Reconciliacion y Perdon en la Familia

That was the theme of last night's speaker, reconciliation and forgiveness in the family. It was a fundraiser dinner for the Catholic church with an amazing chicken, rice, beans, and tortillas dinner followed by the priest from Santa Rosa de Copan (about 2 hours away). I was very excited about the priest speaking from the second that I saw him because he probably has one of the coolest beards that I've seen in a long time. So I thought, "well, if this is boring I can stare at the movement of his beard." It's simple, but that's the life of Copan.:)
Anyways, beard aside, this guy was the best speaker that I have heard in a long time! He involved the crowd a lot in saying things such as, "I desire to desire to forgive." I think that was from Ignatius of Loyola. Or his own creations of phrases such as demonstrating how ridiculous it is to say who holds resentment so we all said, "I am resentful. You are resentful. He is resentful. She is resentful. We are resentful. They are resentful." To add to the demonstration we got to point at I, you, he/she, we, and they. Ok, that was not the most eventful part of the evening, but it did stand out in my mind cause it was fun to point at somebody and tell them, "you are resentful!"
He talked about all sorts of issues related to forgiveness and how much better it is to forgive than to resent with regards to the friendship, your physical being, your mental being, your friendship with others, your faith, everything. My favorite part was him telling the story of his family. Isn't that always the best part? The speaker gives an example from their life and you just assume he's not making it up for emotional heart strings purposes.:) He entered the priesthood after studying psychology in college and so on top of being a priest he's a psychologist. That's like getting a communications degree and then becoming a pastor.:) Ok, so the priest's dad never wanted him to go into ministry and made that very clear to the point of not talking to him once he began studying for it. It was a pretty hurtful thing for him, his dad had several various women and was just a fairly destructive sounding person in their family. Anyways, it comes around to him in the process of dieing from cancer one August. His family took care of him while he was only weeks away from passing away. The priest's father got to the point in his illness that he could no longer swallow and so he went over to his dad and said, "You're not doing so well dad. Would you like to have your last rites?" His dad accepted and he said that it was one of the most reconciling/forgiving things that he has done to be able to send his father off and have his father finally accept him. If that didn't sound good then there are three options for why it was an anti-climatic story. 1) It sounds better in Spanish. 2) I translated it poorly. 3) You had to be there. I thought it was a cool story though.:)
Anyways, I'm going to get back to painting my new apartment. Yes, once again, I've moved...three apartment in one year. I can't keep this up forever!

Un Cumpleaños a La Copan

Tuesday was my birthday, it's true, I enjoy telling people after the fact cause then they feel guilty and get me cooler presents. Ok, that's not true. I don't like telling people because I don't like to be the center of attention. Really, I don't! Luckily I escaped with few center of attention moments. The only really bad one was going to a small group that I go to for church. I just went last week for the first time and they invited me back for my birthday (but they didn't know it was my birthday). Of course on my birthday one of the only Hondurans in the entire world that knows it's my birthday shows up and announces it to everyone there! They all start telling me, "felicidades!" The Doctor and a couple people slip out quietly and come back five minutes later with my "birthday ice-cream." Then they all start singing, congratulating me, saying how "joven" I am, only 23! Then there were the comments of, "when are you getting married?" "Wait, you don't even have a girlfriend?" "We'll find one for you, don't worry! What about Isabel?!" I don't know how my birthday evolved from a church small group to a dating show so quickly. In the middle of everything I dismissed myself to "go to the bathroom," which is code for "stop staring at me everybody!" Oh man, that was not my favorite birthday moment in the world, but hey, it's makes for a good blog entry, right?:)
The good birthday surprise came the day after, Wednesday. I get a call from my friend Suly at 5 telling me to get back to my house as soon as possible. I thought...alright...is this some bit of urgent gossip? There's not much else urgent in town other than gossip and me needing to get dinner when I get hungry and grouchy. I show up at my house and who should be at my doorstep but Suly (kinder assistant at Mayatan), Eva (cleaning lady at Mayatan), and Eva's kid Jose Adelid (second grader at Mayatan)! They are holding a cake and start singing in Spanish, "We want cake now!" We go inside, eat some cake, I buy some coca-cola (what Honduran doesn't drink it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?), and we have some cake and relax for a little bit. It was so nice of them to buy me cake and I know they don't necessarily have money to throw around on cakes.
Sometimes I get bummed out because I don't feel like I fit in that well with neither the Honduran nor the American staff but then something like this happens and I think, I totally fit in with the Honduran staff! I'm excited to be staying down here next year because I think that I will be able to have closer friendships with my Honduran friends. Oh life in Copan...:)

Cirque de Copan

There was a circus in Copan several months ago that I meant to go to but never managed. Then I hear the other day that there’s another circus here in town. I jumped at the opportunity to check out a sweet Latin American traveling circus! It consisted mainly of clowns telling jokes making fun of each other, homosexuals, and gringos. It was all pretty well done though. The making fun of each other part was…whatever, at least it was just each other. Then the homosexuals part was when they did a lip sync impression of some Mexican singer who is apparently gay and they always impersonate him at circuses. The guy was so funny though! He was winking to guys in the crowd, going up to them and singing to them, tossing his handkerchief at them, etc. Luckily he never picked me out. Then came the dreaded line (in Spanish of course), “Are there any gringo’s here tonight out there?” I just about died because there was only about 200 people there so of course everybody could see the only person above 6 feet tall! There was an awkward pause in which I thought the whole world was staring at me until I saw one of the other clowns come out dressed as a gringo and carrying a suitcase. Whew! I was saved the pressure of being picked out from the crowd. I know I speak Spanish and all that, but even thinking about 200 Copanecos staring at me makes me want to turn tail and run. I hear that this circus was infinitely better than the last one… good thing I waited to see this one and not the last one.:)

Brigada Medica

This past week a medical brigade came here to Copan from New York University in order to see as many patients from the area as they could to do some preventative treatment with them. I'm not sure the exact number of people, but I know that there were at least 240 children seen by the brigade, and I bet you upwards of over 1000 people total. I got to help out with translating and coordinating our students to help translate. It was so much fun! I have definitely decided that medical translating is the field for me, as long as I don't have to see the blood. A couple times I was called over to oral surgery where they were doing all the extractions and that was never my favorite part of the day. As long as I can stay with the screaming kids, the nervous adults, or the annoying patients trying to cut in line I'll be fine. But show me a little blood and I quit. Maybe medical translating is not for me...but I think it is...we'll see about that one...:)