Qué montón de gringos!

Although it would seem that there isn’t anything to do in this small town, our students have been finding fun adventures to take us on over the weekends. Saturday, some 11^th graders planned a day trip for us to a nearby waterfall. They actually did a great job of organizing it all from food to transportation to being good guides. They organized the activity as a fundraiser so we each paid 200 Lemps (about $10) for our adventurous day and it was well worth it!

They picked us up from the church at 10am with a truck and a few motorcycles, and right from the get-go it was interesting and we were reminded that we are in Honduras. There was a random police check in the middle of the road that we were taking; the motorcycles were ahead of us but as soon as our driver (the truck) saw the police, we came to a screeching halt and turned around to bolt it in the opposite direction. We didn’t get every far because one of the guys on the motorcycle called our driver and told him that the officers saw him and said that he better get back there right away. (I guess him turning around frantically looked suspicious or something.) The kids in the car decided to hand Cassidy a hat and told her just to hold onto it – their plan was to tell the police that her hat flew off and that’s why we turned around because we had to go get it. Essentially all of our drivers were trying to avoid the police because no one actually has a license or the right paperwork for their vehicles, and none of the motorcycle guys have helmets. But, after ‘convincing’ the police that they all simply forgot their licenses at home and they were going on a school trip, the officers let us go to continue on our way.

We drove for about 20minutes to an aldea called Naranjo where the ‘trail’ started. Now, if we teachers had ever decided to hike to this place on our own, it would take at least 2 hours to get there and then assuming we were even going in the right direction, I’m not sure how we would ever find the trailhead or take the right turns down the trail. No perfectly concise directions could help us get to the waterfall on our own. We hiked down to this waterfall through someone’s property – so we were literally walking through the rows of a cornfield to get to the base of the waterfall. It was only about a 20 minute walk, but it was pretty steep. Thankfully, all the students carried the coolers and baskets of food so we just had to worry about getting our bodies down to the bottom.

And here it is: the waterfall. It was absolutely magnificent. It was much bigger than we imagined! We crossed a bitty stream to get to the actual base of the waterfall and we thought that was crazy enough, boy were we wrong. The waterfall is divided into three sections so we left our things at the bottom and then began exploring. We climbed up to the first section where the swimming hole is. We slid down a rock, like a slide, into the pool and then just played around. You could swim underneath the waterfall and or jump off the rocks into the pool (if you were brave enough). While we were enjoying the swimming hole, all of the students started climbing up to the other parts of the waterfalls. We thought they were all crazy and stupid for doing that, and just laughed at them for being so foolish. And yet, everything we thought was crazy and out-of-the-question ridiculous, we ended up doing. Soon enough we were all crawling along the side of the hill clinging to rocks, branches, roots, bushes, or whatever else we could confidently grasp to get up to the second section. That is the only part of the climbing up or down that we did on our own, so we were pretty proud of ourselves for making it. Never mind that the students scurried up the same slope in less than half the time we did or that our bodies were shaking out of fear or that we were covered in mud – you could not take away our pride. Up there you could lean against the rocks of the waterfall and enjoy nature’s massage. But that wasn’t good enough.

Next, we climbed up the waterfall itself to get to the third section. The boys all helped with this one because, well let’s be honest, it was extremely dangerous. The rocks were slippery (obviously, they were underneath rushing water) and there weren’t a lot of solid holds, and they even took turns laying down at the start of the fall to block some of the water from gushing down. Up there we could keep climbing up a little rock to a cave that was behind the waterfall. Most of us just stood there thinking, “I cannot believe I am on top of a waterfall, and I climbed all the way up to get here.” We tried not to look down or think about getting back down because we didn’t want to ruin how rewarding it felt to have climbed all the way up. At so many different moments I wished that I had a waterproof camera so I could take pictures and share the sights with you; we saw many cool views and explored thrilling parts of this waterfall. Sorry, you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Then began the descent. This is truly what we were most nervous for, but the students helped us literally every step of the way and never left us alone or asked us to figure out how to get down on our own. They showed us exactly where to step or where to hold onto. They always extended their hands for us to grab when there were no holds, or if it would be too slippery, or even if we were just scared and needed someone to hold onto. They used their hands or backs or arms for us to step on if needed as well. We did a lot of sliding, scooting, stretching, and squealing to get down, and of course I was singing to calm my nerves. We all took a gigantic sigh of relief once we made it to the bottom and then it hit us that we climbed to the top and made it down, without dying. No one would recommend us to climb it; in fact they would highly discourage it. But, this is Honduras and we have fearless students who like to break the rules every once in a while.

At the bottom we dined on chicken sandwiches, plantain chips, cookies, and coke. We took lots of group pictures together so we could never forget this day or who we were with. We laughed about if Jake knew we climbed to the top of the waterfall because that was the one thing he told us not to do, or if Mr. Larra (the vice-principal at the Gracias school, the man who conducted our interviews and orientation, and one of the main directors for the whole school system) knew because he told us to never hang out with our students outside of school. We just loved the whole experience :) After lunch we hiked back out of the cornfield and then piled in the truck to be taken home. Thankfully there were no police stops this time. However, while dropping someone off, a man rode by on his horse and was shocked to see so many white people in one spot so he shouted “qué montón de gringos!” (That’s a ton of gringos!) We commended the students for taking such good care of us from driving us there and back, feeding us a good meal, and protecting us up and down that waterfall. It was a successful adventure!

Like the last post, praise God this week for the (safe) fun we have been able to have with our students. We know the whole-school-system rule that we shouldn’t hang out with students outside of class, but we have been blessed to live in such a small town that we can get away with it. In fact, here it is encouraged. We have been able to play with them, go on adventures with them, invite them over for dinners, and just spend time with them in any way outside of the classroom. We are building valuable relationships with these students and in all honesty, half of our fun comes from time with them.