Back to reality after a week of tropical paradise!

Well, I am forcing myself to update this for my last 25 minutes in this internet cafe because I haven´t for a while and I keep getting distracted by other emails and facebook! Since my last update I was able to recover from my sickness and gain some of my strength back, and some of my weight.. those of us who stayed back, me, another student, our leader and her daughter, then met up with the rest of the group after two days of traveling.

We all headed to the tropical island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras for 5 days for our spring break. It was long awaited and much needed. Our little island cabins were right on the beach, looking over clear water of different shades of blue and white sand! It was gorgeous and so were the sunsets. I did some snorkeling for the first time ever in the coral reefs there and saw some amazing fish with unique shapes and brilliant colors. It was neat to discover another part of God´s wonderful and mysterious creation, although sometimes it was kinda scary because you never knew if there was a baracuda or small shark lurking up behind you! HA!

After that time was up the entire group split up into smaller groups of 3-5 people for a week of free travel. We are allowed to go basically whereever we want in Central America for this week as long as our budget of $50 US dollars a day allows for it. The point is to travel around on our own and learn how to cross borders and find buses and hotels etc while also exploring the countries we visit and learning more about their history and culture.

My group of 4 others (we have 3 of the 4 males in our group.. added security and protection) headed to a neighboring island, Utila, for the first 3 days. It was nice to make a smoother transition and not have to deal with any border crossings or taxis or anything right away. The morning we caught a ferry to that island from the mainland I was kind of hungry because we hadn´t really gotten breakfast. I said to one of my group members that I was craving a cinnamon roll. After a few minutes I started to think that I smelled one. I turned around and much to my surprise the Israeli young woman behind me was eating a cinnamon roll! I was shocked. I asked her where she got it and she said in the cafe in the building across the street. So naturally I ran over there and bought myself a cinnamon roll for less than a dollar.. it was so worth it. God really does answer prayers.

The pace of life on the island was very CHILL.. no agendas, nowhere to go, nothin to do but chill. There were lots of other tourists and Australians with sweet accents who are there for a few weeks or months to learn how to scuba dive. One day we rented bicycles and toured around most of the island.. that was a new experience for certain muscles I hadn't used in a while. Let´s suffice it to say it´s still a little tender when I sit down on hard chairs. : ) Living on this $50 budget has been a fun thing, because it forces us to watch our money and it´s fun to try and save so we can walk away with some extra cash! Yesterday we bought pancake mix and made our own breakfast for $1.50 each and then also bought mac and cheese and baked beans and fruit for lunch and all ate for about $2.50 per person! It was a day of great savings!

This morning we got up at 5:00 and boarded the ferry back to the mainland by 6. We are staying in the city of La Ceiba, Honduras for today, catching up on some homework and possibly exploring a nearby waterfall this afternoon. I think w´re splurging on some pizza hut for lunch too! Yum. Then tomorrow we travel by bus (I´m not sure how early, possibly at 3 am!) to the capital of Tegucigalpa where we will stay for two days. We are hoping to get to a soccer game tomorrow which is why the bus ride might have to be really early. We´ll visit a national park there and some historic sites and then continue our travel by bus to Nicaragua´s capital of Managua in two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) which is when we need to meet up with the rest of the group.

I was a little anxious about traveling on our own without leaders for this week but I have felt fairly safe and confident so far. I trust the guys in our group to protect us and figure out a lot of the details.. Hopefully all of the other group members are safe and will arrive on time and in one piece to Nicaragua on Wednesday. The only time I felt threatened so far was when I almost ran into a huge spider web containing the biggest spider that maybe I've seen in my whole life. It was a close one!

Well, my time is almost up.. this is the cheapest internet cafe I have found yet so I was very productive on it today! Again, I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. We only have about 27 days left.. not that I´m counting or anxious to get home or anything.. haha. I can´t upload pictures right now of my tropical paradise vacations but just know that it was beautiful and you would probably be jealous! Hope all is well whereever you are this fine day.

Until next time,
Linds

Surprise! Some pictures!

So being sick has its advantages sometimes.. I was able to get some pictures uploaded since the doctor didn´t want me traveling with the group to Honduras today.. Here´s a few from our weekend trip and then our service week in the mountains. Enjoy!

Keepin it real during our Clausura - or final presentation - for our Spanish class.

We thought it´d be cute to take a friend picture under the sign : )

Dad, doesn´t it look like they had a mold of this and then just poured foam in? I thought so..

We didn´t seat on the monuments..

Here´s me, standing in front of a really huge ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

And here´s me, squishing a really small ancient Mayan temple in Tikal.

My friend and I, we´re silly. (And we miss KT Rod)

Look at the pretty sunset from our hotel in Flores!

My host brothers during our Community Learning week in Alta Vera Paz - from front to back: Roberto (3yrs), Pedro (9yrs), and Oscar (5 yrs).

