18 Oct
18Oct

Honduran life looks so much different than life at home. For one, I heard you all got snow this past week and I’m sitting at a tropical 81 degrees right now at 7am. After being in Honduras for a month now, I’m settling into life here, finding a routine, and trying my best to immerse myself into this new culture. Along with it comes spending more time than I’d like to admit thinking about home and the people there. So I thought I would put my thoughts to paper and share some of the similarities and differences of life in the States and life in Honduras. 

Jesus remains a constant in my life. One of the beauties of the Catholic church is that it is universal. The mass in the US is the same around the world. Due to covid, we are unable to make the 30 minute trek into Trujillo on Sundays for mass, and instead the Franciscan sisters here lead a communion service. Though it’s in Spanish and difficult to understand, Jesus is still fully present in the Eucharist and celebrating as a community on Sunday mornings is an essential part of the week just as it was back home.

The food here is different than at home. I eat a lot more rice and beans and desperately miss homemade baked goods. There are some delicious Honduran foods that I know I need to savor here as they won’t taste the same elsewhere. One is plantains cooked in the peel over the fagon (outdoor stove). They are soooo delicious. Another is the Honduran version of tacos. It begins with a layer of plantain chips, then has a Honduran version of pico de gallo, along with Honduran cheese and a sampling of some type of meat. Que rico. 

However, food that reminds me of home tastes amazing too. We’ve made homemade pizzas twice that are comparable to my mom’s, burgers using the beef we receive once a week, and fried chicken as a birthday treat for a missionary. We also had a special treat of homemade buns on day. It’s a long process to make them, but they tasted a bit like home. My food highlight for this week was buying a liter of whole milk. Cornflakes are so much better with real milk instead of the powdered stuff. Now I’m rationing it out to last me the 12 days until it expires.

The Finca relies a lot on donations for our food. Donations come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes are quite peculiar. Last week we each house was given a large box of lichas from a generous donor. Lichas are these weird spiky fruits that you peel and on the inside have a ball of jelly substance and a pit. Kind of strange, but quite delicious. On Thursday we were given a ton of bananas. I never knew bananas could be such an essential part of my diet, but I eat a lot of them now. I eat a banana with my oatmeal or cornflakes for breakfast, the green bananas we use to make tajadas (banana french fries of sorts), and the overripe mushy bananas we use to make banana smoothies, banana bread, and banana bars. We even had bananas in our soup one evening. 

It’s kind of like gardening and eating vegetables seasonally back home. I was eating green beans twice a day everyday all summer it seemed like because they just kept producing. And when you have loads of zucchini you start putting it in everything to use it up. Brownies are better without zucchini Mom… We are incredibly grateful for the donations we do receive and the generosity of our Honduran neighbors. They allow us to cut down our food costs and give generously to women in our food assistance program. One of the unexpected blessings of living in a third world country is the deep gratefulness that I have for food. Yes, sometimes it might not taste good or it seems kind of bland, but we always have food on the table. That isn't the case for a lot of people living around us. Some of them have to rely on the Finca for a monthly distribution of food because they have no other way to provide for their family. It's a common prayer said before our meals to bless the women in the food distribution program and all those who are going without food today. It's changed my perspective and made me a lot more appreciative for the food I do have.

Excited about our donation of lichas!

Game nights are as much a part of my life now as they are with my family. We’ve played numerous games of Rummikub, a plethora of card games, and tried our hand in a Trivia game yesterday. While at Casa 2 watching three middle-aged boys, we played a game of Monopoly that had combined an English and Spanish game set. I got to try my hand at translating things like, “You’ve won second prize in a beauty contest. Collect $10”. Casa 1, the oldest boys, love playing chess. I got creamed in my first attempt, so now it’s time to study up on the strategies of chess. Have no fear fam, I will keep my strategic mind sharp for when I can play a game of Pinochle or Chinese checkers again. 

As midwesterners are friendly so are Hondurans welcoming. When I met our director for the first time she greeted us all by knowing our names. I was taken aback that she had taken the time to remember our names off of a single picture that she had seen of each of us. Everywhere I walk around the Finca there are phrases like “Hola” and “Buenos Dias” thrown around. Whenever I walk past Casa 3, I’m overtaken by hugs from our younger girls. They also are such givers. They have a bush right along the road that we walk to our chapel and always come running out to greet us and give up the little pink flowers that grow on the bush. Because they give them away so often, they are rarely left with any of the beauty for themselves in their yard. We recently celebrated a birthday of one of the girls in Casa 3 and that night after I played with the kids at the playground they insisted that I come in for a surprise. It turned out to be a pretty good surprise too...a cupcake! Everybody here, especially the girls in Casa 3, have shown such great love through their actions and have made me feel like part of the Finca community here. 

