Our Family Staycation

This week we had a staycation but not really between myself, Aidan, Juliette and Roger, because everyone else was either in Nicaragua, the mountains, or Tegucigalpa for a conference. It was funny when we had mass in the house, doing all of the mass in Spanish when Roger was very outnumbered by gringos. It was good to be together and for the most part it was relaxing when we were in the house. However our staycation turned into a really intense time of ministry for us because a girl from our barrio died from cancer Wednesday morning. She was 19 years old and has two kids.

Her mother and her best friend came to our house Wednesday afternoon and all of a sudden they were in our entrance with us, and crying with us as Julia the mother was telling us about the last moments of her daughter's short life. She had so much faith in God and it was such a beautiful witness as she talked about the moment she said "it is God's will not my will" as she let her daughter go. Even though they didn't know who we were, all they wanted was a quiet and safe place to mourn, even if it was just for an hour. After we walked back to her house and from there took a taxi to buy groceries for the family.

Later we went back to the house and there were many neighbors in the living room in front of the body. The way people do a wake here is the body is laid in the home and an altar is made around it, and there is glass covering the open part of the coffin so you can see the person's face kind of similar to Snow White. It was really hard to watch people just peeking at the body as if they were looking into a fish tank. At times it felt like people were coming out of curiosity rather than to give their respects to the family. We just stayed with Julia, who was no longer crying but her breathing had naturally turned into sobbing, and when she asked us to pray, we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet with the family and it was beautiful how prayer fullness spread, suddenly it felt more peaceful and reverent and less like an open house. Please pray for the family!

Earlier in the week I had gone on house visits with Yadira and Juliette and one of the girls from the Sponsorship program Claudia tagged along with us. I really like Claudia, she is 14 years old and one of the girls who taught me how to eat an orange with salt. I'm going to add a picture, she's really beautiful. These oranges are no Florida Oranges, they are literally so acidic that when you eat them your mouth goes numb, unless you use salt. So apparently when you have an orange that you have cut open into fourths you take the salt, rub it into a part of the orange with your fingers and pull that part out and eat it. It is the messiest way possible to eat fruit I'm convinced... Anyway, Claudia came back to the house yesterday because I was suppose to open our storage locker in Casa Guadalupe and find a donated dress for her confirmation. I spent the whole morning with her, pulling out dresses, giving her stuff she needed like a toothbrush and a t-shirt, making her breakfast and talking with her. By 11:30 I was exhausted and she was still asking me a million questions about what I was doing this weekend so we could play soccer together when she said "Can I ask you a favor?" I jokingly responded: "What else do you need this is like Christmas for you!" Then she asked me for feminine products and she was so embarrassed! It was really cute. She whispered really loudly "Don't tell the muchachos!" She hadn't got her period in a long time because of malnutrition, her family lives in the poorest part of our neighborhood. I couldn't find anything in storage so I brought her back to the house and gave her a small package of my own, which was really funny because when Juliette and I received the package from Kara yesterday it was stuffed with tampons and pads. I just laughed and said what you give is returned tenfold.

Thank you for all of the people who put notes and goodies in for us, it means a lot especially when I tend to feel really disconnected from my friends and my family!

Love and Miss,

Ana

Yo No Se

I really don't know if anyone is enjoying this at all and sometimes I feel like I'm not saying anything that interesting just thoughts and feelings and randomness. One of the things that I have picked up while being in Honduras is when you don't know something, you put your hands up to your shoulders and make a "I have no idea" face. The more dramatically you do it the more you communicate to people that you literally have no idea. It's the equivalent to our shrug, and right now I am making this very useful "I have no idea" motion, and if one person finds the slightest enjoyment then I'll keep talking.

First, this week was the coldest week we've had here, literally cold showers were painful, and we spent the whole week in sweatshirts, jeans and drinking coffee. Buuuuut.... I loved every second of it. It reminded me that oh wait a minute it's October and that I should be wearing pants and sweatshirts all of the time and going to DC for homecoming. That turned into me being homesick a little bit so a call from the family would be great anytime (hint).

I also spent my week still translating letters for the sponsors in the states. We finally finished them and it's not that I don't find them meaningful because they are really beautiful and I know it's important to communicate with the sponsors especially when the letters contain prayer intentions... but frankly it's boring and now I know that my vocation has nothing to do with data input.

