This is more common than you know (or want to believe to be true)

I lead the kind of life where, more often than not, as I bring my toast up to my mouth I see an ant crawling on my arm, and smash it skillfully with my chin before taking a bite. Or side swipe 'em with the side of my face.

yes. I admit it.

The hammock feels good today. My body suspended in air and gently rocking in the breeze tranquil-izing all of the rolling emotions within me today. If only, every so often, my eyes didn’t beg to be shut. This entry might take awhile. To give you a more complete picture…I have hooked the laptop to the extension cord running out the door to the back porch so that I can be lying peacefully and writing here in the hammock to you. My right leg is draped over the hammock reaching to the plastic chair so that the gentle rocking can continue.

I was planning on writing you today about how my 23^rd birthday passed here in Honduras, but somewhere between that decision and now, I have decided to write about something else. **I must note that it was at this point in writing that I saw a giant uuumm iguana, perhaps, crawling on the outer wall of our house, yelled for anyone to come witness this animal spotting with me, tripped over the cord of the computer, cutting the power and losing the entire entry…

but here we continue. Today was big for a couple of reasons and the reasons kind of intermingle one with another (causing some up and down emotions, let me tell you). I had been trying to get a hold of my mom these past couple of days, starting on Friday so that we could reminisce about that day 23 years ago when we first laid eyes on one other. But no one was home. I tried her work. I tried that night. Nothing. I tried the next day, and sent an email…as each day produced no communication with my mother, I started to worry. Wouldn’t she expect that I would call on my birthday since (I was fairly certain) she wouldn’t be able to get through to me…What if something happened at home—would she know how to contact me, or would someone else? Those were the thoughts crossing my mind with some fear last night, and mixed with an intense Grey’s Anatomy episode viewing, they also came up in my dreams. I woke up every couple of hours from dreams filled with death, sadness, and grief. I felt increasingly farther away and out of contact. When I woke up around 7, I started to tell myself—Sarah, you’re really not all that farther away than California—pretend you live in California (it didn’t work). Finally I decided to try again to call my house. When my mom picked up I could barely speak I was so overwhelmed with relief. I was laughing and crying all at the same time—crying from joy and the release of all my irrational fears that had built up over three days (she was so confused!). Laughing because my mom and grandparents had tried to call on my birthday (with no success) only to listen, confused, to a Spanish speaking recording over and over and over…

You see, each year as far back as I can remember, both my mom and my grandparents call singing—they don’t even say hello, but just break out into song. I remember one year in college my mom left the singing message on my answering machine, and with a cold, the singing was so bad (sorry mom ;)) that we kept the message on there all year long so that we could listen to it when we needed some extra cheer. Anyway, on Friday I was thinking that that was the only thing that could have really made my birthday better (you know, besides the obvious…foot massage, Jacuzzi, etc.) would be those phone calls. I was thinking that when I heard the phone ring inside. It was for me! I went inside not knowing what to expect—probably a call about a homework assignment—but when I said hello, the singing began…in Spanish! My Honduran host family from when I studied in Tegucigalpa during college had called to sing! They passed the phone from family member to family member—each one giving me messages of love. Immediately, tears started pouring down my face. It was so special.

So lots of emotions. And intermingled with this is what I want to end with—my surprise when I realized that it has already happened: Already, life here in Honduras has become the real, the normal, the stable. This is where I am, what I am doing, what I have some feeling of control over. That wasn’t the case when I first got here. Life in the States, my relationships there—that was what felt concrete and stable to me. But so quickly that has all become fuzzy, muddled, and unsteady, out of my hands. I remember thinking to myself, and even saying out loud during vacation, that I needed to be writing things down—so that I could remember what I was feeling, experiencing, reflecting on…I wish I would have listened to myself more because now those thoughts are somewhere else, perhaps also suspended in air, somewhere between Atlanta and San Pedrizzle. I’m struggling making sense of thoughts I had outside of Honduras because they know longer fit into the context of what is currently real to me. I think that is what I am trying to say.

Anyway, parent-teacher conferences down. Painless. Iguana gone. Dance aerobics on the back porch in ten.

you can call it festive...

or headache inducing...


we didn´t really want to draw more attention to ourselves...

(Can you NOT stop yourself from imagining clowns coming out!?)


What was wrong with this?!

:)

Thank you all

for your outpouring of birthday wishes and e-love sent my way. I think that was the best part about being in the States—remembering how many fantastic people there are in my life, being reminded how much they love and support me, and being able to communicate with them easier. Minus the easier communication part, a birthday is good for that too. I’m overwhelmed by how thankful I feel and blessed I am by the relationships in my life. Thank you for making me feel special and loved as I marked 23 years of being around ;)

I love you.

**p.s. Hold tight. I will email you back. It’s just that the list of people that I wanted to email at least doubled!

Thank you all

for your outpouring of birthday wishes and e-love sent my way. I think that was the best part about being in the States—remembering how many fantastic people there are in my life, being reminded how much they love and support me, and being able to communicate with them easier. Minus the easier communication part, a birthday is good for that too. I’m overwhelmed by how thankful I feel and blessed I am by the relationships in my life. Thank you for making me feel special and loved as I marked 23 years of being around ;)

I love you.

