Vamos al Rio!

Yesterday, my sweet, surrogate family gave me the day off. Erin Pettengill picked me up and we headed into Armenia for a team lunch of baleatas at Teresa's house. Teresa lives next door to the house Sovereign Grace Church built a few weeks ago and cooks lunch once a week for the teams. It's pretty incredible how much this woman can do in her makeshift outdoor "kitchen" (below). Some of the girls and I tried helping Teresa make tortillas. I say "tried" because in the time it took me to make just one small, deformed tortilla, Teresa made 5 or 6 large, perfect ones. She enjoyed a good laugh over our stupid gringo attempts. I am more humbled here everyday.

Teresa's kitchen

While Teresa worked, her baby slept...in a hammock on the front porch. I risked being viewed as a huge stalker because I had to get a picture. I'm pretty sure you'd get arrested for this in the States.

Waiting around for lunch

We also had fun playing with Oso's new puppies! Oso ("bear" in Spanish) is the family dog and just had 7 little ones a little over a week ago. They enjoyed a big bowl of rice and beans (apparently, even the dogs keep up with Honduran culture) and a long nap under the pick-up truck.

I guess the rice and beans were a hit!

After lunch, we piled in two truck loads of children and headed to the river to swim at a spot called "tres piedras" (3 rocks). Once again, I was blown away by my picturesque surroundings, which give beauty to even impoverished Armenia. As I spent a fabulous afternoon jumping into the river off the rocks, swimming in pouring rain with some of my favorite little Honduran friends, and soaking in the misty green mountains behind me, I had yet another "this is my life" moments. I did, however, feel pretty pathetic as I watched six-year-olds effortlessly shimmy up the tallest slippery rocks with hardly any footing to do back flips. Where were these kids' parents!? ;) Equally amazing was the 8-year-old girl who had brought her 1-year-old sister to the river to play. The way she held the baby and watched over her made it pretty apparent that this definitely wasn't a first time occurrence either.

Walter and I, riverbound in the bed of the truck

A pretty typical scene in Armenia Bonito

Oneida, Wilma, and I taking a little break from swimming (I'm the pasty white one on the right)

Wilma

No bigs.

After a fabulous day off from nannying, I headed home to enjoy a delicious jambalaya dinner (sausage, red beans, green peppers, and rice) and later, a team meeting over chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with the Pettengill's.

Today, I spent the earlier portion of the morning with the girls while Sean and Lindsey rode out to Armenia. After Ellie's morning nap, the McCann girls and I made our way into downtown La Ceiba to run some errands and take advantage of our favorite lunch special at Pizza Hut :) I marveled at all street vendors selling exactly the same things (probably not the wisest business plan), the chaos in crossing the street with two small children (where the pedestrians definitely do NOT have the right-of-way), nauseating open-air meat markets, and the fact that, to Honduran women, bras seem entirely optional. And of course, it's nearly impossible to go anywhere without countless nationals smiling, commenting, and poking at Ellie's fat white skin. Downtown La Ceiba was indeed a cultural experience :)

Back home for naps, we plan on heading downtown once again for team dinner at Masapan later this evening.

One week from today I'll be home. I feel like I've only just begun to get familiar with La Ceiba and be able to answer team member's questions. I've only just begun to establish relationships with the kids in Armenia, and I already have to go! As I think back to all the preparation it took to get me here, I can't believe I'll be turning around to leave again so soon. Please pray that I take full advantage of my final days here!