I tend to enjoy the things that are unplanned and not a part of my schedule the most. For instance, a few of us went to the Missionaries of Charity and drove their minibus filled with seven HIV positive kids under the age of seven, and went to Pollo Campero for dinner. It was literally the most fun I've had in a long time and I wanted to adopt everyone of them. I watched the cutest 3 year old drink about a half a liter of Coke and then dropped him off with the sisters. Bueno Suerte Hermana! It's really beautiful to see that even though they are religious and don't have a family in a traditional way, they still very much are mothers to these children who many of them have already lost their parents to AIDS.

There are things here that I have been able to get use to: ants being everywhere, the very very salty cheese, drinking incredible coffee all of the time, sipping Coca Cola like its a fine wine, and the fact that I'm beginning to make friends. Yadira, the young woman I work with for our Sponsorship program has become a good friend here, wants go get tres leches with me and eat loco elote with me. The latter I'm not excited about, a Central American favorite at fairs in the way that we love our Funnel Cake that consists of Corn on the Cob, deep fried, with mayonnaise on top and sugar. No thanks. I'm getting use to the Honduran accent, which people slur words together and don't pronounce the "s," with the kids in the sponsorship program I end up saying to them a lot "You're eating your letters!" The Spanish way of saying you're dropping letters.

There are also things here that I have yet to get use to and I don't think I will anytime soon. One, people calling other people gordita, it's okay if you call someone a little fat, if you say gorda it's another story, but I've heard people call girls who are about my size gorditas and so I'm just waiting for the day to come. Secondly, racism is so common here, and I think it's so shocking to me because I grew up in such a diverse area that in schools multiculturalism is something that is celebrated, and it's deeply understood that racism is not okay. Furthermore I can't understand the racism between other Central Americans, when I can't tell the difference between Hondurans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans etc... Sometimes with accents I can but other than that no. As for me, I get enough assumptions being a very fair, typical looking Gringa. Everyday I walk out of my house I have to prove myself because many people who look at me assume I can't speak. Also when guys call out to me, it's always in English, I always know when they're talking to me haha! I usually joke to whoever I'm walking with and say that we must have a lot of bilinguals in our neighborhood.

Ok more to come later, I wrote half of this last weekend so a lot has happened since but I don't want it to be obnoxiously long,

United in Prayer,

Hannah

Love is Enough

After a long and challenging week emotionally and spiritually, Carol our director said I should probably take a personal retreat pronto. So Friday I packed up food, snacks and books and went to the empty apartment in San Benito, the free clinic run by the CFR's, where I'd be staying next to a small chapel. Carmen a nurse we know from the neighborhood excitedly told me just as I was getting nervous about the heat and the cockroach that I had seen in the bathroom that she was going to be taking her vacation there November 3rd. So I figured that if this is someone's idea of a vacation get away I can stay here for 2 days.

Since the words silent retreat don't exactly get me excited, the first thing I did was check if the TV and VCR work: negative. I think God was trying to tell me something and naturally my response to him was simply, "Well I brought the Sound of Music and Sister Act 2, I thought they count as retreat worthy." Instead of being scared that approximately 5 hours of my retreat I had planned were now cut, what I found is that a silent retreat for me meant being in a tank top all weekend (not allowed), praying, dancing to Carrie Underwood by myself, writing, eating only the cookie parts out of cookie and cream ice cream (a skill that comes from discipline), and reading Flannery O'Connor's short stories. At times I didn't know whether I was on retreat in Honduras or at home in Brockton when there isn't a car in the driveway for me to take.

Something I enjoyed so much this week and finished during my retreat was What it Means to be a Christian by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. I was suppose to read it last year for Fr. Regis' class, and lo siento Fr. Regis! It's a beautiful and powerful book so please keep it on your syllabus, just tell your students to actually read it not like one of your former students with a Boston accent. Anyone who is struggling with faith of any Christian denomination should read this book. Joseph Ratzinger shakes away all of the complications that we tend to clutter around the words faith and religion, and says in reference to the parable of the Last Judgment that God "is not asking about a confession of dogma, solely about love. That is enough, and it saves a man. Whoever loves is a Christian."

Reading this and praying about this has helped me so much when I'm faced with my own helplessness when I can't see results and struggle with why I am here in the first place. I'm not a nurse who can record how many people she stitched up. I'm not a social worker who can see how many families received services because of her actions, but this week I held children who are HIV positive and didn't cringe. I walked into a woman's two room house whose son has cerebral palsy and didn't look shocked or down at her but with honesty looked up to her. She lives day by day, sleeps in the same room with her 3 kids and when she has to leave she carries her 5 year old Sergio because she can't afford a wheel chair. Who couldn't look up to her?

