Parades, bachatas, dinosaurs, etc.

Por fin, something that's actually "about my time in Honduras"!

Wednesday, el 15 de septiembre, was Honduras' independence day. After practicing marching on Monday and Tuesday (which meant that, although I technically had class in the mornings, no one was in any place to do anything; and after a terrible class Monday morning, I learned my lesson and just played soccer with them on Tuesday morning), on Wednesday we went to Talanga, the nearby town, and participated in a parade with a bunch of other area schools.




These two are two of the boys from my hogar.

When we came back, everyone was totally exhausted. While waiting to eat lunch with my hogar, everyone fell asleep, including me and the tíos as well. I had a child asleep on me, there were kids on the tables, on the floors, all over. It was super cute, and also felt very, well, familial. They also put on bachata music, which I discovered is super relaxing. Today I picked up a CD by the group we were listening to, Aventura.

Then we had Thursday and Friday totally off, and a bunch of us travelled up to Lago de Yajoa, a gorgeous lake about 5 hours (and a number of bus trips) from Tegus. It was much more tropical in that region, and often what I'd stereotypically imagined Central America too look like.



More than anything, though, I was struck by the lake- it felt very old and natural (primordial would be the fancy word), and I wouldnt've been surprised to see a dinosaur wander by in the distance. I guess one thing about Honduras' relative lack of tourist infrastructure is that, taking a row boat out on the lake (which was an adventure in itself), besides a few fishermen, we were really the only people out there.
All the northwesterners (most of the volunteers are from Oregon and Washington) say they're used to this kind of scenery, but for me it was very beautiful. Click on the picture to see it full size.