High Class dinner: Thanksgiving

Pictures from last night: Me and Hope, almost all the girls, all the guys, me and Blanca, Me Ellen and Sara, Me and Katie

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias

Happy Thanksgiving

This week had been crazy busy. Wednesday I had 4 essays and a project due, and this weekend I have another three papers, and 2 presentations to prepare. But tonight I do get to relax and have fun with the group. To celebrate Thanksgiving we are all going to a restaurant where we are going to have turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and the rest of the delicious American food. I am very excited. The picture is of me all ready for going out. I would just like to point out how I love that I can wear a dress like that to my Thanksgiving meal, while I am sure most of you reading this are admiring the cold snow outside. While I do miss the snow, I am not missing the cold.

Some exciting, yet sad news of this week is that one of girls in our group was bit by a dog. Long story short is that she is returning to the States on Saturday to start her rabies shots she needs. There are rabies shots here but with complications of insurance and timing, she cannot have them here. This is a hard time to leave as we are all in the middle of finishing everything up, and exams next week. Please keep Ellen in your prayers. She is frustrated and sad to be leaving early.

Mi familia

Here are some pictures of my family here. There is a picture of my brother with his baby, my mom with her grandson, my dad and brother, and my sister(the one sitting down) and the cousin of my sister-in-law.

My church

Here are some pictures of the church i attend here..Its named La Iglesia de fuente luz..which kind of means the church of light source...its a new building..there is not much to it. You can see the outside, inside, stage, and a small room constructed outside which is used as a classroom.

This is a video of my raft going over the small waterfall. I am in the front with the paddle flopping around, which was not suppose to be.

Vacation

Vacation was amazing. I am a little sad to be back. We spent the first two days at a lodge on a river in La Cieba, which is on the north coast. We left the morning of Friday very early on the bus. I did not know much about the lodge until we showed up there. It was in the middle of nowhere, which was a bit of a downfall. We had ten people, seven in one room, and then three in another room. The three others shared a room with other guests. The lodge was much like a hostel. Luckily I was in the room with the other six people in our group. The bathroom at this place was repulsive. The whole time the floor was flooded. I only took one shower for the two days we were there. In the middle of my shower, of course after I had put the shampoo in my hair, the water went. I got out with the shampoo still in my hair. I just had to wait until we had water again, and yes COLD water. The reason we decided to stay at this lodge was because of the activities they offered; whitewater rafting, and zip lining. With each activity, you get one free night at the lodge. The majority of us decided to only whitewater raft, because we are going to do zip lining in Nicaragua on Calvin’s bill. This was my first time whitewater rafting. From what I have been told from girls who have done it in the states, whitewater rafting is much different here than in the states. The classifications of the rapids are perhaps a bit more conservative in the States; this is to say what would be a class 5 rapids in the states may only be a class 3 or 4 here, therefore more dangerous here. Before going, we had to swim into a rapid and then float to practice what to do if we were to fall out, or I should say when we do fall out. I fell out twice, once was probably my fault, but the other time was because our raft flipped, not much I could do there. I was saved by another raft. Despite all this, I had a ton of fun. I have some fun bruises and bumps, but it was worth it. We left the lodge on Sunday morning. We got three taxis to take us into town to a grocery store. We were told that it was a lot cheaper to buy our food in La Cieba, porque the food in Roatan is very expensive. The taxis waited for us. We then went to the ferry station. The ferry was very nice. I have never had a problem with being sea sick before, but this time was horrible, up and down the whole time. Luckily a friend had some medicine for me. We arrived at Roatan at about 6:30. There was a mini bus waiting for us. It was fun to see someone holding a sign that said “Julianna and friends.” The mini bus was only for about 10 people, but we put 14 people, our luggage, and with twelve girls it was a lot, and about 30 bags of groceries. I was in the back corner, and could not see anything but the window for about 30 minutes. We had a fun surprise waiting for us at the house; there was no electricity. Because I was the coordinator, I ended up signing a “contract” that the owner had written up on a piece of loose leaf. Since we had a huge, dark house we decided to play a fun game of hide and seek. We only had to wait about 2 hours until the power came back. As soon as the power came back, everyone ran to find a bed, and to get their computers since we had wireless internet. Everyone got a bed, and luckily the one guy in our group got his own room.