I’ve never been good at starting fires and can’t recall a time where I successfully did so on my own. After taking an outdoor skills class in middle school and learning from my dad numerous times on camping trips and backyard bonfires, I still can’t start a fire. I can tell you the mechanics, but cannot execute them. 

A few summers ago some friends and I went on a camping trip and brought with us all sorts of delicious food to roast over a fire. We went on this camping trip prepared with plenty of paper and propane to help us kick start the fire. As luck would have it, we could not get our fire going on the first night. We tried and tried and finally had enough hunger pains to ask the neighbors to help us out. Those friendly folk helped us get a fire going for the evening long enough to cook our pizza pies. 

Saturday nights are community cooking nights where our missionary community makes a meal together. Last Saturday, pizza was on the menu. I signed up to be in charge of the horno, or outdoor oven, along with an older missionary who could teach me some tips and tricks. We weren’t off to a great start when we had to scavenge through our pile of wood to find some that wasn’t too wet. With a lot of kindling, paper, and cardboard, we got the fire going, but couldn’t get the logs to catch on fire. After quite some time, Adam went to collect some drier wood from the wood shed and left me and some other missionaries in charge of keeping the fire going. While he was gone we fed the fire oxygen. On one occasion I blew a big gust onto the fire and immediately breathed in a gulp of smoke causing me to have a somewhat exaggerated coughing fit. 

I believe our lovely neighbors, the head of maintenance and his family, had been watching and decided to take action after hearing my coughing fit. Candace, the mom, came on over with her little daughter Isabella and a pipe. She instructed us on how to use the pipe to blow on the fire without having to be so close. Then she noticed that our wood wasn’t catching on fire and went to retrieve some short, dry logs from her pile. She went right to work making us a roaring fire as we chatted with her husband and their two kids. Shortly thereafter, we had a roaring fire and Adam returned carrying a bundle of dry wood that we no longer needed. I think we were fully capable of getting the fire started, but a little help from our Honduran neighbors never hurt. Moral of the story: I still haven’t started a fire, but know who to go to when I need assistance. I can hear it now: “Candace, puede ayudarme con el fuego por favor?”

Our outdoor horno where we have made pizza, buns, banana cake, yucha bread and more!

Just like at home, I have chores and responsibilities here. One of those chores is raking the front section of our home weekly. I love our massive trees here which give us wonderful shade and beauty, but they drop a lot of leaves. My first time raking was not very pleasant, in fact, I would compare it to stacking straw; my least favorite farm activity. Stacking straw always seems to occur on the hottest summer afternoons when a slight breeze is never to be found, especially not inside the barn. The straw is itchy and clings to your sweaty body and the only good part is taking a cold shower when you’re done. 

Raking is very similar here. Though I started at 6 in the morning, the day was already plenty hot. The beginning was somewhat pleasant. I listened to my Blessed is She podcast as I methodically raked multiple piles of leaves. I even took a break to eat my standard oatmeal breakfast and drink some water. I returned to my piles with a tarp ready to finish up my work and move on to washing clothes for the day. I raked my piles onto the tarp and hauled them off to our leaf hill located behind the house. While creating a pile I interrupted an ant mound and the angry ants came out in droves infiltrating my pile of leaves. As I raked up that pile, the ants took out their anger on my helpless feet biting under the sandal straps and climbing up my legs. I must have looked like quite a sight crushing ants all over my feet. As fast as possible, I carried the tarp full of leaves and ants behind the house. Unfortunately I was not quick enough and the ants made their way up the tarp and onto my hands and arms relentlessly taking revenge. I just hope they have a short memory and will have forgotten when I come back next week. 

The good thing about straw is you only have to do it a few times a summer and when you finish, you don’t have to worry about it until the next year. Raking is not like that. The front yard will be my beloved raking area all year long. Yippee. On the plus side cold showers are our only option here and they feel really good after raking.

Life here in Honduras has its similarities to life at home and some drastic differences (like living next to an ocean and speaking broken Spanish throughout the day). Overall it’s wonderful. The people are wonderful, the food is delicious, and the Lord is present. If along with all that good comes some difficulties in the form of ant hills and wet wood then so be it, because life here in Honduras is beautiful.




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