Picture updates from Semana Santa

Me, Nolvia and Emily eating our delicious American food. We seriously ate like royalty the entire time at Emily's!! We cooked so many big meals it was crazy, but oh so delicious :-) We wanted to make special K loaf but they didn't have any cottage cheese- we checked all 4 grocery stores too!

Just beginning our all night ordeal! This was the pattern we followed for the first carpet- it is painstaking work! I think this was around 3 am....

Our finished products :-) Our group made all three! The first one is a catholic symbol they have all over the place down here, idk what the one in the middle is, and the top one is the sign of a pope who died but is now being made into a saint i think.

These are the scary KKK looking guys in the procession. They are carrying a float with a statue of Jesus bearing the cross. And you can see how they walk right over the carpets, ruining them.

This carpet was my favorite! It was really thick, and like 3D looking!! So beautiful :-)

Other than that it's just back to the same old same old at the Hogar. Only the atmosphere here is much better!! A lot less drama than when I left which I am immensely grateful for! I think these last few days will go by no problem. All the kids know I'm leaving next week and they're all begging me to stay or take them with me to the States. One girl even wrote me this really sweet letter saying that she'll always remember me and that's it's really hard to say goodbye and I have a special place in her heart :-( I hope there aren't too many tears next week. it's going to be tough saying bye to all my kids!

Comayagua with Emily :-)

Oh I can't even tell you all how happy I am right now here in Comayagua with Emily :-). I'm so so glad we were finally able to work out a time to visit! She's been an SM here since August, and I knew her from Union, but not too well- just who she is. She's really good friends with Pablo's sister, Mari, though so I've heard plenty of good things about her and we've been trying to find a weekend to work out for visiting for a while!

She has her own apartment here where she lives with 3 other SMs, and it's really, really nice! It's even nice for American standards, so I was very surprised when I saw it. They cook all their own food as well and have not just one, but 4 grocery stores here to choose from!!! We don't even have one in Santa Barbara haha. We haven't eaten rice or beans once either- just been making all kinds of yummy american food like lasagne, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob!!! *Very happy contented sigh. I think I definitely could've managed here no problem!

I do realize though that I have definitely been a lot more exposed to the culture by living with the kids at the hogar and have learned a lot more Spanish as well. They all teach at a bilingual school here where they are required to just speak to the kids in English. So I have been trying to look at the positives of the differences between our different situations. Emily is so sweet though and it has just been so great to have some good girl time!!! We have stayed up so late talking every night and spent all day today talking too instead of taking a nap! and it's been awesome :-)

Yesterday was the big day that they all celebrate our "easter" here, not much happens tomorrow. So we helped out in some very interesting Honduran tradition- making carpets!!! They are not your typical carpets- these ones are made out of sawdust that is dyed all different colors- and some have rocks, egg shells, sea shells, leaves, whatever! they line a bunch of streets around the town center and look beautiful! All the awesome colors, and tons and tons of people! The crazy part was that that they start around midnight and work the whole night into the following morning! ours didn't start til about 2 am cause it was raining so we had to wait it out for it to stop. But there were spot lights set up and we stayed up all night long doing it. it was actually way more time consuming and harder than i thought it would be. just because they are very particular about it being "perfect". They had a huge paper print out with the design that they taped to the street and then we put the sawdust in the different areas, kinda like a paint by number. And little color that gets in the wrong area needs to be removed. Some people had fancy stencils they used and just filled in, but we did all of ours by hand! we were sooo sooo exhausted by the time we finished around 8:30am. But I got tons of pics! and it turned out great!!!!

we were also starving by then so we came home and cooked breakfast- pancakes!!! then we went back out afterwards to see the procession that goes through the streets and walks across the carpets ruining them! they are very shortlived but the hondurans say that is part of the sacrifice: that you make something beautiful for Jesus that is all for Him and they are exhausted by the time the procession comes but that again, it is part of their sacrifice.

the procession itself was pretty boring and was led by a bunch of guys in KKK looking outfits. so that was kinda freaky. but the whole experience was a lot of fun! and now back to the hogar tomorrow....