The first day there, me and three other girls decided to go to the grocery store to get the rest of the food. We decided that everyone was responsible for their own breakfast and lunch, but we would do group diners. It ended up being less than $5 a person for 5 dinners. The grocery store was quite sketch. They did not have any bread or good fruit. We had wanted meat, like chicken and beef for hamburgers, but we decided against that once we saw the meat. We bought milk for everyone who had wanted it, which ended up being a risk, because three of the ten milks we had bought were bad. When we went to check out I wanted to use my card, but they informed us that they could not because they did not have power. Jen said, “why then do you have lights on?” They have generators that keep the lights and freezers on. We had to come up with enough cash, which luckily we had between the four of us. When we got back to the house, we did not have power either. We quickly put all the food in the fridges, and then got ready for the beach. We knew that we were not close to the beach, but I did not know that it was a hike up and down the steepest hills I have seen. Going to the beach was not that bad, because we had at least the beach to look forward to, but coming back was horrible. The beach was beautiful, and to be exact, the most beautiful beach in Central America. It was HOT the whole week; with humidity felt like 95. The only downfall of this beach was the sand flees. There were these little flees that bite us. They were small bites, but they inched. By the end of the week it looked like we had chicken pox, or some kind of rash. I probably had 100 bites. We spent most of the week at the beach. On the last day me and two other girls got a day pass at a resort on the beach to use the pool. This was the nicest pool I have ever seen. It was nice to get away from the flees and salt water. If I were to come back, which I would like to, I would stay at this resort. We did go into town twice while there, once for pizza and the other for dinner, because it was one of the girl’s birthdays.

One day me and three other girls took a boat tour of the island. At one point we stopped and one of the guys got out to show us a star fish. I actually got to touch and hold one. We went by a pen where they had dolphins. It was fun to see more of the island. We left Saturday morning, very early. We took the mini bus to the station, which was not so bad this time because we did not have all the food. We spent the whole day traveling back to Tegus. When we got home I ate dinner then got ready for bed. At the end of the trip I developed a bad cold. So with being tired and sick I slept for nearly 18 hours.

Being sick here has been interesting. The directors tell us to try to not let your family know your sick, because they get worried easily, which is so true. It’s hard to hide coughing and blowing my nose all the time. The first day I was sick I got up and took a shower. My mother here was shocked that I had taken a shower. She said it was very bad to take a shower when sick, but I told her that I feel better after a shower. Being grouse makes me feel worse. My sister told me one time she did not take a shower for a week, because she was sick, but I thought to myself, that’s probably why you were sick for the week. They also keep asking me about medicine, which I do have, but today my mom here told me I had to buy cough syrup, because I was coughing this morning, which I was a little annoyed about, because I did not want to spend the money on it. It is just hard because I know how to care of myself, and there ways of taking care of being sick is different than what I am used to. I have however got some good tea for being sick. I do want to feel better soon, because this is not the time for me to be sick. I have so much to do before classes end in two weeks. I cannot believe that the semester is almost over. I have two more weeks of classes, then a week in Nicaragua, and then 3 days to pack up. I am ready to come home, but there are some things I am going to miss.

The house and beach

We then took a ferry to the island of Roatan. Here is a picture of the beautiful beach and water that i already miss. The sunset off our deck. My room that i shared with two other girls- We had our own bathroom and deck. A picture of the huge pool at a resort on the beach that we used for a day.

The lodge

For the first few days of vacation we stayed in this lodge on the river in La Ceiba. Here is a picture of the lodge, our room, and the rocks where we jumped into the rapids. It was a little rustic, but worth it.

Are you jealous?

This is the view off our deck. We just relax and read with this beautiful view. I will write more about it later.

Estoy lista para vacacion

I am finally done with this week. Tomorrow at 6:30 I leave for La Cieba, which is on the northern coast. We are planning on staying two nights there. White water rafting is in the plans. We will then take a ferry to the island of Roatan, where we will stay for a week. We will return Saturday night.

I only quickly want to mention that this past week my sister here was in an accident. While standing on the side of the road she was hit by a motorcycle. The motorcycle had two police men on it. She is fine, but has some huge bruise, deep wounds, and a ton of pain. There is a doctor that comes to our house everyday to give her shots. One of the policemen broke his leg, because the motorcycle fell on top of his leg. It’s a miracle that everyone came out more or less fine.

