As of last Monday, I have officially been in Honduras for a month. So much has happened in the last couple of weeks that it feels like I’ve been here for significantly longer. I've had lots of fun little experiences, so it feels like each day comes with its own adventure. Whether it be killing a scorpion with matches or pushing our car out of the mud, I haven't had a dull day yet. We’ve been going to La Sabana more frequently to watch soccer games and hangout with the kids that live there. We've gotten to a point where all the kids know us by name, and frankly, they are doing much better at remembering our names than I am at remembering theirs. There's a group of boys that we typically meet up with in Sabana all around the ages of 7-10. Multiple times we have bought them ice cream and sometimes we get this Honduran popsicle of sorts that’s made with coconut and other ingredients. It comes in a plastic bag and is eaten by biting the corner of the bag out and squeezing liquid out. To be honest, I’m not really a fan of the texture, but the kids all really like them. The culture is so incredibly different here in so many ways. There are few things that are similar to the United States, but on a broad spectrum, it’s a black and white difference. The kids, especially the boys, are very comfortable with us. They try to get away with certain things that wouldn't typically come out of the mouth of 8 year olds in the U.S. The culture here doesn’t do the best job to encourage the respect of women. People like to say that we have a “rape culture” in the U.S, which I have never really believed, but here there really is. Touchiness is somewhat part of the culture, but lots of the boys here push the line with an unacceptable amount of touching. A lot of that is just because they don’t ever get told it’s wrong. So now something that has become a huge part of are ministry is disciplining these kids. It’s not Corporal punishment (although a lot of these kids would benefit from such) it's more like firmly reminding kids not to come in the house or taking away their trampoline privileges. It didn't make sense when the missionary family here first told us we would need to enforce rules, but I definitely get it now. No matter what I'm doing though, the big thing that I'm hoping these kids take away from our interactions is the fact that I do everything in God's love. Disciplining the bad behaved little kids is something that I do not only because they annoy the crap out of me sometimes, but because I love all of them. It's funny because I've grown up hearing the same phrase from my parents. They would say things like ”we’re only punishing you because we love you”. That phrase used to drive me crazy as a child, but now I get it so very much (shoutout to my parents for disciplining me so I understand the importance of that!).
With the kids being in school during the day, we have began to develop more relationships with some of the adults in the village. One of the pulperias (small stores) is owned by the grandparents of Dulce and Conche, two Honduran girls I have befriended. On slower days, we sometimes go and get a Coke from the pulperia and just sit down with the owner and talk about life (random note but anyone that knows me knows I don’t like brown sodas, but the Coke here tastes pretty decent, so I’ve actually had it a couple times.) (Another random note, but I didn’t know that you have to return the coke bottles to the pulperia after you finish them because the bottles are glass and they reuse them, so now i'm afraid the owner of the pulperia is going to hunt me down because I lost the bottle). Across the street from us lives our elderly neighbor, Olga. She is such a great lady, and one of the few adults I don’t get nervous around when speaking in Spanish. I go there several times a week to just sit, talk, and listen to her tell stories from her life. She is about 70 years old and has lived in the village for most of her life. I have met one of her daughters and her granddaughter, husband and their kids. Sometimes, I help her great grandson with his homework because he is learning English and his mom doesn’t understand it. None of them speak English at all, but I’ve still got to know how great of people they are. It’s funny talking with her because sometimes I don't understand all of what she says, and most of the time she doesn't understand me, so it's a lot of “yo no entiendo” and “repitan por favor” on my part and her laughing when she doesn't understand my broken Spanglish. Even with the language obstacle, I still enjoy her company and her funny, borderline intrusive, questions, such as why haven't I gotten married yet since, at 19, I am at the perfect age for marriage. Earlier this week, I went over to her house after braiding my hair and she asked if I could give her braids, too. So, I spent about an hour braiding her hair and talking with her granddaughter.
Last Saturday, we had our first day of Bible school in La Lima. (Let me side track for a second to tell a story. So basically this Bible school is a ‘VBS style’ class where we start with worship as a group and end by breaking into groups and talking about the individual Bible lessons. So prior to the worship the pastor decided he should introduce the new “Gringas” or “white girls” (ironic right?) that would be assisting for the next couple of months. So he began by handing the microphone to Michelle, who is basically fluent in Spanish. She didn't know what to say so I told her a line and thanked God that he didn't ask me to talk. BUT THEN, he handed the microphone to me and said, “Christina also speaks Spanish”, which I immediately responded with “Ummm, a little”, but he still asked me to introduce myself and whatnot. So, that would have been fine if it was just me and the kids, but for some reason when I have to speak Spanish in front of adults, I completely freeze up. So as soon as he handed me the microphone, I completely forgot all the Spanish that I know. I basically stood there awkwardly for about a minute before the pastor came up behind me and told me to say my name and bienvenidos(welcome). So, as awkwardly as I could I whispered/spoke directly into the microphone “BIENVENIDOS NINOS”. I literally have never wanted to run out of a building more in my life). Back to the main topic, I actually really enjoyed being with the kids on Saturday. I love how the girls all want to sit with me and show me their drawings, however I personally think I connect better with the boys. I guess that's because I grew up with two little brothers. I spent the majority of the time sitting with these two 8 year old twins named Justin and Jose. They were a bit difficult at first but as soon as they realized I understood Spanish, their bad mouthing stopped (This is actually a very common thing. People assume that I don't know Spanish, and then they are really surprised when I do).
I briefly spoke on the phases of culture shock in my past blog post. When I wrote the last post I was still in the very beginning of the honeymoon phase, but now, at a month in, that has worn off, and I have now entered the frustration phase. Essentially, I’m at the point where the rose colored glasses are completely off. The rosy tint that everything had for the previous 4 weeks has faded or is fading fast. I still love this country and I don't regret being here at all, but I am at the point that lots of little things are beginning to annoy me. Things like the blazing heat in mid October and the fact that I never feel clean are slowly driving me crazy. Today, as I sit in Toyas Coffee Shop, I’m incredibly grateful for the wifi and the AC. Although the AC is barely on, at least it's not the scorching heat of the outdoors. I’m slightly annoyed at the flies that keep buzzing around my hands and face, but I suppose that I am grateful that I don't have to constantly be swatting away mosquitoes. As I navigate this new phase of my trip, I try remembering the things I am grateful for. It’s so easy to make a list of all the things that annoy me: the heat, the stupid mosquitoes everywhere, the roosters that wake me up at awful hours of the night, my teammates voices when I have a headache. I could honestly list a page worth of things at least, but that's gonna get me nowhere, but more pissed off. So to combat that, I list things that I am grateful for like the mosquito net I just got that covers my bed and the fact that we’ve had water and power all week. Living in a third world country is hard, but I know that this is where God wants me to be, so I just have to preserve and remember that everything has a lesson behind it. In conclusion, I leave you guys with this verse I recently came across in our morning devo; Proverbs 18:10 “Gods name is a place of protection-good people can run there and be safe.” So one of things that I’ve really been struggling with is that I don’t really have a “safe place”. At home, I could drive to Starbucks and just sit there by myself for an hour and refresh, or go sit in my room and lock the doors and just scream and cry and rant, but here, that's not an option. Leaving by myself is not a good idea (or allowed) and my bedroom is shared with two other girls. What I’ve constantly had to remind myself is that even though I don’t necessarily have a physical “safe space”, I still have God. So if that means sitting on my bed with headphones in blasting “Oceans” and journaling out my thoughts then that is what I’ll do.
