Thanksgiving in Tegucigalpa

Originally we were only supposed to get Thursday and Friday off of Thanksgiving week, but I’m pretty sure God knew that we all desperately needed a solid break so he sent us another day off. The school in Tegucigalpa was holding a benefit concert for all the sponsor students and seeing as the majority of students on scholarship are in La Unión, we got to leave a day early to go be a part it.

Wednesday: Staying true to traveling in Honduras, we had some minor difficulties on our trip. Our initial plans were to have someone drive us in their truck to Santa Barbara where we would catch a direct bus to Seguatepeque to meet up with a private bus carrying all the teachers from Gracias. Oh how smooth of a trip it would have been if everything went according to this plan. Less than 100 yards after picking up the Brits from their house, so just on the outside of town, the truck started smoking profusely because the engine was overheating. There was absolutely no hope of us continuing on this way so we had to stand on the side of the road for about 45 minutes waiting for the next Santa Barbara bus to pass through. [Which also meant that consequently we missed the direct bus to Seguatepeque.] The bus that we caught is the one with all of its seats uncomfortably close together so even my short legs could not fit nicely in the space provided between each seat. Once we got to Santa Barbara we got on an over-crowded mini bus where we had to stand for the whole hour-and-a-half ride to Pito Solo.  Then we smashed into another mini bus, with some of us sitting on each others’ laps, which took us to Seguatepeque. There we finally met up with the teachers from Gracias, but our hopes for comfort were still not to be achieved. They left very little space for us in their bus so, again, we crowded in together and had to get creative with our seating arrangements to find any ounce of comfort. Cranky does not even begin to describe our moods that day.

When we got to the hotel our situation did not get any better when we were told that all of the girls, teachers and Gracias students, would have to share a room together – 24 girls living in a crowded room with bunk beds and only one bathroom. Oh, heck no. Although I am not proud to admit it, we may or may not have thrown a slight fit and begged Jake to get us our own room. Thankfully, he did. We instantly laid down for naps and felt infinitely better when we woke up! We had a spectacular dinner of Pizza Hut delivery and then got ready for the night. It was fun to finally have an excuse to look elegant and not feel like a total goober or completely impractical for wearing a dress. The concert was beautiful! The musical guests were an acoustic band of guitar players that took us on a journey through Central and South America by playing all the typical music of each country. There were also a few songs that included dancers performing the traditional dances. I am very certain that I would have enjoyed the concert much more if I hadn’t been past the point of exhaustion and falling asleep in my chair. Regardless, it was a fun night and I did not want to complain about getting that extra day off.

Thursday (Thanksgiving): We spent the morning getting a tour of the Teguc Abundant Life facilities; there is the headquarters for the whole system and we got to see how it all works. They showed us around their school and the health clinic. The school is beautiful with a covered play area, a cafeteria, a big auditorium, brightly decorated classrooms, and clean bathrooms! I had forgotten what a normal school came equipped with until we wandered around there. At the clinic, we were given the opportunity to get an eye exam instead of going on the tour of the whole place. Now, I did get an eye exam right before I left and my contacts are all up-to-date, but my glasses are not so I decided to get some new ones. The eye exam, frames, and lenses all cost me less than $50. That’s a deal even Black Friday can’t handle!

We ate lunch at an amazing Italian restaurant where we stuffed our faces with delicious homemade pizzas. Afterwards we switched hotels to a nicer place. This time Jake split us up in a more comfortable fashion – I shared a bed with Cassidy in a room with Harriet, Beth, and Lori. The beds were magically cozy, I took hot showers (although with a cockroach), not only did we get to watch tv but it was on a flat-screen, and we were in a quiet location. Hallelujah! We got to dress up again for another night of feeling fancy. Our Thanksgiving dinner was being hosted by a woman and her husband who do a lot of work for Abundant Life, so we drove about 40 minutes outside of Teguc to their house. This night made the entire trip worth it. Their house was stunningly beautiful, even by States standards. They had dinner on the porch out back and it was nicer than any Thanksgiving set-up I have ever been a part of! (No offense to my family or anyone else I have ever spent this holiday with). They did their research and served us a meal of turkey, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, a fruit and nut salad, and wine. For dessert we were delighted with pumpkin flan. Our spirits were so high all night! We were surrounded by good food and good company. That meal is one of my favorite memories of all us together. Everyone looked beautiful in their snazzy clothes, big smiles, and full bellies.