Vacation House

After a tiresome process, we have finally found a house to stay in next week. Here is the link to the site. I am super excited for this.
http://www.vrbo.com/96373

More pictures of Guatemala- the Ruins and Park

Guatemala..The Adventure Continues

Sorry I have not written in a while. I am been so busy, with projects, tests, presentations, and papers. I want to tell you about the rest of our Guatemala trip and then summarize the last two weeks. The day after the girls were followed was a Wednesday. We got up in the morning and took a bus to Guatemala City, one of the most dangerous cities in Guatemala. We went to a museum, which talked about the history of the clothing of Guatemala, which is important to the history and story of the people. Today it is very common to see people in authentic clothing. Afterwards we went to the national theater, but it was closed for “presidential activities.” We looked at the Cathedral near the center square, which was beautiful. There was some time to do some shopping in the markets and lunch. The last thing we did was looking at the replica of the land forms of Guatemala. It is hard to explain so I will put a picture up. We went back to Antigua, where we went to a hill where there was a cross. We walked up a million steps to get there. When coming back down, I was walking with Sara, because of her ankle. We were the last ones down. When we got there the bus was not there, but Hope and Ellen were there waiting for us. They told us everyone already started walking back, so they waited for us, so we did not think that the bus had just left us. Luckily there was a guy in our group who was not too far ahead that we called him to stay by us, because we know had no idea where we were, or where the hotel was. We had a map from the hotel, but the place where we were was not on the map. We asked some people, but every time we asked they told us we were in a different place. It seemed no one knew the city too well. We ended up walking around the city for two hours. When we got back some people were at the hotel and others had already gone out to shop. We went to the markets, and then did dinner at a restaurant. The rest of the night was just spent hanging out. The next day, Thursday, we traveled from Antigua to Copan. We just spent the day poking around. We had no group plans. Friday, which perhaps was my favorite day, was at the Mayan ruins in Copan. We took a tour of the ruins, which were beautiful. It is hard to believe that people used to live there, and lived lives so different than ours. After the ruins we went to Macaw Park, which too was beautiful. We took a tour, to look at the variety of birds at the park. We ate lunch at the park. We had the rest of the evening to ourselves. Saturday we got up early and spent the entire day in the bus returning to Tegus. I was very tired when we got back, but it was nice to be back. Living out of a suitcase at numerous hotels gets old after 8 days.

The following weeks have been crazy with papers, exams, and projects. I always have a lot to do, but I am getting it all done. A lot of the work just takes so long, because it us in Spanish. A 6-8 page paper in English would not be too bad, but in Spanish, it takes a very long time. Luckily, and unluckily from this point I only have four weeks of classes left. One week before vacation, and 3 after. Speaking of vacation, I ended up in charge of planning my group’s vacation in Roatan, which is an island north of Honduras. It has been very hard because some people do not want to spend a lot of money, and others only want to stay part of the week. Right now we have it down to two houses. We will make reservations Monday.

This past weekend we went on a mini trip to visit this help organization. It is run by a gringo, but is now considered a Honduran organization. They have programs in tons of different areas; health, education, agriculture, churches, domestic violence, a national park, and many more. We spent two days going around and looking at some of the different projects of this organization. One thing we saw was a bridge that had been destroyed in this recent tropical storm. None of us had realized how bad this storm has been. With about three weeks of continuous rain, town, especially in the north have been damaged. Infrastructure is horrible now. This one bridge was swept away. To walk across they are using the ropes, as seen in the picture. For the one night, we slept in the cabins in the national park. That night we had a group meeting to talk about our observations of the day as well about the organization of my professor. He and some others started an organization about ten years ago. It’s an organization to fight for a more just society. The programs they run are programs that other organizations do not want to run or have not thought to run. Some of the stories he told us were crazy. They have changed Honduran laws, helped capture gang members, and numerous other things. I was very impressed.

