Monday, March 8, 2010

Visita de Esha

Today, Maria told me that my son was coming to the clinic, and then laughed. I was very confused, and then realized she was talking about one of the twins. Sure enough, he came to the clinic, and it was a very nice reunion.
Esha is here now, which is wonderful. It's great having someone else in the dorm, being able to speak in English all day, and sharing my life here with someone from home. And, of course, it's just a lot of fun to hang out with her.
Two days ago, I gave the dorm a thorough cleaning in preparation for the people coming through. Tired and disgusting after the day, I was getting ready to take a shower, so I hung up the clean clothes I was going to wear. The pair of scrubs fell down, so I picked it up, and then a scorpion ran out from underneath. So that was terrifying. The worst was that, in my hysteria, I didn't see where it went. It's out there now, still on the loose, looking for vengeance...
Yesterday I made lunch for everyone--baked chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, cookies, and Janelle made salad. It was great eating some good old midwestern food again. And Ben brought me bacon from the city, so I cannot wait to consume that.
Esha came bearing gifts of candy and glasses, both of which are wonderful. Marmy, good work on the glasses--I love them!
Well, it's 10 now, so I'm off to get my Pepsi!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Back Again

As many of you who read this have reminded me several times, I have failed miserably at maintaining this blog, so this is my renewed attempt at writing in it.
I have now been back for about a month, which seems wild to me. I very quickly settled back into my routine, and it has been wonderful to start the project that was just in the preliminary stages during my first several months here.
In the past month, there have been several exciting events, including the opening of the new clinic in Concepcion, a trip to Tela, a city on the northern coast, and a trip to Costa del Sol in El Salvador (my skin is still healing from that sunburn). Those experience are pleasant memories and provide landmarks in my mind for the time that passes, but the most significant events to me are those that are seemingly commonplace here.
For example, I have now acquired the ability of making Daisy's twins laugh, just the same way that I can make Teddy laugh. They love being held in the air, "skydiving," and just being lightly tossed up. Today one of them cried every time I set him down or handed him off to someone else. Maria found it very amusing, and told me I'd just have hold him all day. It's so exciting watching them grow up--they're just starting to walk and have a few teeth.
I had another new experience today by eating a green mango. It was actually very good--it was more sour than a ripe one, and tougher, kind of the consistency of an apple. They're eaten like apples as well, with the skin on, just eating until you get to the center. It was a fun experience, eating green mangoes with the clinic staff in the preclinica room.
A couple days ago, I was drinking a soda out of a bag, and one of the doctors started laughing when he saw me. I asked him what was so funny, and he said, "you just look so Honduran right now! Gringas don't usually drink soda out of the bags." I guess that was a fulfillment of Maria's prediction that I would become Honduran.
Esha is coming to visit this weekend, which I'm very excited about. I'd love to find a way to go to Tela or something so that she can experience that aspect of Honduras as well, but I don't know if we'll be able to make it happen. Either way, though, it's going to be a great week.
It's a little weird being back to waking up to ants crawling all over me, or a spider on my neck (poor Happy, I threw him off my bed a couple nights ago because there was a big spider on him, but he's back now), and I thought that the lack of comfort would make it hard to be back, but I love it just as much, if not more, than I did before I was in the States for so long. Yes, there are difficult things, but coming back to life here was just wonderful. I just feel alive here.