Greeting Cards

So, I have a friend who currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, but who used to fly all of the time a few years back for delta. It was during these flights he would turn himself into whatever he wanted to be. My personal favorite was when he pretended to hold a job as a greeting card writer for Hallmark, and while doing so spouted off  spontaneous one liners fit only for those mass produced cards.

Over time, during long flights or while waiting on the tarmac in MKE for the ice pellets to pass, I´ve been tempted to create my own character to pass the time, or just see if I could get away with pretending to be someone i'm not. Why not? The life of a broke 20 something, college kid can only be so interesting, right? However, the next time I fly somewhere I don´t think I´ll feel like I have to create a story to impress the person trapped next to me or just entertain myself. After exactly one year of living in Honduras I love where my life is at. I mean.... I don´t think you can make up some of the stuff that I´ve seen and done over the past year. From taking a "refreshing" midnight swim in the Atlantic during Semana Santa in Trujillo, to riding in the back of pickups with strangers, to having the ability to visit Cayos Cochinos multiple times, life has been incredible. To go from walking into Honduras not even being able to correctly say, "My name is....", to working in another language has been a fantastic experience.

I probably repeated the stories of my time in honduras over a dozen times during the past week, but it's been great to share what I've seen and done with my friends back in the US. I'll try to post some more over the next few weeks as the time presents itself, but i just wanted to say how excited I am to return to honduras and continue the work that I've started over the past year.

In the future, I especially want to talk about the differences I noticed while being back in the United States, but for now it's time for one last hot shower and get a few hours of sleep before taking off for Guatemala to go backpacking. I honestly can't wait to get back to honduras, back to Jutiapa, and back to the life that honestly, at this point, feels the most like home.

"I am going to make it through this year if it kills me..."

I'm coming home from my hardest year
I'm making plans not to make plans while I'm here
And this life has been no holiday, a complicated situation
And it's hard to ignore that it feels like summer all the time 
I'm coming home to the lights and buzz
Streets look the same, still nothing's as it was
I've gotten lost here once before
Inside a good vibration-Andrew McMahon

That was Wisconsin that was yesterday
Now I have nothing that I can keep
Cause every place I go I take another place with me
Love is loves critique-Bon Iver

And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born
Then it's time to go
And define your destination-Death Cab

I guess that’s why I’m here and I can’t come back home
And guess when I heard that when I was back home-Kanye West

Because America shines yes it does 
In between the white lines where I found love 
All alone on a road going nowhere
Going nowhere
At full speed
I have traveled far
And I've seen things that I'd rather not say
But when you're traveling it's better that way
The darker the secret the harder you keep it
But it's no victory
And should the canyons burn 
I'm catching a ride off the coast-Andrew McMahon

The enemy of my enemy, or… Holy crap there’s a snake in my kitchen

So last week I was washing dishes in my kitchen, (and by kitchen I mean side room of my house with dirt floor and a cement water tank) when I heard a rustling on the other side of the room. As you know I have had my share of mouse problems, so I instinctively turned with the intention of trying to stomp on a mouse. When I turned I was confronted with the biggest scaliest mouse ever (well either that or a 3 foot long brown snake). Needless to say I was pretty freaked out and instead of acting fast, I ened up just staring and standing dead still. By the time I thought to grab a two by four and take a swing at it (yeah that’s right, I keep a large board on hand for just such occasions) it had already made its escape down a mouse hole. In retrospect I guess it is for the best that I didn’t kill it, seeing as it isn’t poisonous (according to my biologist friend, though one of my neighbors assures me that is), and it is clearly in there hunting mice (my sworn blood enemies). After giving it some thought I have decided that it is better to keep him around as an ally in my war on the rodents (though I hope this doesn’t back fire, with today’s muja-hasnake becoming tomorrows snake-quida).

Paulito Bunion, or… When a tree falls in a coffee finca it definitely makes a sound.

So last week I engaged in what might possibly be the manliest activity of my life. I helped my friend cut down five pine trees in his coffee finca with just a machete. This basically consists of hitting the tree repeatedly on one side, near the base, until you have knocked off enough small notches of wood to be able to push it over from the undamaged side. This is generally possible once you have cut through slightly more than half of the trunk (which takes roughly 40 mins of aggravated chopping). Even though the Takoma Park hippy in me felt kinda bad about chopping down trees, this was a pretty awesome activity. You get to go to town on a piece of wood with a sharp object and then push a tree over resulting in an awesome thump, its kinda every little boys dream. And I was even able to justify the destruction of local flora by the fact that the trees where old and dying anyway and by strategically knocking them down we were able to prevent them falling on his coffee plants and seriously damaging his livelihood.

ps. I'm going to try something new, and post new short entries more often rather than one huge one every few months