Friday: We started out the day going to a children’s museum which was a blast! It was a solid morning of letting our inner child out and just playing – and Lord knows that after all the time we spend with the little ones, we sure know how to be kids. We visited exhibits about machines (pulleys, radio, tv, catapults), equilibrium (inside a house that was sure to make you dizzy), the atmosphere (the flow of rivers, the water cycle, giant bubbles), the human body (the ear, nose, bones, organs, digestive system), humans through time, and energy (electricity, wind). The whole time I was laughing and having a ball, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to somehow get my students here! Unfortunately it is too far away… My favorite part was the human body exhibit because of how gross it was. Inside the ‘nose’ there were nasty hairs hanging from the ceiling and the nose would sneeze on you. You got to crawl through the digestive system ending through the poop shoot. There was a station of pushing buttons to learn about all the different fart noises (designed especially for little boys). You could learn all about why and how your stomach produces vomit. There was a room for dancing that showed the heat map of your body moving on the giant screen. And of course there was a large game of ‘Operation’ to play. Seriously, so much fun!

From there we went to lunch at a quaint café, but it was the worst part of the trip. We waited for two and a half hours to get our food. I will give the restaurant the fact that we were a large group of about 25 people wanting to eat BUT they knew we were coming, we were the only ones in the restaurant, and there were only three menu options for us to choose from (and each one came with the same soup so they could have at least started preparing that far in advance). I was tired, frustrated, and hungry. Everyone was tired, frustrated, and hungry. Not the best mood for lunch. By the time it was finally my turn to eat, it was only Beth, Kara, and myself who had not been served yet. Not only were we the last three but they also forgot to make one of our sandwiches so we had to split two meals amongst all of us. Then as if we were not feeling rejected enough, minutes after getting our food everyone else got up and walked out of the restaurant! We were not feeling the love at this restaurant.

Thankfully we got to let out all of our frustrations with our next activity: paintball. Here’s the good news folks – we may be living in a third world country, but Honduras has paintball! All of the La Unión teachers definitely wanted to play but almost no one else wanted to (they were just scared of our intensity). We managed to get together two teams to play: all of the La Unión girl teachers and Lenny, and then a team of Jake with 6 other teachers (a total of 5 guys and 2 girls) who bravely stepped up to play. We decided to go for La Unión versus the world. The first round the other team annihilated us, but that was the only mercy we showed them. Our team proceeded to dominate for the rest of the matches. Muahahaha, victory! That team of boys was entirely mad that we (a group of beastly girls) beat them, and beat them good. This may be a bold statement but that may have been the sweetest victory of all time! I guarantee that Jake will never choose to be on the other team again.

That night we were treated to Thai food, and it was quite the feast. It was definitely Thanksgiving weekend because we stuffed ourselves silly for almost every meal. There was too much good food to enjoy! The activity for the night was bowling but the La Unión teachers decided we were too tired and had already spent a good amount of money on paintballing, so we retreated back to the hotel. The girls got together for our regular Friday night tradition of watching “Downton Abbey” together. A few of the girls decided to make the night extra special by taking a taxi to McDonald’s and bringing back ice cream for everyone. I thought it was a great night! We pushed all the beds together in our room and snuggled under the blankets to watch our girly tv show and eat ice cream.

