Weekend Recovery

This weekend I’m sure is still happening for all of you back home - being Labor day and all. Not here... we’re back in the swing of things this morning. And some of us (this girl) is still recovering from a weekend jammed packed with fun events.

Friday evening I stayed at JEC instead of heading out to my usual weekend activities. I stayed for two reasons- one being that the majority of the employees (houseparents, director, other staff) had retreated to Choluteca to go fishing. Although I wanted to go, I had a second reason to stay - there was no one to take Nelson to his first school dance. NATURALLY I made myself “disponible” (available) to take him since the idea of Nelson dancing with another little six grade girl made my heart jump.

Luckily I have made friends with the other young, single teachers at the school, and we all decided to meet up at the dance and hang out after. Nelson borrowed a button-down from his older brother, Alex, and was dressed and ready by 4:30. The dance didn’t start until 6. Can you tell he was excited?

It poured all afternoon (see pictures above of that storm rolling in), and we arrived at 6:15 (that was the longest I could make him wait). Hondurans are known to be late anyway, and you never want to arrive to a party exactly on time... right? We ate pizza and watched the 4th-6th grade girls dance their hearts out. There is a certain boy named Andre, who I believe has downs-syndrome, but he completely understands what’s going on around him. Andre and his sister ROCKED that dance floor, and he even walked away with some cash ($5) for winning the dance contest. Nelson refused to dance really... he only jumped up and down to “Party Rock” since its his favorite song. We left the dance and went to bed around 9ish.

Saturday I got up and went into the city to run some errands. I did some therapeutic shopping at Wal-Mart finding clementines and spinach by the bag for only $0.25!!!!!!! So pumped. I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with Junior's nephew, Gabriel. He's finally come around to like me, so we spend a lot of time dancing and playing with the doggies together. He jumps and screams and plays rough with the dogs and never cries! He loves his uncle J, too.

Saturday night Junior and I made his family stir fry (again - their new favorite dish) and then went to a party with him and his sister to benefit their local soccer team. We danced the night away as everyone tried to teach me how to dance punta, cumbia, merengue, and all the other latino dances. I was great. It was lots of fun.

Sunday morning I got up early, ate pancakes, and went to church in the city. Then I rushed back to Zamorano to the 8th Annual PanAmerican Party at the Agricultural University there in Zamorano. My teacher friends had gone last year and said it was lots of fun, so we decided to go around lunchtime and check out the food situation. There were TONS of people, vendors, and informative tables for each one of the 21 countries the students represent at the university. The event is sponsored by Jetsero (think Best Buy for Honduras), therefore we had a huge stage where the students performed dances which originated from each country. It was so cool (as in neat), but unfortuantely it was 97 MILLION DEGREES, and in order to see you had to stand directly under the sun. We had lunch and then watched only two countries perform before we couldn’t take the heat anymore. Honduran women don’t seem to sweat, but unfortunately I’m not that lucky.

After dropping the other girls off, I headed back to JEC to finish the day doing laundry, washing my car, and cleaning my room. I even squeezed in a one-hour nap, watched Steel Magnolias, and ate ramen noodles & a quesadilla for dinner. Pictured below is my newest addition to my room here at JEC, a gift from Junior. I think it suits me well, right?

It was indeed one, great weekend, and I am looking forward to another busy week here at JEC. September and October are super busy months for us (and me), therefore I will try to write as much as I can!