A view of the valley of Semesche (town in Alta Vera Paz where we served for a week).

Lisa! Here´s the steps your cross cultural helped build 3 years ago in front of the Mennonite church in Semesche.

If you look to the right of the big mountain on the left, you can see the Mennonite church way in the distance. This particular day we hiked from beyond that church back there, to where I am standing, to fill bags with dirt for planting trees. Everything is hills and mountains, at high altitudes, so the hiking is not easy!

Here´s a view of my host house from the road. It´s pretty hard to see but it´s towards the upper left corner. The fields and pond belong to my host family I believe. The two really tiny buildings in front of the house are the outhouses..

Here´s the bedroom room.. the family put up a curtain for us to sleep behind (and change behind). We sat all our bags on that table in the middle. There´s corn hanging from the rafters and then also an upper level over half the house where they store all their other corn. The floors were dirt and you can see from the walls it´s just wooden boards with lots of cracks for the cold to get in.

This is the kitchen and dining room and parent´s bedroom. We all sat around that fire in the mornings and evenings to warm up and to watch the women make tortillas (and we helped too).

A cute picture of my host brother Roberto... always had a runny nose :

I let the bed bugs bite... oops!

Well, in my last post I asked for prayers that there wouldn´t be foreign critters because I didn´t think I could survive that.. and surprisingly, the critters were not a problem (except the bed bug bites that I have all over my legs). However, if you combine everything else.. the food, the altitude, the strenuous physical activity, the cold, the wet... unfortunately I wasn´t able to survive all of that. I am back at CASAS for our day of ´recouping´ and I am not in very good condition. I contracted a cold on Wednesday during the week and it only got worse from there. I don´t think I´ve ever felt this sick or weak in my entire life.

Let´s start where I left off last time.. our group left for the weekend to go to Flores/Tikal to see the Mayan ruins and relax for 2 days. The ruins were incredible. It´s amazing all that you can learn about a civilization based on structures that are still standing from their time. I wonder what will be around years from now when we´re all long gone? Hmm.. The hotel and the two buffet meals we had there were wonderful. Our hotel was also on a lake front so we got to go swimming and enjoy a really pretty sunset. It was almost torture having such a luxurious weekend before a tough week, but it was needed.

So Monday the majority of our group headed out to the town of Semesche in Alta Verapaz for our community learning week. It was a rainy and cold day, so our spirits weren´t very high to begin with. We were loaded into the back of a cattle truck with all our stuff and set out on an hour ride through the streets of Coban and up into the mountains where the roads are hardly roads (Dad, remember the infamous station wagon story on that ATV trail? This is the kind of terrain I´m talkin about). We were given our cortes (traditional skirts which are basically 8 yrds of fabric strung on a rope) and then introduced to our host families. I was happy to be put with 3 other girls but unfortunately our house was one of the farthest away and hardest to get to! We hiked there in our rubber boots (the missionary couple helping us with this project provided boots for all of us which came in handy) and felt like we had stepped into a National Geographic Documentary. The area was gorgeous. Mountains and hills everywhere with little tiny houses and farms in the most obscure places. The view from our latrine at night was to die for! HA!

Our house was made our of wooden boards so there was no such thing as insulation. There were two rooms, a kitchen and eating room and then the sleeping room. We were given two beds for the four of us which was fine because we kept warmer sleeping two to a bed. The beds are hardly beds, but rather wooden boards that you lay your sleeping bag on. This means sore hip bones if you try to sleep on your side, and not much sleep for the weary.

All the meals were basically the same.. tortillas, beans, sometimes rice, more beans, cabbage, tortillas FILLED with beans, or something called CALDO (which we all hate now) which is spicy broth with cabbage and a chunk of meat. After the first two and a half days the food wasn't really appetizing to me, and I could hardly handle all the spicyness. I missed the bland Mennonite casseroles I am used to. I didn't really eat that much eat time we had a meal, which was not a good start to the decline in my health.

One of the other factors I mentioned was the cold and wet.. Monday was the worst because it rained. After that it cleared up and the days were mostly sunny but the nights were cold. I don't handle the cold well so I think that's what started my stuffy nose and cough. Tuesday night I had a coughing spell from 3-4 am and woke up with a pretty congested head. On top of all that, we were at a very high altitude and that gave me problems with my breathing. We would have to hike every single day, up very steep hillsides and on muddy roads and sometimes I felt like all I was ever doing was walking. It took a toll on my body. I would have to stop to catch my breath pretty often. The boots did come in handy but also had their pitfalls.. mine were too small and so when I wore my warm socks they pinched me and gave me blisters. For this, I spent one afternoon sitting in my house alone while the group hiked to a cave, because I couldn't handle the pain.