**p.s. Hold tight. I will email you back. It’s just that the list of people that I wanted to email at least doubled!

Back in the Hond.

That is what I have been telling people. Though you haven’t gotten the full story. I’ve been putting off writing—call it a mix of business, laziness, and intimidation, but here goes nothing, prompted by the list of 13 people I wanted to respond to last night. Hopefully a little blog will help keep people informed as I plow through the emailing.

It was a harder, longer process getting back to Honduras than traveling to the States. After three hours of sleep two dedicated friends (one old, one new) helped my load up the weighty bags and head to O’ Hare to head out. I must say that the rest of my time in the States continued to be very dream like and smooth up to this point. My new friend pulled up with coffee waiting for me in the front seat, my (previously unweighed) bags weighed in at 50.5 and 51.5 which made my mouth drop open. I made it quickly and safely through all security measures, a tearful (on my part, of course) goodbye, and here is where I can say that things took a turn for the crazy. I boarded my plane and got all cozy to fall asleep immediately, but then the pilot came over the intercom, "The sensor thingys on one wing flap aren’t talking to the sensor thingys on the other wing flap (at least this is what it sounded like to me)." He said that they would just turn the plane off and see if that would correct the problem because apparently that is supposed to work. It was the most eerie experience. Everything went pitch black and silent. Children started to cry. The darkness lasted a minute before the plane was turned back on and the plane fixin’ was determined unsuccessful. They said they would call some mechanics, but that it would take them 20 minutes to get to the airport. Don’t ask ME why they don’t KEEP some mechanics at the airport in case something like THIS happens. Whatever. So they had us get off the plane. I’ll fast forward ahead to keep you reading. Three hours later I was back on the plane. When they went in to fix the silly common problem, they found that the hydraulic pump was busted. Yeah, that means nothing to me either, but the pilot told us that had we taken off with the silly problem, because of the hydraulic pump problem, we would have had to figure out how to land the plane without gears…which sounds like a bad idea to me…so I am thankful that we didn’t take off that morning. When I was on the plane there was still an itsy bitsy tiny chance that I would be able to make my connecting flight in Atlanta—only because the pilot agreed with all the other pilots on the radio that we would fly at a lower altitude "through the weather" which would just make for a bumpier ride. They didn’t know that "the weather" would include a tornado. We ended up circling over Roanoke, Virginia for an hour waiting for things to clear up. I didn’t know until after we landed at 12:15 that a tornado had touched down in Atlanta around noon. SO, missed the connection. (I must add that they tried to make up for everything by serving unlimited snacks and beverages. That was pretty cool :) )At first I was bummed that there was no way that I could get back to Honduras by the end of the day…

but Delta treated me well. They put me up in a hotel, gave me a shuttle there, and food vouchers. I’ve never felt more adult in my life than checking into that hotel. Isn’t that weird? But it is true. To get a room key and go up to my room. It was big pimpin’. I’ve never slept in a bed that big before :) It ended up being such a blessing to be alone and unwind, journal, nap, and read. It is a time I am thankful for. I was able to sleep in the next morning a little—I mean, anything is sleeping in the day after getting up at 2:30am! The Atlanta airport was nutso, but by 2pm I was back in the Hond.
And a little on that…

It has been harder than I thought it would be to be back in Honduras. Probably because I didn’t think that it would be very hard at all. I mean, after 4 months, I thought I had this down. I envisioned coming back and just picking up where I left off, in all aspects of life. Everything was so routine and normal before I left that I thought I would come back and everything would fall back into place. But it hasn’t been that easy. Call it culture shock, but the little inconveniences of life are rubbing me more than I want them to. Somehow I managed to get 20 mosquito bites my first day back—wearing bug spray. That night I had nightmares about being attacked by ants in my bed and I actually woke up and had to check because it isn’t all that improbable. I had forgotten how dirty not only I am all the time, but everything in my life is all the time. And I was spoiled by a variety of foods in the States that I don’t eat while I’m here (ironically, I picked beans and homemade tortillas for my birthday dinner haha). Somehow instead of feeling good to be back with my housemates, our differences seemed magnified. Maybe because before Christmas I just had a general fuzzy ache of "homesickness" while not longing for any specific home or place. But since returning from the States, the ache comes bringing specific people, places, and hugs to mind. And once again I feel very far away from them. But each day gets easier. Yesterday helped…

There was a downpour when school was letting out. Anna and I decided to pack up quickly and try to hitch a ride with one of the students. I grabbed my poncho that one of my students half ripped the hat off, (during one of the worse weeks) so now I have a giant gaping hole around the neck region. I put it on anyway, which ended up being a good decision not because of the protection it provided from the rain, but because of the looks on peoples’ faces and laughter that came when seeing me wearing it! It might have helped if we were walking home, but the minute we climbed into the back of the truck and started off for home, it billowed out behind me like a giant bright yellow cape, whipping water all over everyone nearby. I peeled it off carefully and stuck it under one foot while gripping for dear life onto the slippery truck top. We arrived home to find no electricity. It didn’t return until around 7pm so that meant lesson planning by candlelight and cornflakes for dinner. That was the kind of experience that bonded me and my housemates together in the beginning, so it was good to have one of those again.

so, that’s life folks.