This past week I've honestly learned how sip on a glass of cold Coca Cola like it is a fine wine. I've been shown over and over again what loving simply is. When I went to someone's house the woman told her daughter to get Coke and glasses and when she came back with plastic she sent her back for her nice ones. The 3 rooms in her house are separated by ply wood but she still with love offered us her best. When she was talking about a difficult situation she laughed and said "I live near the church and the hospital I'm doing just fine."

I'm starting to feel that all I say in emails and in blog post is a litany of non sequitors, but I hope it has some value. I really wish I could read the day to day activities of anyone reading this so I don't feel so far away, but I hope in this way you feel closer to me...

Love and prayers,

Hannah .... or
Ana
Ana Maria
Gringita Bonita,
Anita
Fresa (preppy)

Up and Down

This week I really started working, which was a real blessing because at the same time that I felt exhausted and could write a list of things I did, I felt useless. I think that its a good reminder that I'm not here with the goal of fixing anything or anyone, but just to share and to learn...

First we had a bake off in our kitchen for the Transitus of St. Francis, so we baked for every Franciscan order in our area: the OFMs, the CFRs, the Poor Clares, and the Franciscan sisters. It was crazy but its their feast day and they were really appreciative. But I went with Juliette and two guys to the OFMs and gave a cake to literally the most socially awkward group of seminarians, but I think they were just nervous to be around girls haha! Roger one of the volunteers told us that we were temptacions jokingly. I retold the story to the Padre Juan Diego CFR and later he retold it to two friars making fun of me in a valley girl voice it was literally hilarious. All of the friars are really funny and sociable, I hope to form really good friendships with them.

One of the things I had to do this week was start to translate a mountain of letters that kids in the Becas program wrote to their benefactores but I was literally so touched by it. Over and over again I read how grateful they were to be given the opportunity to afford to go to school and how much it helps their families. While I was translating in the library I had four little visiters that we read stories with and they told me a little bit about their families and the stories they have are truly amazing. One of the conversations I have over and over again is how so many kids just want to go to the States. I'll ask kids what they want to be when they grow up and they say "To be in the States," and over and over again I say how we have our problems too! Its not a solution because Honduras doesn't need more people leaving, they need really strong young people.

One of the best things has been to be able to form real friendships with people here. Its so incredible how open people have been and especially when I was feeling homesick about not being home for Jackies wedding. This week we had a going away party for Cecelia one of my house mates and it was really incredible how close I feel with everyone only after 4 weeks. And to prepare for the party, I have been learning how to cook a ton of stuff which is all incredibly unhealthy for you like fried chicken haha! My old health conscious self has officially died as I leave to eat tres leches cake. But Im praying for everyone from here especially this weekend! I miss you all and Mary will have no trouble bringing the party without me!

Love, prayers, and wishing I were in MA,

Hannah

Here we gooooo.....

Cue the BSB theme music...

Just kidding welll.... Ive almost been in Central America for two months, and so far Honduras for two weeks. Its funny because just as soon as I think I'm getting comfortable with something I have a new challenge, or a awful moment with Spanish. In other words there are the moments I'm loving it and then there are the moments I'd rather be booking a flight to Logan Airport then trying to figure out how to use which perfect tense. But I really feel confident that I'm where I'm supposed to be.

Since I've been in Honduras I have...
Driven a pick up truck (Thanks to our Condon Jeep training)
Washed all of my clothes by hand.
Eaten rice and beans a lot.
... not been sick, knock on wood.
Drank a lot of amazing coffee.
Help run a retreat for over 100 young people.
Seen a pig killed... and had the best pork I've tasted after.
Cried. No mucho pero un poco.
Began to see what I don't want to see.
Been given a list of tasks and responsibilities that I'm going to have to take one day at a time.
Been shown love by people I've only just met.

I want to thank everyone who donated to the Mission with money and prayers, because the money you donated doesn't only go to the cost of living here, but we depend on donations for some of our programming as well. We run fellowship groups for women, a sponsorship program for over 70 kids that have basic costs in order to go to school that your donations helped pay so thank you thank you thank you! And expect a Christmas Card for me in December!

I hope to write consistently and please keep me in your prayers!
The first of many ... :)