Semana Santa begins

Well despite the rough beginning to this past weekend, it actually turned out to be really nice!

Saturday night I got invited to go watch a movie with all the older boys at one of the teachers' houses. It was only the boys who were invited, but i've gotten to know the teacher's husband who is the handyman here at the hogar and he's the one who invited them all. plus marcos, one of the kids here at the hogar, and i have become friends so he told me come along! we ended up watching inception in spanish (i brought it down here with me) and i'm not sure how much they liked it since it's so confusing. but it was fun to be hanging out together at someone's house. they all bought soda to drink, but they know i don't like soda so they even got a juice box just for me :-)

then on sunday we saw chepito off. The trip took basically all day since his house is about 2 hours from the hogar and we drove around doing stuff aftwerwards. It was really strange to me to see him back with his family- his mom, aunt and siblings were all there. he's lived at the hogar for 15 years, but now he's going back to live with his family. seems so strange to me. that and saying goodbye was not a big deal at all- it was just like we were saying goodbye for the afternoon and would see him the next day! nothing long or drawn out, no tears, just a quick hug to me, one to nelson and a general "adios" to al the kids. done.

after that we went to san pedro, to the airport, cause it's always a huge deal whenever a plane flys by. all the kids run out to stare at it, cause none ever pass by santa barbara. so we stayed at the airport for a few mins to watch one of the planes take off and they thought it was really cool. after that we ate mangoes in the park and then went out to eat baleadas!!!! yum!!!! it's the ultimate traditional honduran food that i'm really going to miss back in the states so i hope i can figure out how to make it. maybe i'll get nolvia to teach me.

because we got the ok for nolvia to come to comayagua with me so the plan is to leave on weds!! and we'll be there til sunday. it's supposed to be a big cultural center for all kinds of semana santa celebrations so that is cool. i totally forgot about easter happening on sunday- and i'll be spending it on a bus ride back to the hogar! so nothing exciting for me this year.

today was fun too- a bunch of the kids went to the plaza in gualjoco (the smaller town where the hogar acutally is) and played games outside. so i went with them and had tons of fun! they called it a social, and they have a social every sat night but i've never gone before. i'm not sure if it's the same, but if so, i've been really missing out! haha. anyway i wasn't nearly as bored as i thoguht i would be and that's good. looks like this week may not be quite so slow after all.

IT'S SOOOO HOT!!!!!!!!!!

Ah Oscarito :-) I'm gonna miss this guy. He knows how to count to "ten" in English, well sort of, and he's so proud of it haha. I got it on video the other day. He's the littlest one at the ihnfa, 3 years old. and he LOVES me.

My typical breakfast here that i've grown to love.  fried platanos, frijoles (beans), and avocado. yum!

I forgot to pu this pic up before- it was the plan of mine and Rachel's adventure!! Even though a lot of it ended up changing around haha.

Anyway it has been a rough week here with lots of drama that I will have to just fill everyone in on in person later- but prayers would really be appreciated for me to survive the last 2 1/2 weeks!

It is sooo hot here! currently 95 in my room. and i hate feeling so sticky and sweaty all the time. it's gross feeling it drip down my legs which is exactly what is happening as i sit here typing this haha. This week is Semana Santa which means vacation for everyone from school and the IHNFA is closed. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to be doing, I think I'll go to Comayagua (about 2 hours away) and visit a friend who is there. And one of the kids from the hogar may come with me which would be super fun too. and tomorrow Chepito, one of the older boys here is leaving for good. His aunt found a job for him so he will be moving there. The good news is that Nelson told him he can choose who he wants to invite to go along with him tomorrow to see him off. And he picked some of his friends from the hogar, and ME!!! It was really sweet, so of course I'm going :-)

That's about it for now. We'll see how this next week goes, cause i'm not too sure what to do with the IHNFA being closed. Hopefully i'm not too bored and it goes by quickly :-)

Pictures from Nicaragua!

