An Unfinished House

This past Sunday the older youth (16-20) of Los Laureles were invited to distant Olanchito to participate in a 4 team tournament with the winner receiving $100. We were given a little over a week's notice via a youth from Laureles that used to live in Olanchito; and thus it fell to me to organize the event. We decided to rent a bus and open the event to anyone that wanted to come so long as they were willing to pay $5 towards the cost of the rental. We were told that the tournament would begin at 9 am and so we decided to have everyone ready and waiting at the entrance to the community at 5:30 am and for the bus to pass by a little before 6:00. Much to my surprise 35 people and more than enough players showed up, we had uniforms loaned to us, extra balls just in case...but no bus - it never showed. Thus we had to flag down a passing bus on it's normal route from La Ceiba to Olanchito and ask that they be willing to squeeze 35 extra people onto their bus in addition to their reg...

what am I doing up at 2:42 in the morning? why is cesar posing in front of a fake christmas tree? why do i look like a punk rocker? who invited michael jackson? why is manuel wearing my favorite sweater? why are we drinking coffee at 2:42 in the morning? ??? we're waiting to kill a pig and it eat right quick My neighbors, a lot of families here in Laureles really, have been raising a pig all this past year so that come Christmas there is pork to eat. The early morning of December 23rd is the day most families here slaughter their pigs and mine was no exception. In that we did the axing at 3 am we decided not to sleep and instead pass the night drinking coffee, playing dominos and Dutch Blitz (they're really good at Dutch Blitz by the by). After eating the traditional post-slaughter breakfast of fat back and yuca at 5 am Manuel and I headed for the house where we slept till nigh on noon. I know it may not strike most of you out there as terribly Christmas-y but I assure y...

Really I am...it's been more than 10 days since last I've posted and I'm beginning to feel that anxious sense of guilt that I know so well. I've been moving and organizing and cleaning for over a week now and I'm still not all done. I apologize and hope to post something proper tomorrow. peace.

don't let the smile fool you, this kid is a handful and willfull too. i love him though, he comes from such a humble family and it's so hard to say no to him. happy birthday juan.

Oder (14), one of the kinder and more respectful boys in laureles took quite a tumble last night... He was running down that thar hill (which would be the newest addition to our landfill monstrosity) when he tripped and came down with all of his weight on a piece of glass that sliced his knee wide open... I got a call from his mother and rushed to the hospital where I found him with 10 stitches in his knee and in a lot of pain. This shot is from this morning... His one-room, one-bed home was filled with attendant cousins and friends waiting on his every need and hanging on his every word. His best friend (Chihua) didn't sleep last night, he cried the whole night through and at 6:00 am this morning he was at Oder's bedside playing cards with him and sharing coffee. I love these people.

Those of you out there that may have checked the blog in the past few hours would have noticed that the most recent post, the one immediately succeeding this one, makes no sense. There's only one incomplete sentence followed by a host of poorly-spaced and captionless photos. It was a work in progress and not meant to be published as-was. I had worked on downloading photos most of the morning and then stepped out briefly to run an errand, I left Duke and Manuel playing the Wii (thanks again Konrad) much in the same position that we find them in this photo. When I returned though my post was published, it had a label marked Duk (that's how Duke spells his nickname) and everything else that I had been working on was closed as well...yet I found them both in practically the same position I had left them. Sorry for the confusion then, I too was confused at first; fortunately the little trickster labeled his work with his own name so it wasn't too hard to figure out what had happ...

It's become our custom here, we happy folk of Los Laureles, to help out those unfortunate university co-eds that have found it possible to fail their physical education class for the term. How they manage such a feat is beyond me, this is class that anyone, even my Grandmother could pass. Regardless we here in Laureles are ready and willing to help. My connection with this rabble band of misfits and curmudgeons is this; their professor/slave driver is a member of my church and absolutely loves the children of Los Laureles. Thus when the university flunkies came to her and begged a reprieve she gave them an out; they would pass the class if they hosted a fun day for the children of the garbage dump. They of course jumped at the opportunity and so this past Friday we loaded up my car and a small van with 30 of Laureles' finest and off we went to the university for a day of games, food, cake and a pinata. It rained, which made the kids that much happier because they were able to g...

You want to talk about stubborn - here's a kid who refused to talk to me for nearly 6 months because I had to enforce a rule laid down by the soccer coach. Instead of getting angry with the coach he took it out on me and refused me even a single word until 3 weeks ago when he showed up to play soccer with us. Since then he's been his cheery, normal self and today...well, we cleberated his birthday. This kid has a tough life, his mom works on a garbage truck, he has no father and he's surrounded by bad influences, please pray for him. the requisite birthday shot cutting the cake

Although our kids ended their League-play in early October they've maintained that drive and passion for the sport and kind of by accident we were able to program 3 different days of games with 3 teams that don't participate in our league. One was in Club de Leones (those faithful readers out there may remember that I briefly worked with the youth there when I was with the Peace & Justice Project and still have contacts there), one wa in a very wealthy residential neighborhood and the last was in Sambo Creek, one of the Garifuna Villages outside of La Ceiba. I'm happy to report that we either won or tied all of our games and more than that, it was an opportunity to bring more kids into our team and establish leaders amongst the older youth. I allowed the older youth to organize the game dates, choose the players and manage the games...I simply provided the uniforms, transportation and water. It was a good week last week and it bodes well for our future as the Soccer Clu...