Aren't we cute? My mom, Me, and Amanda (mother-in-law) in front of Inglesia de Los Dolores, Tegucigalpa. My mom always practicing her belly rubbing technique.
After about 1.5 years of marriage my parents took a trip to Honduras with me to meet Noel's family. It was amazing and I did not get too tired of translating Spanish to English and vice versa. We spent three days in the Comayaguela with the aunts and then 3 days in the village with the rest of the family. I knew by the first morning that it would go just fine because when I got up my mom was at the kitchen table with the neighbor boy (and Noel's godson) practicing her primitive Spanish and the neighbor girls were using all the English they know to ask my dad "What's your favorite______?"
The major difference between the city and the village is their city neighborhood is not safe at any hour for white people to walk around. While it is not likely anything would have happened to us (people were generally surprised to see us and don't think they could have come up with a kidnapping plan very fast, please note some sarcasm in this comment) we had to have a chaperone when in Brisas or when going to the market. Plus my Dad is huge compared to majority of Honduran men, they don't know that he isn't that intimidating :) Amanda did decide it was okay for us to take the bus. We were never on it for more than 10 minutes and for the most part no one paid attention to us. Compared to the city we are free in the village. At any hour we can walk around by ourselves and will likely gather "holas" from every house we pass. I woke up the first day in the village to learn Mom had left on her daily walk awhile ago. She walked the length of the village and was joined by Noel's half brother when she passed his dad's store. Here are Noel's Dad and I.
Our real concerns the whole time revolved around the rain. My dad said it rained harder than he had seen anywhere in all of his 60 years! Everyone commented that this is a particularly wet year with the rain starting around noon almost every day. Mom and Dad were disappointed that the rain is not warm like in Hawaii. Mom learned this after the rain started while we went to an internet cafe. It rained so hard a car alarm outside went off continuously. After 20 minutes our patience (and our bladders) gave up. Armed with umbrellas we waded the 6 blocks back home! Luckily my parents were smart and brought Dominoes, "pigs" and cards so we were not stuck watching telenovelas indoors all day long.
The rain was an issue on our trip to the village as well. Based on Amanda and Eric (our chaffeur and Noel's cousin) left for the village in a hurry, skipping the bank (we had like $20 in lempiras) because if it rains hard enough the river we have to cross to get to the vilalge overflows and you can't get there. The 2.5 hour drive was punctuated with many comments revolving around the degree to which it was raining.
"Solamente son brisas" - it's just light rain
"Corre Eric corre rapidito" - Run Eric run fast (said in relation to driving faster)
"Que llovidera!" - What a rainstorm! (This was a new word for me as it never rained this hard my first two trips to Honduras)
This is the rain from Aunt Yolanda's porch in the village. We were pleasantly 'stranded' (albiet two houses from home) and had to stay to a lovely lunch.
In the village we took a walk up to La Loma, a beautiful viewpioint a few blocks above the village where you can see the whole valley. Noel says there are about 500 hundred homes in the village, I contest this as you can't see more than 100 from La Loma. Overall everyone agrees that there are at least 250 homes.
And this is what Dad did on vacation. Even if he didn't speak a lick of Spanish he is quite fluent in 'boy' and 'sports' so he set about to convert the village boys to baseball. All the equipment he took down took up half of a suitcase! At any given time he was surrounded by little boys, who would also stop by the house looking for him!
Honesty every trip to Honduras to visit Noel's family is soo satisfying to one's heart. We all had a big heart to heart the last night about how even though the aunts and Amanda just met my parents they already feel like family. What is hard is to have their boys so far away without the possibility of visiting. It is heartbreaking, but more on that a different time. To end, here is Mabocha, mother to 8, grandmother to 40+, greatgrandmother to ???? and one little half white half brown one on the way.