Thursday we had to hike 3 and a half hours to another village (which ended up being a pointless trip) and that was not smart for the condition I was in. I spent most of the day Thursday once we got there resting, as well as all day Friday. Then Friday evening the missionary wife finally took me and Amy (who came along to take care of me but also ended up getting sick) back to the closest town to her friend's house. We stayed there Friday night and Saturday night. All day Saturday Amy and I were stuck in bed, sleeping and occasionally muttering things to each other. I was very weak and could hardly sit up to eat. Even when I tried to eat it was an internal struggle because I had no desire to eat and no appetite but I knew that was the only way I would get better. At one point I managed to get some food down and then went to take two sinus pills and couldn't get them down and ended up losing all the food I had just successfully eaten. This was discouraging. If it hadn't been for Amy I think I would have been worse off, because I was very emotionally discouraged and depressed. I don't think I've ever missed or wanted my mom as much as I did when I was in that bed all day Saturday.

Sunday the rest of the group came back and we traveled back here to CASAS. My professor leading the trip who is also a nurse told me I needed to get some more foods in me that had protein and fat in them. She got me half a baked potato and some yogurt. That was the most I had eaten in about 4 days. My body still feels incredibly weak and it's hard to be motivated to do anything. I have very little energy. I am still pretty depressed because I hate being sick and feeling weak. I just wish I felt normal and could be packing and getting everything ready to travel for the next month. I'm not sure how the next few days of travel are going to go for me.. I'm a little worried. I hope that I will be able to get enough rest and enough nutrients in my body so that I can recover. I would covet your prayers for healing of my body and my mind. I am still very discouraged and always feel on the brink of tears. It's hard for me to be weak emotionally.. and physically.. and right now that's basically all I am.. weak. Perhaps this is a really big huge lesson from God that I need to slow down and depend on Him for my strength more than my physical body which can clearly fail. As Psalm 73:26 says, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." I'm holding tight to that promise.

Now, all that depressing news aside, there were some highlights during the service week. Clearly my current physical and emotional state taint my perception a little.. but I will pretend I am healthy and it is Tuesday of this past week.. The people of Semesche lead a very simple life. This does not mean they are simple people. Their life is slow paced, but they are extremely hard workers. Meals are always shared together, and family is central. Everyone knows their role.. and corn is their most important crop. The men work the fields to get them ready to plant corn, they plant the corn, tend it, harvest it. Then the women husk the corn, shell it, clean it, cook it with limestone, mash it up, and make it into tortillas. And finally, everyone eats the corn. They plant to eat, eat to live, and live to plant their corn.

My host family had 3 sisters and 3 brothers and they were all very beautiful people with warm smiles. Monday when we were hiking down to our house the oldest host brother Pedro - 9 yrs, came back and asked to carry my duffel bag. I told him it was alright cause it was pretty heavy and I didn't think he'd be able to handle it down the steep hill. However, he insisted and so I gave it to him, he put the strap across his forehead, and carried it like that on his back the whole way to the house. I was shocked, how strong he was! Another touching moment was when we were walking to our service assignment the one morning and it was a little muddy out. We had to hike a steep hill every morning to get up to the main road. I was carrying my water bottle and also holding up my corte from dragging in the mud at the same time. My second youngest host brother, Oscar - 5 yrs, offered to take my water bottle, so I gave it to him, and THEN he reached out his hand to hold mine to 'help' me on the slippery parts. It was so precious, and even cuter because he ended up being the one that was slipping in the mud, and I was fine. Also, on our 3 hr group hike, we had helpers from all the different families that carried all our bags and sleeping bags and blankets. It's incredible how much weight these men can carry and make look easy. I was very grateful for their willingness to help in this way. I don't think some of us would have made it if we had had to carry our own things.

Well, this is getting too long. I´m not going to have time to get any pictures up, but you can check www.emu.edu/crosscultural and look at the Latin America 7 album in a few days which will have a lot of my pictures from the week. If you don´t see those, you can see mine when I return in 39 days! Tomorrow morning we leave at 4am to catch a 5am bus to travel to Honduras. We'll be there for 3 days doing some visiting of people our leaders know and then we have our SPRING BREAK, finally, on the caribbean island of Roatan. That will be from Friday the 13th until Wednesday the 18th. A CASAS worker and Lancaster native who also loves fishes in the Susquehanna at Wrightsville told me that Roatan will be good for my health and is almost comparable to the Susquehanna.. and he said that with the utmost respect for the Susquehanna.

Again, keep me in your prayers. I'll try to update this when I have opportunities and let you all know how my health is doing. Since we'll be traveling until April 6th I won't have much opportunity to respond that frequently, but you can keep writing me! I always enjoy hearing about life back home. I hope that all of you are in better health condition than I am, and that you feel blessed in your daily activities and relationships. I really do miss you all, and am looking forward to wrapping up this trip and coming home. Perhaps if I wasn't so sick I wouldn't be so anxious to get home to my momma. Who knows!?

Until later,

Lindsey