Guatemala..The Adventure Begins

I do not have enough time to write about the whole trip right now, but I will at least start. We had to be at the university at 5:15 a.m. on Friday. We waited a while for the bus that was late. Once we loaded all the luggage on top and had people inside, the driver realized that there was too much weight, which meant we had to find another, larger bus. We waited two and a half hours for a larger bus. This bus was a mix of a coach bus and a school bus. There was way more space, but no AC and no t.v., like the other. We got going a little late. On our way we stopped at a Banana farm for a tour. In Honduras there are two large, American owned, banana companies. This farm was of Chiquita Bananas. After we got back on the bus and traveled to Copan, which is on the frontier of Honduras and Guatemala. This hotel was not one of my favorite, because of all the geckos, but it was fine. We at Jim’s Pizza, which is a pizzeria in town, owned by an American, Jim. We got up very early the next morning to have breakfast at a small restaurant. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to wait for our bus. Some girls realized that during breakfast some of their things had been stolen; 2 IPods, 3 cell phones, and a total of 250 dollars. After waiting some time in the hotel we were told that the bus was not working, and we had the afternoon in Copan. We went out to lunch and shopped at some of the small stores there. We returned later to the hotel to find out that we would be spending an extra night, because we had to find a new bus. The group went out to dinner and then to another place to watch a Honduras soccer game. Sunday we got up and got going on a new bus. Most of the day was spent on the bus. We arrived in Panajachel in the evening. We had some time to check out the principle road where all the stores and restaurants were. We got up Monday morning and walked to the lake front. The city is on a lake with many other towns. While walking to the boat, there were these men bothering us to buy these stupid pens. Sara and I were quickly walking down a flight of stairs to get away, and Sara fell, hurting her ankle badly. We got on the boat and went to the first town. Sara had to stay on the boat, because she could not walk. In the first town we went to a fabric company. They make fabric using old-fashioned wood weaving machines. To them it is not really old-fashioned, but to us it is. The fabric was beautiful. We then got back on the boat and went to another town on the lake. We ate at this really nice restaurant. I had a delicious steak. The beauty of the trip was that Calvin paid for ALL food, housing, transportation, and any trip related activities. After lunch we visited the Catholic Church there, and another religious site. We then had time to shop at the markets there. This was our first real chance to practice our bargaining skills. It was hard because we did not know what prices were good or bad for some of the products there, because prices are so different here. There were these two little kids who followed us the whole time wanting us to buy bracelets. It was annoying and sad at the same time. I ended up buy some from them in the end. We went back to the main town, and had the evening to ourselves. We ate dinner at a restaurant on the main road. The whole dinner time people would come up and ask if we wanted to buy their product. Some of us are softer than others, Katie being one of the softer ones. She had a hard time saying no. We shopped a little in the evening. Tuesday morning we traveled to Antigua. We had time for lunch and then met for a 3 hour walking tour of the city. I ended up staying back with Sara, because there was no way she could have walked for that long. Afterwards we went out to some markets. We had a group dinner at a fun restaurant. There was music all night, which made for a fun atmosphere. Later that night some people went to a bar-restaurant. There were some girls who wanted to leave earlier than others, so they left alone. On their way back, some guy tried to rob them, but they screamed and ran. The fronts of hotels are all locked at night, so they were banging on the front door loudly. That is when I came out to see what had happened. They were all alright luckily.

Voy a Guatamala

I leave tomorrow at 5:00 am for Guatamala. I will be gone for a week. I am excited to tell you all about it when i get back.

More pictures

La Playa

Last week was rather uneventful. I had my first history exam. I studied for three hours for a 15 minuet- 2 page test. At least I was well prepared. It is now rainy season, which makes walking quite inconvenient. However, the rain does make it cooler. The other day I was talking with my dad and I told him I thought the day was a little cooler than most, but when he went on Google, the temperature in Tegus was 82. I am scarred to return to winter and snow.

Thursday night, Hope slept over at my house, because it would be unsafe for her to take a taxi by herself in the morning to the bus station. It is amazing how safety can be so inconvenient. Friday morning we left for the beach in Tela, a city on the northern coast of Honduras. I left my house at 4:45, to leave on the bus at 5:45. My mom had arranged for a taxi to come to my house, because it’s much safer to have a taxi driver my family knows when it is so early in the morning. The bus ride was about 5 hours with one stop in the middle. Because we were going through the mountains the whole trip, the bus was always turning and going up hills and down hills. We arrived in Tela around lunch time. We ate at a restaurant right on the beach. After lunch we went and looked at some tents set up for a festival that we going on. Friday was a holiday here in Honduras. The rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach. We got dressed up and went out Friday night to a nice restaurant. The rest of the night we spent on the beach and the hotel patio.

Saturday morning we got up at 6:30 to go on an excursion to a national park nearby, Punta Sal. We took a 40 minuet boat ride to the park. Our little boat got a lot of air off the large ocean waves. Once there we got off the boat and started our hike through the jungle. Our guide prefaced the hike with saying, “If I start to run, do not ask questions; just run with me. I will explain after I feel it’s safe and have stopped.” Of course being a little concerned I asked why we would need to run, and how often does this need to run occur? He responded saying that there were jaguars in the jungle, and running was more or less common. This really eased my nerves, or not. There were sooooo many mosquitoes that I literally spayed my can of bus spray the entire hike. I felt like one of those city girls who was defiantly outside her box. We did not see any jaguars, but we did see some monkeys. Our guide would make a monkey noise, and the monkeys would all then make a bunch of racket. It was a beautiful park. After the hike we got back into the boat and went to the other side of the peninsula. The guide dropped us off a bit away from shore, and we snorkeled our way back to shore. It was very cool to see all the ocean life. Once on the beach we had lunch. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, fish was for lunch. The whole fish sat on my plate staring me down. I do admit I did try it, but I really am not a fan of sea life as my meals. After lunch we had two hours to just relax on the beach. Because no one is allowed to live there, besides the two families that lived there before the land was a park, we pretty much had a private beach. We returned to the mainland after. We went out for dinner and then spent the evening again on the beach and hotel patio.

