Honorary Catracha

The biggest compliment I have ever gotten was from Noel's cousin (one of my favorites). We were arranging some get together, making a list of people who would attend and I semi sarcastically pointed out, "I'm the only white girl," to which he responded "But you're practically Honduran, you are our Honorary Catracha."

*Insert* me full of pride as I know just how proud all of these men are of their Honduran heritage.

To be Honduran is to be hard working, love your family, and be incredibly loyal to those you love. I guess I will take this Honorary Catracha title :)

 

4th of July 2009: Primos and I (they were at the Honduras soccer game in the afternoon)

My husband's huge family

 

The Dona of Noel's dad's side

When I am old I will wear purple...

 

So if your dad's mom had 9 kids and your mom's mom had 5 and each of them had between 3 and 6 kids how many cousins do you have?

That is how my relationship with Noel started out. Everywhere we went; dancing, eating, visiting, he would introduce me to his primos (cousins). I thought he was taking the translation non-literally, in that "we are all Honduran" sense of cousins. But noooo. They are ALL related, albeit with some second cousins. In the beginning I thought he was related to every Honduran in Seattle. Not quite, but most of them are from Tegucigalpa (capitol of Honduras) or Urrutias (his little home village).

I tried to map out a family tree on my first trip to meet the family, but an 8x10 paper was incredibly inadequate. Now when I meet any primo I ask "Which side are you a cousin from?" and "Who's son are you," as I primarily know the women's names.

Ironically, in such a large family Noel has just one blood brother. And one first cousin who he calls brother as they shared a house and bed for 10 years. Their sense of family is amazing, and humbling, as Noel calls his brothers every night, just to make sure they are okay.  To quote him "Who needs friends when you have family? Family will always stick up for you and you trust them. You never know what friends will do." Followed occassionally by choice words about how my friends are not good enough becauase they are not family. Oh hubby I am sooo sorry I don't have gazillions of primos to pick my friends from. I have one sister, she is great, but in this culture I am sure she doesn't want to know about allll parts of my life.

Oh, wait! Noel does have 1 friend. He has known him for his entire life, grew up in the little village, did all of school together and he lives in Seattle as well. One friend in 28 years! But 50+ primos to make up the difference.

My Life

I have a good friend with a blog, and as her many kids keep her hands too full to hold a phone it is nice to be able to check in on her blog to see how her life is going. I decided to do the same so my family and friends can keep abreast of what I am up to. But then I became a nurse and want to integrate stories of patients and how to not end up in the hospital. So I am still not sure where this blog will end up. Be patient with me okay :)

Me: The Basics
~In my 20s
~Married to a Honduran national, Noel, in April 2009
~Plan to move to Honduras permanently by 2016
~Born and raised in the Great Northwest, Seattle and around
~Nurse by profession
~LOVE Latin America and speaking Spanish
~My family is awesome, very united and supportive of my endeavors

So many areas, what to choose

So I am new to this whole blogging thing. I would like to have just one blog, but the areas of my life i would like to write about are all over the place. Yet to me they overlap and in the future will overlap even more.

What am I talking about you ask? Well, I am a nurse by profession. I am married to a wonderful man from Honduras. My husband has/had many issues with immigration here. We want to move back to Honduras to raise our kids and I am crossing my fingers that I can find a good job as a nurse down there. I have wanted to move out of the US since I was abut 13 years old. I don't hate the US or anything. I just feel so much more comfortable in Latin America. Some people think I am crazy for wanting to live in a place where the power goes off almost everyday. I love the importance of family and the more laidback lifestyle. It was when I traveled Latin America that I found myself and decided what to do with my life: improving health care in Latin America. I love my family here also, but I know they will come visit for extended trips. Honduras does have amazing beaches and food.  So I hope you can follow as these life roads of mine overlap. I hope that my experiences will be helpful or amusing to others.

Rebe

I'm a nurse!

I passed my nursing boards! Take that- NCLEX! And I never have to take it again. And I start work Monday, eek!

This is the first step, of many, to get us back to Honduras. I am still clueless how I will get a job as a nurse in Honduras. I don't have doubts about my ability to do it all in Spanish, but from what Noel tells me hospital nurses are not nice. I will likely need more training, like becoming a nurse practitioner, to get a nurse career in Honduras as Noel tells me there is only one type of nurse as opposed to our levels of ability here (nurse specialist, nurse manager, pediatric nurse, nurse practitioner). I would love to run a clinic . . . but first to master the basics