The Beginning.

Picture this. Honduras. 2010. Sitting on a couch in the intern casita here at Loma de Luz. Karin and I are both blogging about our journeys thus far. The Carribbean breeze is blowing gently through the windows while howler monkeys are intermittently hooting and hollering. Before I get into how incredible this place is, let me take you back about 48 hours and fill you in on my trek to get here.

Ok, so it all started on Friday morning at 4am. I totally intended on waking up at 3am to make sure I had everything for my trip and do some last minute packing. Unfortunately, I slept right through my alarm and woke up to Ciara playing on my mom's radio alarm clock. So, essentially, Ciara saved me from getting to the airport late. I had a standby flight scheduled for 5:30am. To save some time, I'll just tell you I missed not only the 5:30am flight but I was also unable to get on the 10:57 flight as well. There was another flight scheduled for 12:45p and so I patiently wait, along with 2 other people flying standby. We formed a standby club of sorts in our time at gate 30. The counter then calls all three of our names. We have boarding passes, FINALLY! So I do some celebratory high fives with my standby cronies and wait to board the plane. It was a little delayed but we board. All the while I'm walking down the aisle, I'm thinking, "This is it. It's happening." No sooner than I sat down and got out my book, the pilot announces that the Atlanta airport has been shut down due to inclimate weather and that we should all probably deboard because we'd be much more comfortable in the terminal. My standby friend, Joyce and I turn to each other and start laughing. So we get off the plane and we didn't end up boarding til 4:45pm! I am in touch with Karin this entire day and she made her flight to Dallas and had quite the lay over until she boarded for Miami then to Honduras. Well after I get to Hotlanta, I get a text saying that she missed her flight too. Karin and I both just laughed about the situation but felt so bad for the Alden's who were trying to make arrangements to pick us up at the airport. Friday was such a crazy day but I had this weird joy all day. I was so jolly all day. I seriously felt like Santa Claus.

Finally, yesterday I got on a flight to Honduras and arrived at San Pedro Sula aeropuerto, where I was to wait for a couple of hours until Karin arrived. As soon as I stepped off the plane, the heat engulfed me and I could feel my hair start to rise. My days as Macy Gray/Ben Savage were to soon start again. After getting my luggage, I left baggage claim and entered into a whole different world. I guess my American mind expected there to be more English-speakers in Honduras. My spanish was quickly put to the test. A test, my spanish and I undoubtedly failed. I ended up struggling through my first spanglish conversation with a Honduran man who later in our chat asked for my phone number. So I'm in Honduras, alone and disconnected from anything familiar (my phone was out of commission and the SAP airport didn't exactly have internet). I ended up wandering around the airport, which took all of two minutes after I saw the Wendy's. I sat against a wall on my luggage and decided to journal. While journaling, I experienced my first cliché, "smiles are universal" moment. I smiled at these two sweet Honduran girls who came and stood next to me, smiling and staring. Thus began my second spanglish convo. I found that kids are much more forgiving of my terrible speaking skills. These two girls came to the airport for their mother/aunt with their entire family, including the cutest little Honduran boy I've seen. This little boy, urged by his father, came up to me, shook my hand and then gave me the biggest hug. He was about a year and a half and after that baby embrace, I knew I was going to like it here.

This is the most beautiful place I've ever been. It doesn't hurt that I can see the ocean waves crashing against the shore not even half a mile down the hill. We are surrounded by lush green trees and tropical flowers and plants. The houses here are straight out of a National Geographic magazine. Turquoise, yellow and pink are the top three favored colors for homes here. While driving into Loma de Luz from La Ceiba, I noticed that every single porch was occupied. People were cooking, doing laundry, laying in hammocks. I even saw some naked babies running around. The children here are incredibly beautiful. And no two are the same. Some of the people here have the palest skin, others, olive skin and then there are the garifinos (?) who have the darkest skin tone. Tomorrow's plan is to go into the nearest village, Lucinda and teach at a bilingual school. While I am kind of nervous because I'm a little unsure of what exactly we're doing, I'm excited to actually get to interact with the kids here. I guarantee you it will probably be the best Monday I've had in a long time.

I'm going to go take a much needed shower and probably sleep. It's been an exhausting couple days of travel and introduction to this new place. Thanks for bearing with me through my first blog attempt. And definitely kudos, if you caught my Golden Girls reference at the very beginning. XoXo.