sounding honks. We called her Honker.

Ben Beachy, our first visitor, surprised us our second weekend in Honduras.

Dulce Maria on our beloved study hammock.

A women's weaving cooperative located in the mountains outside Copan. We took horses up to a village where La Pintada -- descendants of the Mayans -- live and work. One of the horses kicked Amanda on the way up. She wasn't happy. Neither was Amanda.

One of the girls at La Pintada wearing my sunglasses.

A typical afternoon of studying in our room. We studied a ton. It was great.

The temple at the beginning of the Mayan ruins in Copan. They are spectacular, but unfortunately our memory card filled up so we didn't get many photos. They got bigger later.

Andrew and Karla, his language teacher, out in the garden. Classes were from 8 to 12 every morning with a break of at least half an hour in the middle.

Amanda with Nelly, her teacher. Sometimes she gets frustrated.

Amanda, Eric, and Andrew, outside of the school on our last day. Somehow Andrew and Eric always dressed the same.

The teachers: Luis, Julia, Karla, Enrique, Nelly

The fam: Ernesto, Sarah, Dulce Maria. Not pictured, Sonia, the 22-year-old daughter.

A long weekend...

Hello from Copan! So far I have let Andrew do all the writing - the public nature of a blog has been a bit intimidating for me, but here goes...
We´ve been attending language school for over a week now. I´ve never been so motivated to learn something in my life, but I am finding language study to be tedious and frustrating at times, with exciting moments when something finally clicks or I remember the word for "around".

We actually only had four days of classes last week. Friday we had the day off because it was the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations, which lasted all weekend. We watched kids parading around the central square in school uniforms and band costumes and all kinds of interesting get-ups both Friday and Saturday mornings. After the excitement of the parade on Friday morning, we realized we didn´t have much to do except study for three days. Andrew and I were both sitting around our room Friday afternoon when it started raining pretty heavily. A few minutes later the power went off - and stayed off for the rest of the evening. We sat in the dark, books in hand, for a few minutes before making our way to the kitchen where our host mom, Sara, was kind enough to give us a candle. After playing Farkle and various card games by candlelight for the next few hours Andrew wondered out loud what our friends at home were doing... this marked the beginning of our first home-sick, or at least friend-sick, thoughts of our friends and family since we´ve been here. Up until that point I think we´d both been too busy with daily things to think of home much. Nothing like sitting around on a Friday night in a new country to bring out some lonesome feelings!

Amazingly, we got a phone call about 10 minutes after the power went back on. It was Ben Beachy, of course, a friend from college who just happened to be working in San Pedro Sula for 10 days and had the smarts to figure out how to reach us at our host family´s house. He wound up taking a bus from San Pedro the next morning and so we spent the next 24 hours happily catching up with him before he had to take the bus back the next day. We never expected to see a familiar face quite so soon in our journey but it was a very welcome surprise!

We are getting in good walking shape here - we usually wind up walking the steep cobbled streets downtown at least three or four times a day. We decided to explore one of the roads that winds up into the mountains the other day and found a whole new, less-touristy and much more impoverished side of Copan. I´m still trying to get used to the fact that we are really in Central America. It´s helpful for me to just walk around and soak it in sometimes - it´s easy to get caught up with studying Spanish and kind of forget what a big turn my life has taken in the last two weeks!

I tried to upload some pictures to jazz this up a bit, but the computer here at the school is pretty slow and it was taking too long - we´ll post a bunch of pictures from Copan when we get back to San Pedro Sula. Our stay here just got extended another week, so we wont be getting back to the big city until probably around the 29th or so. Yay! More classes! Hopefully my head can take it.

Copàn Ruinas

Compared to the clogged, loud, busy streets of San Pedro Sula, Copan Ruinas - where we are currently taking language classes - is a bonafide paradise. The cobblestone streets are silent at night, and this morning a thin cloud of mist hung low over the mountains that surround the city. I feel lucky to be in this beautiful place. My host family is a working class family of four who rent rooms to tourists and visiting Hondurans at $10 a day, which includes three meals a day, and two clothes washings a week. The food is wonderful. Last night was a typical dish of small corn tortillas, a dish of refried beans, scrambled eggs, and sweet plantains. I was so hungry after our four-hour bus ride (on which we were treated to the gruesome film Blackhawk Down) which arrived at 2 p.m. I didn´t eat until 6:30. I did get in some good soccer, however, as we watched the Honduran national team tie with Costa Rica at the director of the language school´s house. We met him on the school steps right before the game started, and he was anxious to whip us off to our host family right away so he could enjoy the game. When he found out we liked soccer, however, he invited us in.

