Pineapples, Mangos, Diarrhea...hey! Pepto Bismol

My friend Kristen (OT) and I have come back to Antigua for a refresher course on spanish. I am only taking classes in the morning and am working at an orphanage in the physical therapy department in the afternoons. The fruit here is amazing and the street food is so good...sometimes I just can't help myself! Pulpusas are amazing little tortilla pockets filled with melted cheese. Then there are chile rellenos which are fried bell peppers filled with beef and spices and ciliantra. Licuados (milkshakes) and chocobananas make a fantastic afternoon snack. So between all that and Senora Connie's (my spanish house mom) fabulous cooking...it turns out I may have a parasite of some sort. Momma, don't freak out if you're reading this! I will get it checked out first thing when I get back to Honduras on Saturday...but they will probably just give me an aspirin or a lime and a coconut. I will tell you this, the only thing worse than not having a bathroom closeby when you have diarrhea is not having toilet paper when you have diarrhea. #1 rule about Central America is ALWAYS, ALWAYS have toilet paper on you. I was working at the orphanage when the diarrhea hit. I made it to the bathroom just in time but without success for there was no toilet paper to be found! I found another bathroom but no toilet paper. My teacher has been sharing her home remedies with Kristen and me about how to cure our stomach issues. Pericon is some exotic plant that is supposively good for settling the stomach. They have an herb and a saint for every issue you could imagine! Senora Connie gave me salt water, lime and alka selzer and said a prayer to Santo Hermano Pedro as she was swatting flies in the kitchen. Someone let me know if there is a fly swatting competion on ESPN because this lady's good...she doesn't play around. The orphanage I work at is named after Santo Hermano Pedro and apparently his fiest day is this weekend...but you know latinos they can't just have a party last one day...they start nine days in advance. We thought the whole country was under attack the first time we heard the 'firecrackers' going off at 4 in the morning; between that and the church bells going off every 15 minutes and the parrot next door imitating the 18 dogs our neighbors have...I have no need for an alarm clock.

the mission

Holy Week was amazing. We did stations of the cross in the neighborhood. They have a tradition here of making these beautiful sawdust carpets which they work on all night long. Then in the morning they have a procession in the streets for the stations-which is in remembrance of the steps Jesus took during his passion. The procession begins and all of that beautiful and intricate artwork that people slaved over the night before is destroyed, by the mariachi band and children running through the sawdust. Holy Saturday we went into the mountains where I experienced the longest mass of my life--6 hours!!!! (not even exaggerating)It lasted from 7:00 to 12:30. They sang a song about a man and his horse (Caballo y Caballero) that lasted 30 minutes...very emotional. To this day it chokes me up a bit. I was especially impressed with the alter server boys who were only 7 to 10 years old and they were outlasting everyone in the pews! The night was complete with a fiesta that lasted until 3 in the morning.

The physical therapy team came the next week and I met all the beautiful kids I will be working with both in the school, where I will be in the mornings, and in the neighborhood, where I will spend the afternoons. There was one family that came to our door the night before the team left, with a child who had a leg lengthening surgery about 3 months ago and now cannot walk and has had fever and vomitting and excruciating pain since then. We came to the conclusion that most probably his hip joint was infected and he will need to go to the hospital to get an xray taken. The family had been waiting outside the clinic all day without even being seen by the doctor because soo many people are waiting to be seen and they come from far off moutain towns as this family did. You can imagine the mother was very worried by the time she got to us. I can´t imagine the feeling of a mother who knows there is nothing she can do to help her child who is suffering. This is why we call Mary our mother because she knows a mother´s suffering and is boundless in compassion and why we can ask her for anything because Jesus will do whatever she tells him, just as any son would do for his mother, as we know from the gospel of the wedding at Cana. We prayed with them and invited them to supper. Fr. Terry, visiting for a few weeks from the States, lightened all our worries with his brilliant knock knock jokes (which I´m not sure exactly translates in spanish which makes it that much more hilarious!) Among my favorites is the one about John the baptist. Toca Toca (knock knock) Quienes es? (who is it) Juan...Juan who? Juan el baptista as he splashes the kid with water. Fr. Terry drove the family home and took them the next day to get an xray. Sometimes all we can do for the family is to comfort them in their sorrows and show them the love of Christ. We help them with their temporal needs in whatever way we can and sometimes all we can provide for them is a decent meal and a renewed hope in the goodness of people.

When you doubt your authenticity of poverty of heart ask yourself "Do those who are poor, suffering, voiceless, unhappy, feel at ease with me as they did Jesus?" I don´t remember the guy who said this but I salute him.

Bienvenidos a Honduras!

Apparently the Jackson airport did have reason to frisk me but they didn't confiscate my lethal weapon--a bag of doritos, which apparently wasn't made for high altitudes and popped during the flight going into Honduras. me: "No es un bomba!!" (It's not a bomb!) the lady sitting next to me: "Ella dijo bomba" (she said bomba!) Have you ever wondered the real words to la bamba? La La La La La BOMBA The gringa tiene un bomba. dejase del avion deja se del avion--si quiera vivir!
(The gringa has a bomb! Get off the plane, get off the plane if you want to live!) It goes a little something like that.
Luckily they didn't put me in the San Salvador jail but I did spend 8 hours in the airport. It was lovely...I enjoyed my first siesta, my first fresca, and even played the Wii. I also heard Cotton eyed Joe being played more times than I have ever heard before in my life, even being from Mississippi! It was seriously every 15 minutes out of no where it would just start playing--the strangest thing. I sat next to a sweet lady named Lourdes who was very proud of her native Honduran heritage and reminded me many times that she is a Cathracha (Honduran native) She was visiting home after living in New York many years. She helped me with my spanish and corrected me when I told the old man sitting next to me that I speak little spanish (Pocito) or intended to say but actually asked him for a little kiss (Pacito) No worries...Still much more to come!