The end of Karla's visit :(

Karla's time here was really special for me, because she is American.  I understood her Spanish better, even with her thick Boston accent.  For the first time in a while, I wasn't the only person who didn't fully understand the jokes of Honduras (they stand around and tell a lot of jokes all day).  And the best part, we cooked American meals every day!  As American as they could be with Honduran ingredients.  For example, on Friday night we prepared spaghetti and garlic bread.  In America we could have made the pasta sauce from scratch, but here we settled for Ragu sauce that we found in the giant grocery store, and we added our own ingredients like onion and pepper.  Also here, they don't really eat bread the way we do.  They don't have loaves of garlic bread, or french bread; my town doesn't even sell regular wheat bread for sandwiches.  In Honduras, people eat all different kinds of sweet breads and cookies with their coffee, and they eat corn tortillas three times a day with every meal.  So my family was really confused when Karla and I served spaghetti and sauce with garlic bread, and no tortillas....

Stirring the Ragu sauce...

This is Honduran garlic bread.  A bunch of slices come in a bag and no one really knows from where or how old they are.

Supper is almost ready!

On Saturday morning, I went into Santa Barbara with Karla and my host-brother Edwin to run a few errands.  Because Edwin goes to the university in the capital, he was not home the first few days of Karla's visit and got to request a last American meal.  Of course he requested steak, so we had to go buy the food.  We ended up eating lunch in town and each ate a Baleada Especial.  Baleadas are big flour tortillas, the kind we are used to in America, and they are filled with egg, refried beans, avocado, and mantequilla (a dairy product halfway in between butter and sour cream).  So they aren't very healthy and I won't be eating another for months.

Bigger than the plate!

Karla and Edwin

That afternoon I went out to Tierra Blanca with Karla, Omar, and Xiomara, but I will write a whole different post for that.  It was a very interesting adventure...  When we got back, my three brothers hopped in the truck and we went to Santa Barbara for a family dinner.  It is funny how different going out to dinner is in Honduras than in America.  Normally people think of going to a restaurant and sitting down.  We sat on cement steps by a lady who makes tortillas at her stand on the side of the road.  But it was really fun, and we knew her tortillas would be good because she catered my host-grandfather's birthday party.  I didn't think to take pictures during dinner, but we took a nice walk around the park after we ate.  On the drive home, Karla and I sat in the paila with the boys even though there was room for us in the truck.  It was freezing, but we just huddled together, told jokes, and looked at the stars.

My family: Edwin, David, me, Omar, Xiomara, Manuel

At the fountain

:)

We couldn't get a picture of everyone in the back of the truck...

Me and my brothers!

On Sunday, we cooked all morning in order to have a big steak lunch before Edwin returned to the university.  But in the afternoon, we had a graduation and a birthday party to attend.  The graduation was for the kinder, which is a school just for kindergarten.  My little host-cousin was graduating, and I was assigned the job of doing her hair at 1 before the mass at 2.  I don't know how many of you have specially done the hair of a six year old, but it is not easy.  Mirita moved a lot and kept touching her hair which made it fall, but in the end she loved it!  We went to the church at 2 because there was a mass before the ceremony, but of course it did not begin until 3pm and even then not everyone had arrived.  That made the ceremony in the town salon begin late, which made us late to the birthday party that began at 5.  In Honduran culture, everyone has god-parents, and at graduations (of all ages) the god-parents are recognized with the child and give a gift to their god-child.  For this reason, we had to stay for the whole ceremony because my host-parents had two god-children at the graduation.  When we finally made it to my host-cousin Cleisy's 9th birthday party, everyone had already eaten and the pinata was broken open, but we were in time for cake.  Since it was Karla's last night, everyone hung around talking until late.  I really felt like part of the whole extended family that night, especially when playing with the kids, because they just accept me freely and treat me like all of their other cousins.  I'm glad I have a big family here, since I'm used to my big family back at home!

The town salon during kinder graduation.

Haha this little boy was throwing a grand fit for the entire first half of the graduation. 

Karla, Leti, Xiomara, Karla (my host-aunt) and me

Manuel climbing trees before he was yelled at to get down.  It is really different here because when I was little, we were practically encouraged to climb trees and get out our energy, but here they are yelled at for climbing trees because it is rude....

Most of the children at the party.  Haha the boy walking in front is Roger, my little-cousin, who always has a lot to say and did not feel like standing still for one photograph, as he loudly told us all.

My host-dad Omar playing a game with the kids.

The Christmas tree :)