Saturday: Saturday was our day of shopping, so much shopping! In the morning we went to Valle de los Angeles (Valley of the Angels) which is a very touristy town. The place is very similar to Copán in that souvenirs are the primary things sold. In this town you are guaranteed not to be the only gringo walking around, or the only one speaking English. I did most of my souvenir and Honduran-gift shopping in Copán so I spent the majority of my time just walking around, enjoying the sun, and window shopping. At one stand I was looking at an assortment of jewelry trying to pick out something nice for my mom, sister, and stepmom (and have it be something that they genuinely like and would want to wear) and I said to the girl who was shopping with me, “This is when I wish I could just pick up the phone to call my family and ask them so I could be sure that they would like these!” The vendor looked at me and asked me if I wanted to use his phone to call them. I couldn’t believe it! He said that it wasn’t very expensive for him to call the States so I could use his minutes. First of all, he understood me when I said something in English. Second of all, he was offering his phone to me for no charge. What a guy! Unfortunately I only knew my sister’s phone number by heart and she didn’t answer, but it was the effort that counts. (In case you’re wondering, after that gesture I could not refuse the man so I made a purchase.)

From there we headed to a shopping mall. Curiously malls are a huge deal in Tegucigalpa and they are absolutely everywhere! And they’re not just ordinary, small malls, they are big malls. We picked one that had a Walmart in it. I never thought I would be so excited about going to a mall, but I had been anticipating this particular stop for months! With our shopping lists in hand, we hit the stores. Admittedly Walmart was not all it cracked up to be and it was underwhelming. I was picturing my neighborhood Walmart back home but this one was not as well-stocked. I did manage to buy a few arts and crafts supplies, decorations for my classroom, and special food items that I simply cannot find anywhere else in this country. Most of the time I wandered around staring at my list or staring at the signs with my mouth wide open trying to navigate the store and find everything. To say I was feeling frazzled would be an understatement. I spent most of my time in there so I had to speed-shop through the rest of the mall for anything else. A group of us girls bounced between a few of the clothing stores with a strong desire to spice up our “La Unión” wardrobe. It may not be practical to own nice things in our little town, but after getting the chance to dress up here we were inspired. I bought two new dresses and a skirt. Can you blame a girl for just wanting to look and feel pretty?

After shopping we got dinner at T.G.I.Friday’s but I have to admit, I did not like this meal. After all the delicious food we had been feasting on, this was greasy and fattening and just made my stomach turn after taking a few bites. I have become too used to homemade, fresh, non-processed foods I suppose. (But I am not complaining!) Then, as our last hoorah in Teguc, we went to the movie theaters. I don’t even know what movies are out in the States anymore because I am so isolated, but we could not resist the thrill of the cinema. Lucky for us 007 was playing! A lot of the girls, without hesitation, chose to see the new Twilight movie, but you could never convince me that that movie is a better choice than James Bond. I loved the movie! It was awesome! It ran in English with Spanish subtitles so I didn’t even have to struggle translating it to soak in all its awesomeness. I’m sure you all have seen it already, but we felt like we struck gold when we found out that movie was playing and we got to see it.

Sunday: All the fun had to end at some point and we had to head back to reality. We woke up nice and early to catch a bus that would start our long journey home. We left the hotel by 6:15 – even the continental breakfast wasn’t up and serving food! Interesting fact: a ‘continental breakfast’ here in Honduras does not consist of the same foods you would find at a hotel back home (which I may or may not have been severely disappointed to find out, but I should have known that). Instead we were treated to a breakfast of beans, plantains, (funky) cheese, tortillas, and eggs. Anyways, off we went. Remember how we started the journey with a little adventure because of our vehicles? Well, my story comes full circle: more bus problems. Thankfully this time it was just one, simple, minor problem. Jake was told that the direct bus from Tegucigalpa to Santa Barbara leaves every day at 7am. While this is true, there is one exception – on Sundays, the bus doesn’t leave until 8:30am. So we got there a little after 6:30 and had to wait almost 2 hours before our bus left… oops! However, once we did leave everything was smooth sailing and we made it back to La Unión just fine.

I am so thankful that we were given the opportunity to take this trip. It was also a huge blessing that the school paid for the majority of our trip – our hotel, all the good food, the transportation. It was nice to be treated to a weekend of ‘luxury’ after working so hard in our rural school. I got to see a different side to everyone; one of no worries, no school, and pure joy as we simply enjoyed each others’ company in everything that we did together. Thank the Lord for giving us this amazing trip together and re-energizing us for the final, long haul to Christmas. Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone!