Travesia Montecristo Bike Tour

Two days and almost 100 kilometers of rolling Central American hills. Two crappy Bacini bikes—it’s the Guatemalan brand, and the only two bike stores in Copán carry only these bikes. Two sizes fit all—children’s and adults’. The grips tore up our hands, our brakes, seats, headsets, and gears fell apart, but we made it—Copan, Honduras to Esquipulas, Guatemala, then on to Ocotopeque, Honduras.

Lucky Week

Clogged toilet #2 is finally unclogged! Over two weeks after clogging it, Therese and I finally broke down and, at great cost to our personal self-esteems, asked our landlady to help us. Not only did she find a plumber to unclog it for us (a mysterious stick was blocking the pipe--I wonder whose fault that was...), but she gave us about ten pounds of oranges from her son's farm. One particular mutant orange is pictured at left. It must have been a good luck charm.

Under the auspices of the magical mutant orange, much good has come into this world: Obama was elected president. A suitor finally found Wayne becoming enough to pay the freaking dowry--$3500--and take my bastard child away from me. (Wayne was my car). Therese and I received two packages on the same day! We now have in our possession: three bags of nuts, two pounds of couscous, two jars of molasses, Tasty Bite times four, six times Ghiradelli chocolate bars (the nine-inchers, no less), herb seeds, and more! Alas, the tahini didn't make it--greasy tahini mess decorated both of our packages, which had been too close together during shipping. Sorry to whomever else had a greasy mess of a package because of my tahini. Know that its loss pained me more than a simple splotch of grease on your silly package could possibly have pained you.

Enjoy the pictures! Therese went nuts and made all kinds of festive election-party paraphanalia--it made for a much more entertaining evening. The other folks are teachers at Mayatan, as well.

Mayatan Students

Here are some photos of my students at Mayatan! I would love to tell you all about them, but I think I might be breaking some law if I associate names with pictures of people who haven't necessarily given me permission to use their image online. If you want to know more, just talk to me on Skype sometime. Other than that, enjoy the pictures--my students are as fun as they look!

I am a crappy blogger.

I'm a little uncommitted to blogging, and I realize that's making the whole process more difficult for both of us. To make sure I blog something, I've decided just to document what's going on in life. And what's going on right now is...

Stinky! 6 days without running water and counting. Of course, that's an exaggeration, because the first 4 of those days we had water from our tank. That doesn't mean our toilets worked, though. We've been looking up Spanish words for "clogged" and "drano" to try and solve this problem.

Strangely, the toilets are not the stinkiest part of the house. I've ranked the stench, in order:

5. Laundry. A week's worth. I forgot to allow my socks to dry after walking around town in the rivers that form during a hard rain. They are somewhere at the bottom of the pile, and their scent has infused the whole lot.

4. Toilet #1. Toilet #1 serves purpose #1. Flush capacity rating: 4 out of ten.

3. Shoes. Used to cross rivers formed in cobblestone streets during heavy rain. I once said, Thank goodness the rain seems to wash the animal poo off of these streets. Unpleasant thought if you get too close to the washing. Sitting in a cool, dank corner of the house to dry off didn't improve my shoes' chances of surviving this one.

2. Toilet #2. I'll spare you any detailed description or overly-explicit imagery. Flush capacity rating: -1 out of ten.

1. Air Freshener. Like trying to fix a broken leg with tylenol.

Independence Day Parades

September 15th is Independence Day here in Honduras. On the mornings of the 13th, 14th, and 15th there are parades in which the children at the local schools march. As a sixth-grade teacher, I supervised my students marching in the parade on the 14th. I certainly wasn't marching--my task was more what my Texan coworker compared to herding cattle. We walked alongside; the kids were the show.

Check out the new slideshow. The first 5-10 pictures are my students' parade. The rest are from the 15th, when the older kids marched. Their costumes and performances were a little fancier.

Phone Number

Call me! 011-405-98.67.81.44

Arrived!

I made it to Copan! First, I would like to show a few pictures of my new house. It is over-extensively documented; hopefully I can comment on a few that might seem strange otherwise.

Enjoy!