Testicles and the Return of Mel

So things have gotten a little crazy here in the past couple of days… Before we talk about that, we’re going to talk about the things we have done in the past couple of weeks. Kevin finally finished his English class at the University. The majority of the kids even passed, although Shannon did have to take a test from a boy who was cheating and give him a zero. Kevin will not be teaching next semester but will be helping the new teacher out.

Our friend Calixto took us and our site-mate Elisabeth and her boyfriend to an awesome waterfall and the hike there was quite an adventure. To get there, we had to scale up three or four smaller waterfalls using rope (Calixto, of course, climbed without rope in order to tie the rope for us). At one point, Calixto put Elisabeth’s feet on top of his to help her scale down…he is quite amazing! It was a great experience and we were definitely sore the next day. The waterfall was beautiful as was the hike. We hiked rather high into the mountains where the water was fresh and pure (supposedly) and we drank straight from the creek. We haven’t gotten sick yet so the water must have been clean!

Kevin created a Peace Corps Honduras fantasy football league and at the last minute one of the guys had to drop out. Shannon and Elisabeth took his spot and have won both of their games so far. All of the guys are mad because Shannon and Elisabeth drafted players based on looks. The hot guys just seem to play better! This keeps us occupied during the weekends as we often have small parties to watch football and eat junk-food. Shannon has been cooking and baking a lot lately and made cinnamon rolls last weekend to eat while we watched the games. Kevin has also ventured into making homemade soda. He started by making a honey ginger ale from a recipe he found on the internet. It seemed a little watery with a very strong ginger aftertaste but it actually tastes good mixed with some lemonade (well, Shannon doesn’t really like it but others do). Next up, homemade cream soda. He plans on experimenting with many different flavors and recipes until he gets them just right.

A week and a half ago, we finally took our two male cats in to get neutered. Most male animals here in Honduras (and Latin America in general) do not get neutered. Many people believe that the animals get sad and/or lose their “manhood” when they get castrated but there are vets around that do the procedure. Plus, most animals here are not seen as pets like in the United States. They usually serve a purpose such as to catch mice or other unwanted animals and the majority of people do not buy packaged animal food for their animals. If they feed their animals, the feed them table scraps or they are left to scrounge through the garbage on the street. Here in the city, you can find packaged animal food, ours eat it, but it is still not super common. The vet did not put the cats to sleep, instead she gave them something to make them groggy and then used a local anesthesia. Shannon got to help by holding the cats in the air while the vet gave them the shots to drug them. After she was done with the surgery, she showed us their testicles and Baza’s were much larger even though he is the smaller cat (3 pounds versus Caramelo’s 4).

Things were just starting to get more normal around here. School had been sporadic for awhile as there was always some holiday, Dia del niño, dia del maestro, Independence Day…always some reason to miss class. Catacamas did not celebrate Independence Day which was kind of nice (very quiet without drums or fireworks) but very weird and sad at the same time since it is usually a big day filled with parades and activities, but they still cancelled classes for most of the week. This week classes were in session again and Shannon was happy to be working on Monday when Mel Zelaya, the ousted president, decided to come back and everything stopped. He is stationed inside the Brazilian embassy and troops are surrounding it and a van is supposedly parked out front playing the Honduran national anthem 24 hours a day. We are in the midst of a 50 hour curfew (nobody is supposed to leave their houses) which, according to the news, most people in Tegucigalpa seem to be obeying. Here, a lot of businesses and most schools are closed but people are still out and about. Needless to say, we are kind of bored. We were supposed to go to Tegucigalpa yesterday to talk to the married couples in training, but that got cancelled of course. This is the second time it has gotten cancelled due to political-related issues and it sucks. Hopefully things will get resolved soon but at least all is calm here in Catacamas.