Sunday morning I got up early because I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful sunny day. After spending all morning at the beach we got some lunch and got ready to go. Once at the bus station, Katie told me I should call my parents to let them know at what time I would be returning that evening. When I went to get my phone, I realized that I had left it at the hotel. I do not know how, but one of the girls in our group remembered writing down the hotel number on our travel information sheets four days before. I called the hotel and asked if anyone spoke English, but of course not, so I had to explain the situation in Spanish. I told her I had just left the hotel, but I thought I left my phone in the room. She said she would go look and I should call back in 5 min. I had Katie keep calling my phone to help them find it. The women picked up, and asked if I were going to come back for it, but I did not have time to return to the hotel and then back to the bus station before our bus would need to leave. I told her that I would pay someone to bring it to me. Just as we were getting on the bus, she brought me my phone. It was soo close. We had a nice bus ride home. When I got home I was tired and went to bed. I would defiantly return again.

Just alittle something i noticed is the grand difference of the pictures currently on my blog- poor Honduras village compared to tourist hotel beach..i definatly am experiencing alot.

Tela

I am not sure the order the pictures will come up in but here is what they are: Our room at the hotel. The curtains are closed but out our window we saw the beach and ocean. One of the pictures is our view. We went on an excursion to a national park. There is a picture of our hike through the jungle. The group of us on beach at the park. The view of the hotel from the beach. I will write more later.

Address

Someone asked for my address, so i thought i would just put it up for everyone

Julianna Felker
Apdo 30676
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Central America

Nueva Suyapa

This weekend was very interesting. The whole group went to visit Nueva Suyapa, which is a town about 25 minutes from the university. This town is much poor than where I live now, yet is the norm for the majority of Honduras. We arrived in Nueva Suyapa around 4:00. This town is where two of our professors live with their family. We went first to the church of our professors, where the families met us. There were two students with every family. I was with Amanda. The papá brought us back to his house, which was not too far from the church. We met his two sons, who were 8 and 3 years old. We had dinner; rice, refried beans, cheese, and tortillas, which is about as Honduran as you can get. We passed the evening playing with the children. The cousins lived next door. The children asked a lot of questions, like how old are you, where do you live, what is your favorite color… One of the little boys sat down very seriously and asked us “what are the customs of the US?” We asked him, “customs for what exactly?” He just wanted to know in general our customs; a broad-hard question to answer. The kids had a book of English vocabulary. They all know a little English from school. They would say, “The sky is blue,” and we would tell them the sentence back in Spanish. We did this a lot. Amanda and my room was in the basement. There was a musty smell and lots of insects. I did not sleep well for two nights. Saturday morning we went to one of the school, where our professor’s kids attend. There was a climbing wall there. It was so hard, but very fun. We played soccer with the kids. We then spent the afternoon at our houses. The kids took us to visit their family who all lived nearby; uncles, cousins, aunts, grandpas…. Saturday night there was a church service at the church. It was interesting, but I had a bad headache throughout the whole service. Afterwards we returned home in a storm. I went to bed right away because I was so tried and had a headache. We ate breakfast Sunday morning and then took a bus home. The first thing I did was took a shower when I got home. I then took a long nap. I defiantly learned a lot. The people who live in these types of areas do not have much, and yet are very content with their lives. The children do not have many toys, but find ways of entertaining themselves with what they have.

Nueva Suyapa

I do not have time to write about this past weekend right not but here are some pictures. I am not sure what order they are going to come up in, but here is what the pictures are:

The kitchen and bath room...you can see the table..then there is the area for washing dishes on the left, and to the right is the bathroom stale, and in the middle the shower...i did not shower this weekend.

Me on the climbing wall at the school in the town.

Me with the kids.

Typical street in the part of town- only dirt and garbage.

Our room in the basement...lets just say i did not sleep well for two nights.