Then there's William who always has smile on his face. In fact, all of the boys inherited their father's smile. Wilder, the youngest boy, is a bit more reserved but just as fun-loving as the rest of the family. They live in a house next Alfredo's mom. Alfredo has four brothers and two sisters, all of whom, except for one sister, live right next to each other. Everyone is related. The families here are so large and they have an amazing sense of loyalty. A few of my favorite (well they're all my favorite) members of her family are probably her cousins, Marcos and Brian. They are ADORABLE. We hung out in their hammocks for probably a good 3-4 hours yesterday, playing with Marcos and Brian, and eating mamones. At one point, I looked across the road to see Marcos, dancing around in his underwear while taking a bath. His bath was just him splashing water on himself with the faucet in the yard. Once he noticed that he had an audience, he upped his dancing skills with some new hip moves. Pretty entertaining. His little brother is the definition of "a hoot." Brian is about 6 years old and has the only name I can truly pronounce correctly here. The great thing about Brian is that he loves to talk, so often times he'll just talk and talk and talk, without needing a response. Which is great because a lot times I can't understand what he says anyway, so we made great friends. 
Man. I love that little ornery babe. While we were in the hammocks, many of the men in the family were replacing the techo (roof) of the grandmother's kitchen right next to the house. It's a really extensive process but really interesting to watch. Apparently, they have to replace the palm roofs every year, especially when they're covering a kitchen. In this particular instance, their grandma uses fire instead of gas so the palms were blackened. Later that night, Bictelia fixed us some chocolate milkshakes which weren't completely unlike American chocolate milk shakes. We then had some pastels, which are pastry-like things filled with meat and other mysterious things, but still good. After dinner, we talked with Bictelia and had some Spanish-English lessons with her, Delmi and William. Our lessons consisted mainly of me learning new Spanish words by them going to get the object to show me. After lessons and chatter, we went to bed. I woke up around 2am to a dog incessantly barking outside and again at 5am to knives being sharpened and friendly banter outside. After laying in bed for 30 minutes, deciding whether or not to get up, I got ready for the day. 
Then I went outside to find about 20 people gathered around their hammock area (I don't really know what it's called) which had been transformed to a meat market. Turns out the four brothers slaughter one of their cows each weekend and sell the meat. The picture posted is one of a dog staring down the uncle cutting off some meat to meet (ha) the demands of hungry villagers. ALSO, this woman was nice enough to pick up the heart and lungs of the cow for a picture before she took them home. What she was going to with those organs, I don't know and I'm not sure I want to. During the meat festivities, Bictelia fixed Karin and I a meal unlike any breakfast I'd ever had. At 8am, we had a glass of Pepsi (I think it should be mentioned that I don't really drink pop and definitely not in the morning), corn tortillas, frijoles (beans), a block of cuajada (cheese), and steak. 
Don't get me wrong, it was delicious but it was no wonder why I wasn't hungry until 7pm tonight. Soon it was time to leave for the school. We teach music with a few kids every Saturday morning. I was so sad to leave Bictelia. We started calling her our Honduran mama. To which she responded with, "my American babies!!" Te quiero este mujer! She is just a big, precious, Honduran ball of sweetness. Ok, sorry for being delirious, I think you'll understand once I describe the rest of my day to you. Also, sorry this is so long. Ok so after music class, we returned to the casita to unload some of our stuff. Then we headed back to Río Esteban to pick up Delmi to go to her brother's soccer tournament in Balfate. These guys are amazing athletes. As you can probably imagine, there aren't any gyms in Honduras. The people here are just fit. They play soccer all day, everyday (that's a lie but they do play a lot of soccer). A majority of the people here don't understand American football. They think it's somewhat violent with all of the tackling
and honestly, I kind of agree with them on not understanding the game. Then again, I don't really understand soccer either but whatever. We were at the tournament for about 3 hours, when Karin realized she couldn't get the light to work on the ATV. We decided to leave, in hopes of beating the sunset, in order to get Delmi home. On the way through Balfate, Karin neglected to see a big pile of cow feces in the road. I was sitting on the back of the ATV and was DOUSED with cow poo. Whatever poo didn't splatter me on the shins, arm and bag, flipped up from the rear tires on the back of my legs. Seriously. Cow poop everywhere. It took a couple of seconds for the shock of the splatter to wear off and for me to tell Karin I was going to kill her and then for me to start laughing. Karin, Delmi and I were in hysterics on our way. Soaked in poo, laughing it up, we decided to stop at Loma de Luz to pick up Karin's headlight. The ATV we were driving is an automatic and it's really difficult to drive with three people. So heading up the hill, we went over a tumulo (speedbump) and the ATV just couldn't take the weight on the back. I told you earlier, too many tortillas. The ATV ended up flipping backward and we all went off. Don't worry (Mom), everyone was alright. We're fully aware those things are dangerous and even more aware now. And obviously, we won't be riding with three people in the future. Once it was established that everyone was alright, we were laughing again. Karin drove the ATV up the hill while Delmi and I trekked up by foot. On our way, we were trying to regain our breath and balance when we both just burst with laughter. It was just the ultimate walk of shame but not really shameful. Just smelly and hilarious. We arrived at the casita and Dr. Don decided to take Delmi back to Río Esteban and I decided to hose down and take a much needed shower. These past two couple of days have been quite adventurous. I still can't get over how wonderful this place is and how grateful I am for the opportunity to be able to experience it. (Pictured below is my buddy, Sheldon. He's quiet and intelligent and super sweet). Today, I realized I only have two weeks left. Again, I'm choosing not to dwell on that reality. I'll just deal with that when the time comes. I'm exhausted from today's events but looking forward to what tomorrow has in store. Sorry again for the long post. XoXo.
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