Here's Rachel and I at the top of the volcano, ready to go boarding down!!! We had to wear these huge suits and goggles cause the rock pieces flew up at you as you went by- and it's the only protection if you fall off too! the speed record was 87 kph. i didn't go nearly that fast though.

This photo looks so nice doesn't it? Haha, but right there i am SOOO incredibly grumpy. This was after the longest night ever- we tried to take the fery off the island of ometepe 3 times before actually catching it, then we were too late to get a bus from rivas to san juan del sur so we had to pay a ton for a taxi. then we got into san juan del sur too late to find a hostel- they were all full. so we ended up paying to sleep on 2 couches in the lobby of the big party hostel where people were already drunk at 6 pm and they were constantly walking in and out all night. the music was blasting, lights were on and it was so loud we hardly got any sleep. we decided to get up at 430 to catch the 5 am bus out of there, only we missed the bus! and the next one wasn't til 7 am! rachel refused to go back to the awful hostel so we went and slept on the beach for the time instead haha. And that is the story of this photo.

This was on the bus back from the costa rica border- another insane, unplanned for adventure. i had to cross into there to get a new visa but it cost about $15 to do the border crossing so rachel sat on the nicaragua side to wait for me. Only we didn't know that i had to stay in costa rica for 3 hours!!! i tried to see if they would let me go back sooner, but nope. so i had to sit in the stupid office on the costa rica side for hours while rachel sat on the ground in nicargaua for hours haha. she had told me she wouldn't move and she didn't! she said lots of people kept asking her why she was sitting in the sun and she just told them "I LIKE THE SUN!" some guys asked her if she wanted a boyfriend, one man proposed, by the end of 3 hours everyone knew her and name and kept asking where her friend was haha. but here we are with our trits ice cream that we were told by other backpackers you can't miss!it's basically like and ice cream cookie sandwhich and it was definitely good! the lady i bought them from in costa rica was really nice and let me bring them back and store them in the freezer for a few extra hours when i found out i was going ot have to stay.

Ah i loved this place :-) it was in maderas, and you can see our hostel was right on the beach. it was only us and 2 other ladies staying there and it was so beautiful! i tried to learn to surf, but it was a lot harder than expected haha. rachel is a great teacher, but the waves were not good at all. i ended up with bloody and black and blue hips and knees and rachel got stung by a jellyfish so we decided to leave after that.

we went to masaya from maderas to look for hammocks! and met 2 other gringos along the way who ended up being from mass!!!!!!!!! so crazy! they decided to come with us to masaya and this was the local transportation we had to get to our hostel. poor horse that pulled all of us plus our backpacks and the guys' surfboards!

this was at the beach in leon where i got super sunburnt in record time haha. i'm about to get drenched here so i just thought this pic was cool :-)

well that's about it for now. I want to try to do some kind of easter egg hunt for the kids this week since i have tons of candy and i thin it would be fun. they don't sell plastic eggs down here, so tomorrow i'm gonna try to figure out what to buy instead. only 3 more weeks! i'm afraid they're going to go by really slow but we'll see.....

Hitchiking adventures and miracles

Well I'm am officially back safe and sound! The trip was so crazy, but also so much fun and I have tons of pictures to show from it. I'll try to upload some at some point if the internet will cooperate.

Yesterday was sad saying bye to Rachel :-( We got up at 3:30 am for our buses, hers to costa rica and mine to honduras. Good news though is that she's going to come visit mass whenshe's in the states! So she should be there the end of May when I am home as well for Kerri's grad and birthday party. Then she'll drive out to Nebraska with Pablo and Mari and I afterwards too. I can't wait!

