Day 79: Livin´La Vida Loca

Yes... that´s a direct Ricky Martin reference, because his "coming out" was a huge deal.

Hoy fue una la dias mas loca. Cuando llegué a El Progreso este fin de semana, yo esperaba que me huberia correos de EU. Muchas personas digame que enviaron cosas, pero no he recibido nada. (The other day, Sol asked me who taught me spanish because I was really good at it... apparently she has since forgotten that I did not in fact speak any spanish when I set foot in Honduras.)

Anyways, so yesterday when we got here, Vicky had letters, but I didn´t have any, which made me kind of sad. This morning though, Sully and I trekked two miles to the post office so I could mail the massive amounts of postcards I´ve collected over the past months. It took almost ninety stamps, and the wonderful young man behind the counter helped me glue all of the on. (yes, glue... they dont have lickable stamps here.... it´s too hot)

When we got home Doña Santa asked me for twenty lempiras, which I thought was weird, but Sully told me it was because I received a package. A package!! My lovely friends in Tennessee got together and mailed me a bag of sour patch kids along with some letters and a cd. The whole family just stared and laughed at me because I was smiling and giggling and absolutely overwhelemed with joy and love.

After said giddiness, I was in the mood for anything, so Sully invited me to a college rally one of her friends was going to. I tagged along and it turned out to be this big political-governmental thing. We walked in and they seated us in the front row. (Since I´m American, it made us very honored guests.) That was only slightly overwhelming since I could only catch every couple of words he was saying. But basically, he examined the new government´s plan for the future and showed all the ways in which it is only going to help the rich instead of the helping the most people. It lasted about an hour and half, and strangely enough, I wasn´t even bored. Usually, I´m ansty, and wanting to know what we´re doing next or where we´re going, but I was strangely calm... just content on being in the moment.

After the man was done speaking, Luis asked me if I was bored, and I told him that I genuinely wasn´t. I am so completely used to never knowing what´s being said, what´s going on, or where we´re going that I´ve just kind of gotten used to doing nothing. It was exicting. I´ve finally lost hold of that Need'To'Be'Entertained'American mentality.

They fed us, thanked us for coming, filmed us on tv, then wanted us to sing.

Weird.

But... I´m used to doing things I don´t want to, so I just did it anyway. Life´s about taking chances right? You can´t grow unless you actually move... and that´s what I´ve learned to do here in Honduras, move.

After getting our fill of attention (Sully is never quite full, by the way) we went to the outskirts of town to see a train graveyard. Kind of exciting and scary all at the same time. I was fully prepared for rival with the Socs, but they never showed up.

The last exciting thing of the day happened around 10:30 at night when I was most tired and wanting bed. I wanted to go and crawl in bed, but there was something alluring about staying up with Angelica, Cynthia, Polet, Sully and Santa. Even though they were only speaking spanish, and I couldnt understand a lot of it because they speak so fast, I decided to stay fight the Goddess Nyx a bit longer. And boy was it worth it.

We stayed up and created a Non-Profit Organization togther. And as we sat around the table until the wee hours in the morning, discussing and dreaming together, something magical happened. It was one of those rare moments that stuns you as it happens: where you know that this moment is more than just a fleeting memory, that this moment, and every part of it, will live on forever. And it almost didn´t happen to me...