The last few days have been spent in team meetings with other MCCers in Honduras. It has been gringo central so far, as we spent the last few days enjoying good food, conversation, a visit to the MAMA project (more on that in another entry) and a soccer game between two local Honduran teams. We have a wonderful team of engaged young adults who are scattered throughout the country. The country reps and Amanda and I will be the only ones in San Pedro Sula, but our job will take us to other parts of the country often, so we´ll see other MCCers regularly. It was great to make new friends, but now we need to meet some Hondurans. My host family is a good entry into the Honduran culture. I have found that the Hondurans I´ve met aren´t as outgoing as Cubans. In Cuba, I felt as if I made friends instantly. That may also have been due to the fact that Cubans were always trying to sell us something. I believe that Hondurans are just as friendly as Cubans, but maybe a little more reserved. It may take some work to feel accepted as part of the culture. I look forward to attending the Mennonite Church in San Pedro Sula. I believe we´ll make friends quickly there.

I hope to post some pictures from Copan later this week. It is just such a beautful place, and I´m sure I can´t capture it in photos. We also hope to explore the Mayan ruins, hot springs, and the spectacular hiking, so there may be some good pictures to share soon.

Honduras

Amanda and I arrived without delay yesterday at 3 p.m. We entered through customs with minimal confusion and were greeted by Darrin Yoder, one of our country reps; his two-year-old son, Simon; and Jeff Eschelman, who is currently doing our job. After dropping our baggage off at the MCC office and guest house (where we are staying) we drove to Darrin´s house to meet his wife, Julie Aeschliman, and their newborn daughter, Lucia. They live in a clean, efficient house in one of the neighborhoods north of town. We had a wonderful meal of fresh fruit salad and tostadas with pinto beans and fresh vegetables. The electricity went out in the middle of dinner and was still off at the guest house when Jeff drove us back. No matter; we found some candles, got ready for bed, and slept a total of 12 hours. Not bad.



I´ve been surprised that there is almost not talk of the hurricane here. It did minimal damage, besides some localized flooding, and there have been no reports of mudslides. I´ll be anxious to see if there is any mention of it in today´s paper. My mind is absolutely swimming with new sounds, sites, words, and I´m sure it´s going to take weeks until I feel completely comfortable. Until then, I´m just happy to soak it all in.

Today is going to be hot. We were spoiled yesterday with overcast skies and a nice breeze. They say the pleasant months should be here soon.

Thanks for the e-mails wishing us well. I´ll continue updating as I have time. I find blogging to be cathartic.

Entre hurricanes

I discovered yesterday that Hurricane Felix, a potentially catastrophic category 5 storm, is heading straight towards the Mosquito Coast of Honduras. According to www.weather.com, it is supposed to strike Honduras about when our flight from South Bend is due to leave.




I don't know much about hurricanes, but I do know that no Honduran can forget the devastating impact of Hurricane Mitch, which, according to Wikipedia, killed 11,000 in Honduras alone. I have heard reports of as many as 17,000 killed. My understanding is that the winds were not the problem; the intense rain -- possibly 75 inches -- caused massive flooding and mudslides. Developing countries, with their lack of infrastructure, are not prepared for these super hurricanes that are becoming more and more common every year.

We will certainly track the progress of this storm to see what effect it has on our Wednesday morning flight. My guess is that it will be delayed, if not canceled. Our concern, however, must be minimal when compared to the people living on the coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.

T-3 days

Today was our sending service at church, and, let me just say, it was the best sending I can imagine. It was Assembly Mennonite Church's annual Labor Day hymn sing, so we filled ourselves to overflowing with wonderful four-part singing. We leave Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. from South Bend, with connecting flights in Atlanta and Miami before arriving in San Pedro Sula late afternoon.

Our goodbyes have been hard, as has been cleaning out the remnants of my pre-school through college memory boxes. It's hard to know what to keep. I decided that an object's value is a function of my sentimental attachment to it, and how badly I want my children to find it after I die. I decided against keeping my music theory notes, but placed my third-grade baseball card proudly on my mom's bedside table. I recycled my Bio World notes, but kept my fourth-grade report on Peru. I'm still not sure what to do with my playing card collection. Amanda and I laid out all of our clothes to be packed and made some final (tough) offerings to the Goodwill gods. It's humbling to think that all we need will be packed in two suitcases, two backpacks, and four carry-on bags. So far we don't know much about our first few months on location. We do know, however, that we will spend two weeks in Copán at a language school, and that Amanda and I will live with separate host families to aid us in our Spanish practice. We'll see how that goes.

For now, more goodbyes to say, more to pack, and a few more boxes of memories to sift through.