My bus was about 8 hours from Nicaragua to Tegucigalpa where I then needed another 5 hour bus to get back to Santa Barbara. Well I walked around a while and asked about 20 people for directions to the second bus station. Finally found it after a very frustrating amount of time, only to discover that something was wrong with the bus and it wasn't running for the afternoon! And it's the ONLY bus to santa barbara! I did some quick math and called a friend of mine who lived in teguc for a while to see if i should take a bus to san pedro and then from there to santa barbara instead. but turned out it was too late and i wouldn't be able to make the last bus there either. I really did not want to stay in the city overnight by myself and was standing there not sure what to do- but God is so good!

A man walked up wearing the company shirt for the bus i was supposed to take. I recognized him cause he's been there when I've used the bus in the past. He asked if I was going to santa barbara and told me to go on this other bus with him. It was going to Pito Solo and then he said I could ride with him from there back to S.B. sounded good to me so off i went! we got off at pito solo, some guy came by in a truck and we hopped in the back with one other man who ended up being a doctor in S.B. The bus guy got off about halfway through and i thanked him and said bye. Then the doctor and I rode the rest of hte way and I found out he actually works with my friend Carolina's parents! He knows her family and everything. He was super nice and even drove me to the hogar from the center of S.B. I was so thankful and just kept praying so many times- God is so good and watched over me so that everything worked out.

The bad part of the day was that Fea is now gone :-( i'm not sure what happened to her, but I got back and she was no longer on my backpack. She travelled all over the world with me for the past 2 years and she's dearly missed. I cried :-(

Now I'm off to the IHNFA. Good news is that the teachers are finally off strike! So last week the kids all had classes!!!! Yay! My morning are going to be a bit more boring now without the kids but oh well, i'm glad they're back in school. more adventure updates later. Love you guys!! 3 weeks!!!!

pastel de chocolate en la isla de ometepe

our day today was kinda non eventful. we got up at 530 this morning and after lots of buses, taxis, and a ferry we made it here by 1230. everything on this island is really far away to do though so we just wandered around lost for the afternoon haha. we tried to follow directions to the beach that was supposed to be 15 mins away but after an hour of walking we figured we had gone too far. we were also out of water by that time so when we did finally find the beach we didn´t want to stay- we had a new mission: find more water!! took probably another half hour at least of walking around to many different pulperias before we found one with water. and then we walked all the way back to the beach again. the beach wasn´t even that nice, very small shore area that was dirty, the water smelled like bad fish, and the local kids threw mangoes at us the whole time. and they hurt! so we only stayed about 10 mins there haha.

i talked to some american who has been living in nicaragua for 5 years and he told us where to get the best pizza so we did that. and one guy (Michel) we had met at the hostel yesterday told us we HAD to go to this place that sells the best chocolate cake in the whole world. we did that first thing and let me tell you he wasn´t lying!!! it was literally the best chocolate cake i´ve ever had! apparently this guy has tried to buy the recipe before though and the american guy that runs the cafe won´t sell it. darn.

our hostel tonight is not as nice as the other one, the beds are a lot harder and a little more run down. but it´s only 3.75 a night! and super super hippie. this super old couple runs it and the old man has the longest dreads ever!!! his wife is still super hippie looking even with her long gray hair in braids too haha. apparently it´s the hostel that most of the young crowd goes to cause we were wandering around looking for it and some guy was like you want the hostel central? so he showed us how to get there.

not sure yet the plan of what we´re gonna do tomorrow. we´ll try to meet people at the hostel tonight and see what they suggest. the people are all pretty friendly. except there´s a random duck that lives there that wanders around biting peoples´legs and a deer as well that just walks around. haha funny things the stuff you see down here.

volcano boarding!

volcano boarding today was pretty sweet! took about 5 hours total to first drive out there in a super bumpy truck, and that was super fun, then hike up the volcano with the board and gear, then look around and board down and drive back. they gave us orange jump suits, but it wasn´t too hot so that was good. we were at the volcan cerro negro, which has a record for the most eruptions in the world. it´s still active too, we touched the gravel and it was hot. i got so scared going down once we were at thetop cause it was really steep!!!!! but once we were actuallygoing down it wasn´t too bad at all, you could control whether you wanted to go faster or slower or whatever. only took like 2 mins to board down it and about an hour to hike up haha. but it was cool to do, i´m glad we stayed an extra day for it.

