A Birthday in the Mountains

-
Yesterday, Pancha (my neighbor/mother figure), invited me and my car to the birthday celebration of her mother in distant Toncontin, a remote village an hour's drive into the mountains. At 8:00 am sharp Pancha, her husband Oscar, their various offspring and Oscar's mother Maura along with one of her grandchildren loaded into my car and off we went into the wild mountains where we spent the day eating freshly slaughtered pork and sipping on coffee. It was a lovely, lazy day. I felt anxious at first because there are about 10 pressing things that I need to get done before Monday but in the end I enjoyed it...I needed the time away, time away from Laureles, from my new roomates/children/charges...it was good just to relax with people that are almost like family for me. H.B. Abuela.

adonai (nango) with his grandmother the birthday girl

pancha's sister, melida, is also the owner of the house that i'm now living in here in los laureles

christmas was still on full display in toncontin

they had a fully decorated tree on their porch...

and one inside their home as well

i brought tolo along as well, it's been a while since he and i have done anything together...

it also gave anuar someone to pal around with for the day

my real grandmother, shirley morris, would have been in love with the flora of toncontin

this is one i'd never seen prior

chili on the vine

coming in for a drink

look closely and to the right

simple beauty

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another Migrant Crisis

-
I've lived and worked in Honduras for 10 years both as a missionary, serving the very poorest of society and now as teacher, where I give philosophy and history classes to the children of the very wealthiest. I don't pretend to be an expert on Honduran society and I certainly cannot claim to have many answers with respect to issues of immigration. The whole topic strikes me as far more complex and nuanced than what many voices on either the Right or the Left make it out to be. Nevertheless, I know the milieu in which I live, I know why many poor Hondurans choose to emigrate illegally, I know why many wealthy Hondurans fly to Miami or Atlanta to give birth to their children and I know that all else remaining constant, this current caravan is only the beginning. A poor Honduran lives his life with little to no hope of ever achieving anything approaching financial stability. The people I know make their livings off of garbage collecting, selling unripened bananas and day-laborin
Read more

Coming to Honduras

-
Image
The other day in philosophy class I was teaching about existentialism, a philosophy with which I have myriad problems. The universe is absurd, life is meaningless, authenticate yourself with irrational leaps of faith! Hopeless and disconnected from reality if you ask me. Get out of the café Camus, mix with some common folk! Nevertheless, as I was introducing the material I mentioned that the existentialists really probed the questions of Life's meaning and purpose: "How do I create myself to be unique and significant?" "How do I live an authentic existence?" "How do I give my life meaning and purpose in an otherwise meaningless universe?" These seem to be questions that are attendant to societies that possess extreme wealth and privilege and an over-abundance of leisure time. I have serious doubts that 15th Century English peasants or even nobles for that matter, spent much time contemplating how they might make their lives unique or leave a
Read more

10 Years In Honduras

-
Image
My good friend Jessiel Rivera reminded me the other day that it was 10 years ago this month that I arrived here in La Ceiba. I remember my arrival here from Costa Rica fairly vividly. I had been getting teary-eyed on the plane from a combination of sleep deprivation, my longing to remain with my friends in beautiful San Jose and some sad indie music on my iPod. It was a hot and terribly humid Sunday afternoon when I landed in the La Ceiba airport and when I stepped off the 10-seater hotbox of an airplane onto the tarmac I was sweaty, bleary-eyed and disheveled. I looked like a typical gringo backpacker except for my mountain of luggage that I had in tow. Two members of the Central Mennonite Church picked me up in their car; how they knew I was the Gringo they were supposed to collect was beyond me but they got it right. I remember them remarking on the number of suitcases I had brought (3) and their heaviness (maximum weight allowance); and the resulting weight of embarrassment I felt
Read more