Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Home Sweet Home

Sorry if this title was deceiving; I am NOT back home in Texas.  But some other teachers and friends and I are working on a project that will redefine the word "home" for a family here in Roatan.  My roomie, friend, and fellow teacher, Harrison, is going on his second year here in Roatan.  Last year he and the other teachers established a relationship with a family here on the island.  Two of the daughters sell doughnuts on the streets of Los Fuertes, a small, poor town here, and that is actually how they came to meet the teachers.

This family has a very modest and suppressed means of survival.  There are a total of 8 children and two parents living together.  They also take care of another young teenage girl and her infant son.  In total eleven people live under one small roof.  The roof has numerous holes, the walls are made of mud, sticks and a hodgepodge of scrap wood, and the floor is the earth that it sits on.  A while back the father approached Harrison asking for help getting money and resources to lay cement on the ground, cuz every bit of rain (especially during hurricane season) washes out the floor of their house.  Through prayer and sharing this request with others God has made it possible for this family to receive a great deal more than cement. We have entitled our fundraising efforts, in fact, "More than Cement."  It is an awesome surpirse and blessing for this humble and caring family.


Front entrance

Under one roof.

The mother on the right excited at the prospect of a new house



In the kitchen.

Running around the house

We are partnering with an organization called Dwellings.  This organization acts as an intermediary to help raise funds, gather resources, and recruit people to give needy and deserving families a safe and functional place to live.  Our goal is to raise $9,500.  The littlest bit can help immensely.  If 475 people each gave just $20, that would cover our goal.  Below is the link for making donations.    Through that link you can also find info about Dwellings.  Feel free to holler at me if you have any questions.  We don't have an exact date for breaking ground on construction, but it should be somewhere around late February or early March when we begin if you or a group or someone you know want's to help build with us!




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Monday, November 1, 2010

Sic 'Em!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's to all my boys in Green and Gold.  I enjoyed listening to the radio coverage online while watchin ESPN Gamecast.  Thank you Jeff Richards for showing me the light. 

Oklahoma State, we have you in our sights..... 
up the middle...all day baby

RG Me
Cheat with the facemask if you must; we will still prevail!

:')

yes sir.

21 hours o' fun.

After our successful Mayan time machine adventure and the most legit platano-relleno lunch I’ve ever experienced, we made our way to find the horses. My horse had the same name as another horse so I gave him a new name: Snickerdoodle. Seemed like an appropriate horse name; just like "Scribbles" fits as a name for a cat. The stirrups on my horse were cupped and not open, so the front half of my foot was enclosed. Problem: I was wearing chaco’s and the inside of the stirrup was rubbing on my toes like crazy.  I was about ot put the picture on here but opted against it for all of you with a weak stomach.



Harry's tacitos at lunch....insufficient.


"Lemme lemme upgrade ya!"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jubz1Ini-o



We crossed the river and went to the top of this mountain where ancestors to the Mayans still live. My horse was a wee bit older than the rest and felt much more comfortable in the back of the pack. He needed a good kick just to get in a trot thought : /. Not much kickin going on with my chaco heels and throbbing toes. Eventually I asked one of the guides for his lanyard whip and that got Snickerdoodle’s attention. On the way back down I finally got him to pass the other horses (which felt like passing a car in a close knit Nascar race since the girls weren’t aware I was trying to pass and thus spanned the width of the trail). With the whip in hand I got him galloping, but I ended up whipping myself in the arm. I didn’t even feel it since all of the nerve endings in my toes were drawing a lot of my brain’s attention, but I had a nice little mark on my arm afterwards. Galloping was so freaking refreshing and trotting the whole time. Tear em lose and soak up the wind and rain….and dodge the low banches.


At First it was cute, and then you get swarmed by little children shoving decorated corn husks in your face.  "Compreme, veinte."



After disembarking my entre-piernas from the saddle of wood giving a brief knot tying lesson to the caballeros tying up the horses, we walked through some incredible rain back to the hostel and took some equally incredible showers. The water didn’t work the first night, so this was much better than retrieving bowls of water from a cistern to wash our feet. Harry, Kelly, and I went to go buy everyone’s bus tickets for the next day, so we were walking around with pockets full of passports and lempiras. A little unnerving at first. The bus station was closed so we decided to walk around and grab some street food. We met some other Americans and started walkin back to find the rest of the crew. We ran into them in the street (small town style) and commenced the night from there with a couple bars, watching performers try to sing English songs, and pretending to be Pirates with some local sugar cane rum. Arrrrrggg.

I walked around with Jess for a bit and almost fell asleep in the middle of the plaza (kinda like John fell asleep in front of the church during the Garifuna festival)

This is John; he sleeps anywhere.

After getting jolted up by Harry and John sneaking (“sneaking”) up on us, I got my second wind and made a pact with Jess and John that would stay up all night until our 5:15am bus. I was starting to struggle around 12:30am when it looked like our options to entertain ourselves were dwindling. I started to ask a tuk-tuk taxi driver how much he would charge for ME to drive his taxi. I thought he would budge, but to no avail. He then asked if we wanted to go to the discoteca…………DISCOTECA?!? We couldn’t even fathom how there could possibly be a discoteca in a city like Copan. That be like finding a rave party in Edna, TX or Backwoods, Alabama or Lincon, NE or Glacier Park, MT or Stillwater, OK. We doubted his use of the word “discoteca” but decided to let him take us there. He flew down the bumpy cobble stones in his three-wheeled beast! John and I high-fived each other reaching over the roof- we’re so cool. We pull up to the discoteca where it is clearly marked:


(Discotecta)


We begin to walk in and are told about a cover- 200Limps?! It’s only $10, but relative to everything else it is robbery. We ended up getting in for a little less and walked in to a dead bar. We were so drained emotionally after realizing this. We had been had!..or had we? I walk over to a discreet speakeasy-ish door and open it up and I think my hair blew back from the sound waves and energy that came from inside. The biggest smile came over my face as I rushed over to my P.I.C.’s and told them (almost out of breathe), “so…many…people!” They both, in unison, said, “No waaaay.” in a very dubious tone. Sho ‘nuff we walk to my secret entrance and find a dark basement area with brief glances of a faces and bodies moving as the disco lights hit them. We weave our way to the middle of the crowd and start gettin it crunk.





We ended up meeting the Americans that we saw earlier and partied it up with them the rest of the night and ended up sneaking into a pool. I found a little hatch and climbed down it (at 3am, mind you) and found a myriad of switches and levers for the pool pumps. I flip one switch and the pumps start flowin. I then turned on the heater and we were good to go. We swam around in our clothes for a while but had to leave before the water got even close to hot…shucks. We began our sopping wet and delirious trek back to the hotel and tried not to wake everyone up. As soon as we got back, the tiredness dropped on us like a 100lb blanket and John and I passed out sitting in chairs with our head on the table. We woke up 15 minutes later to the sound of everyone getting ready to leave- we packed up in 20 seconds and left for the bus.


Classic way to end the night.  Arrested for serenading at some hostel at 3am.

Gettin ready to charge.