tomorrow morning we´re heading out to the island of ometepe. it´s supposed to be super gorgeous, in the middle of a lake with 2 volcanoes on it. we may hike the volcano but we´ve been told it´s a pretty intense 8 hour hike and the view at the top isn´t that great. there´s supposed to be some cool waterfalls and springs though so we´ll probably at least check out those. hopèfully i´ll have internet tomorrow night but i´m not sure.

yesterday surfing was really disappointing' we didn´t get to go! the waves weren´t good so we just hung out at the beach instead, but that got boring after a while cause the riptide was super strong so you couldn´t really just chill in the water. and it was super hot too! so after a coupel hours we headed back. funny since it took 2 hours on the bus to get there that morning haha. but only 45 mins to get back which was nice! we went to the movies last night and saw secretariat for like $2. it was better than i thought it would be and it was in english with spanish subtitles.

we´ve met so many cool people on this trip! today we hung out with a guy from england a guy from canada. that had randomly met in mexico in february and have been travelling together ever since. they´re really funny so that was cool. we´ve been hanging out with a girl from holland as well, so many cool people at the hostel! yesterday some guy from holland came to the beach withus so it was fun talking to him. he´s like a 30something year old graphic designer who was just taking a 3 week vacation. so not thehippy backpacker type like the others we´ve met haha. everyoneis really nice.

gosh it´s just sooo hot here all the time. i´m getting tired of the sun. it´s crazy though to think you guys are still cold up in the states. is there snow at all? or is spring finallywarming things up there? well that´s all for now, my internet time is almost up and we´ve gotta go find some food for dinner. early morning tomorrow to get to the island. hope all is well! one month from today i will be travelling back home!!! can´t wait!!!!

Leon, Nicaragua!

 just a quick update to let you know i made it here to leon, nicaragua safe and sound!!!! our hostel tonight is soooo cool! it´s a big dorm style set up so we´re sharing bathrooms showers and the room with lotsof otherpeople. but it has lots of bright colors, hammocks to lay around in, a pòol table and tons of gringos around. I´ll take lots of pics. we´re actually gonna be here 2 nights now cuase the volcano boarding isn´t offered on sundays. so tomorrow we´ll go to the beach and rachel will teach me to surf! then monday morning do some souvenir shopping and volcano boarding in the afternoon. tuesday morning we´ll head to our next stop.

internet doesnt work at the hostel so we´re using an internet cafe next door right now. we met a cool candian girl who´s staying at the hostel so we´re hanging out with her and gonna go to dinner with her and her friends after. we also met two guys from seattle who invited us to dinner with them but we passed. they´ve been biking for 7 months and started from seattle going all the way to panama!!! they´ve got one month left and then they´re flying home.

everyone we go we also see signs wanting volunteers for a week or 2!! i wish i had just done that, travelled around place to place volunteering. how fun! getting to see tons of stuff and helping at the same time.
well i dont have tons of time on here but just wanted to let you know i´m doing great. so many bus rides today (4 buses and 1 taxi!) it´s sooo hot here i´m sweating all the time so the beach tomorrow should be nice.

everything here is really cheap! our hostel last night was 5 bucks and tonight is 6. and i think it cost about 12 bucks total for all the buses to get here. only nicaragua charges another 12 for entering the country so that was our most expensive thing so far. haven´t eaten a whole lot yet, bought a coconut for lunch today that was really good. and tomorrow night is pizza night at the hostel which should be nice. we met some older guy staying there who is gonna come to the beach with us tomorrow cause rachel´s gonna teach him to surf. otherwise he´ll have to hire and instructor, so this way maybe he´ll just pay for our boards for us and it´ll all work out good.


i´m having so much fun!!!