Mi Brigada Favorita

The medical brigade that I have been waiting for nearly a year now has arrived! There's a group from New York University that came down here last year with about 30 dental students and faculty with a few community health/nurse people to tag along for research and record keeping purposes. This brigade is super well organized (at least compared to others) and has a great goal in mind. They are trying to target kids in first and second grade in order to save their permanent teeth that come in. Their vision is really to impact an entire generation of Hondurans and improve their oral health. They have people keeping track of how many children have cavities, decay, etc. on their teeth. They're training local teachers in the school system to apply fluoride to kids in kindergarten through 6th grade and promote tooth brushing, etc.
I got the privilege of being the token translator for them today and I will get another opportunity tomorrow and Sunday as well. Unfortunately I have to teach all of next week and will only get one chance to go to the brigade from Monday to Friday; so I have to take advantage of the opportunity now on the weekend.
In other words...no, I'm not going to become a dentist, a public health specialist person perhaps....or maybe an EMT....or maybe an interpreter...or maybe something different. I always thought when I was younger that by the time I was old and out of college I would have a permanent career path. Here I am two years out of college with very little clue still. I promise that by the time I retire I will have a concrete idea of where my life is headed.:)

La Pascua

In light of today being Easter Sunday I thought that I should go to church for the first time in a couple weeks...don't let my dad know that.:) Instead of the usual service that is around here with a good amount of people it was packed inside the church! There was somewhere around 1,000 people there all crammed inside, standing in the aisles, in between the pews (in front of people), and even out the door because it was so crowded. The only real point of writing this is because the priest said something that I really liked. The exact quote was, "Este es el domingo mas importante de todos los domingos para nosotros. Los otros domingos son un eco de lo que pasa este dia." In more understandable terms for most of you..."This is the most important Sunday of all Sundays for us. The other Sundays are just an eco of what happens on this day." I really liked the thought of this being the end-all be-all of all days. It's really true, this day is what makes Christianity so amazing, Christ arisen, aleluya.:)

Abandoned Plaza = Dancing...

Abandoned Plaza = Dancing...
Originally uploaded by zassink

With my recent travel to Tikal I was feeling liberated and free! It's Semana Santa (week before Easter), there's no school, and I haven't seen a student in almost a week! Does like get better for vacation? Well, I found out that it definitely does. I arrived to Flores, Guatemala on Monday afternoon along with my brother, David, and Cody and we found a great hotel right on the lake for just $5 each! So we explored the island for the night, got some great fried fish, and just relaxed for our full day at Tikal. While in Tikal I was in a constant state of shock about everything. It was all so massive, huge, and mind-blowing....You can check out some of the pictures on my flickr, I'll put some more up later too. The top of Temple IV (one of my favorite spots) was also where they shot the scene of the rebel base in Star Wars. Some of you might recognize it.:) Other than that....there was Temple I which I made a relief of in pottery class my senior year of high school. I've been dreaming of seeing that temple ever since then and finally, 6 years later, I got to see it! Or climbing to the top of Temple 5 which was about a 60 meter staircase going straight up like a ladder instead of stairs.
One of my favorite things about our trip was walking through the jungle and imagining the Mayans having the place cleared out for paths and temples. It's a super thick jungle (much more than anything with have in Copan) and I can't imagine the Mayans coming in and building this huge city without any river or lake even nearby! There was stucco plazas, temples, and statues all over the place. Our guide did a great job of separating speculation from history and painted amazing pictures for us of the era when the Mayans were ruling compared to the reality of the ruins now.
Anyways....my pictures are better descriptions on this one than my words....look away...:)

Belize

I think that David said it best, "I always thought of Belize as this like American/British Central American paradise where they all speak English..." Well after having visited Belize I can definitely say that I'm not sure what they speak in Belize. I heard English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin I assume....what do I know about the language?) and at least two other languages that I think were Garifuna and Creole English.
The point of going to Belize was to get our visa renewed for Honduras, and luckily that was accomplished. We have to leave the CA-4 (Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala) every 90 days or we get a fatty fine from the government for overstaying our welcome. The easy way to fix it is to leave the countries for a few days and we're welcomed right back in.:)
The most interesting part of the whole trip was trying to understand the locals speak English and decipher what they were saying to each other when they weren't even trying to speak "real" English. In conclusion, I was really happy to be back in a Spanish speaking country like Guatemala when we arrived there on Monday!

La Temperatura

The temperature this morning was about 93 at 11:30am this morning....it's really hot here...