¡First Visitors!

Well I had a blast with my first visitors- Mom and Kathy. It was their first time out of the United States (nobody counts Canada) and that is always a special thing. Everything is different, your senses are being overloaded with new images and information and your eyes and brain just fight to keep pace. So of course I had to take them somewhere familiar to calm their nerves, so their first meal in Honduras was at…Burger King. Not their choice, really, but I only get a “good” hamburger about every six months so they just had to deal with it. Hearing about something is never the same as actually experiencing it and when we got on the road they had to fall asleep or die of worry- people tend to drive fast here and pass on corners and such. The double yellow means two points for the pass instead of one or zero that you’d get for solid or dashed.

They were quite a hit with the neighbors, children and adults alike, and probably haven’t been told how young and beautiful they were (seriously, by everybody everywhere we went) since their high school glory days.

I think they would probably say the highlight of their trip was the next morning at the school, where they played the role of rock-stars with cameras taking pictures of everyone. They joined us at baseball practice and even brought some new equipment. We thought the new bats would be the biggest hit but we underestimated 12 year old boys. The protective cups were by far the most popular, with kids trying them on in turn and then smashing their privates on the closest pole, tree, or bat was at hand. The young ladies on the team just sat around amused.

After practice the visitors were so tired they decided they needed a nap while I headed off to give a class to the teachers. Just when they were about to drift off, they heard a banging on the gate followed by “Señora Debora, Señora Kathy…” Little did they know that the neighborhood kids had planned a mango tasting. The kids all got mangos and then flavored them up with lime juice and chili peppers. The custom here, though, is to eat the mangos when they’re still green, so these mangos had some kick. Our two distinguished visitors put on their best “oh yeah, I really do like it” face and ate sour mangos until they could come up with a good excuse to stop (remember, since I’m not at home, all the communication is done by charades because Mom and Kathy don’t speak Spanish). Apparently they also did some dances, had a fake beauty pageant using my mosquito net as the gown, and taught the kids the “hokey pokey” (just what I need!).

Next, we headed off to the Mayan Ruins where mom’s cane didn’t stop her from climbing to the top of every last pyramid and building in the archeological park. We ate good food and established our routine of the ladies going to bed around nine and Kyler heading out on the town at about the same time, always reuniting for breakfast the next morning- this wonderful routine continued the rest of the trip.

Roatan, the largest of the Bay Islands, was our last and most luxurious leg of the trip. It is a different world from mainland Honduras, in many ways. The people speak English (with a wonderful English accent), and the locals are a mixture of English, Black, and Latino, just to name a few. The islands were a stronghold of the popular pirate Captain Henry Morgan, whom I’m sure you remember from history class and nothing else. We stayed at a nice resort where the reality TV show Temptation Island was filmed. We had a nice house with a/c and an empty stretch of beach to play on. We pretty much just wound down the trip eating at all the nice restaurants and relaxing on the beach, exactly what we all needed.

I think the job of my future could be Honduran tour guide: I point out all the stuff and take care of the logistics, you pay from my room on the beach and yummy food. Any takers?

Thanks to Darcy and friends for the donated soccer gear, the kids will love it.

Happy Mother’s day Mom (and all other moms)

Kyler