Typical Gringa

I spent the night with the Castro's last night! The Castro's include Luz Mila, Eloisa, Kevin, Nayeli, Mae and Fermin and then of course their parents. They live an hour and a half hike away from the road, so after helping out at the school on Friday, I headed up to their house with Lorena (their mom) and Kevin. Kevin rode a donkey all the way up, and I hiked up the mountain on foot. I saw a monkey! Briefly, but it was there. So exciting. We got up to their house around 2 in the afternoon, and Eloisa, Kevin and Nayeli took me over to the stream by their house. They have their own private nature playground. The closest house is about an hours walk away. The stream is a series of waterfalls with little pools to swim in, with the forest on both sides. We caught bugs and walked from waterfall to waterfall, letting the water run over us. At one point we were walking along a little track, and in gringa style I completely slipped down the side into the bushes, a good 7 feet down. It was pretty awesome, and then they had to pull me back up. Luckily I didnt' get hurt and I was just cracking up but it was ridiculous. We swam a little more and then went back to the house and went to bring the cows into the gate. We walked to the highest point and I could see a panorama of the beach, La Ceiba, the mountains and all around. It's amazing. We rolled down the hill a bit and then watched a dog dig a hole. We went to investigate and we looked in and it was some sort of animal. Eventually we figured out that it was an aborted baby calf that they had buried there :(  But that is life. The horse they had was sooo skinny poor thing. He also had some open wounds and I felt so bad but you can't do all that much. I think that the Castro's treat their animals quite a bit better than most of the families I've seen. I appreciate that. They are a great set of people. Lorena is so kind and helpful, and all of the kids are playful and polite and intelligent. They have a tough lot in life though. Even as I basked in how absolutely beautiful it was, I knew that to them the beauty only means hardship. Living so far away means that work is nearly impossible to come by. During school Lorena gets up at 3 to make breakfast and the kids get up so they have time to walk down to school so the bus doesn't leave. Mae is now in the high school so he doesn’t get back until 3 and has to make the hour and a half hike back up, and then somehow use his hour left of light to do all his homework. He got home and got right to work on Friday, and when it started to get back I lent him my flashlight so he could work a little longer. He works on the weekends or when he has the opportunity to make a little money for the family. Fermin is only 2, so the family all has to pitch in to watch out for him.

That night I brought out my deck of cards and played Go Fish and a few other games. Nayeli loved B.S. I had them play Go Fish in English and it was so funny for me to sit there and have them all speaking in English, in a tiny little dirt hut on the top of a mountain in the middle of Honduras, using the light of a flashlight. It was awesome. I peaked outside a bit later and saw the fireflies flitting on the hillside. The three middle kids and I decided to make a trip outside to see La Ceiba at night, and oh how beautiful it is. The stars were out as well. I brought my camera and we spent about an hour taking pictures in the dark and rolling around and making silly faces. It was so funny and the pictures are pretty classic/ fea. This morning I slept in till about 8 and they fed me a good breakfast. We just relaxed in the house, and then went outside to search for mango's. We all climbed a tree and sang songs in the tree, while Fermin looked up at us from the bottom. We left for down the mountain at about 10 30 and made it down much faster than we made it up. Of course, at the very very end of the walk, I decided to run and race Eloisa down the hill and twisted my ankle pretty badly. I think I heard something make a snapping sound but it doesn't hurt that bad, it's mostly just stiff and swollen. I felt pretty awesome and gringa- ish. I can still walk, but they were all worried about me. I had made plans with the kids to go swimming in the river and saw no reason to change them, since I could still walk. About 15 kids joined us and we headed down the mountain to swim in my favorite spot in the river. I got to see the kids who've started the highschool. I miss them! I never get to see them anymore. We played 'king of the rock', trying to see who could stay on the rock the longest, and just swam around. I was pretty careful, but was fine relaxing and watching the sun sparkle off the river, and soak in a little sun myself. On the way back up to the road, the kids asked me if I needed help and of course I refused. Then, as I was crossing a little river, I stepped on a loose rock and totally fell into the water in front of at least 10 of them. I laughed and they laughed harder, and then they dragged me up the mountain because that definitely wasn't good for my ankle. I made it back safe and now am writing in our now full house. A group of 20 arrived tonight from Kentucky, so it should be an interesting few days.