An Unfinished House

 It's a Thug's life for Jefferson Until his older brother Junior gets in on the act, flashes his innocent smile and ruins the seriousness of the moment. What's a Hommie to do?

The other day I was visiting my good friend Soplo. We've been close for some time and was one of Konrad's good friends as well. Some of you that have been reading this blog for a while now, may remember that Konrad Swartz worked with me here in Los Laureles for the first half of 2010. (his final blogpost here ) Anyway, as we were sitting there visiting, one of the 20 people that live in Soplo's sprawling home appeared with her newborn baby boy. She told me that he was born on my birthday and then told me that at the behest of our dear friend Soplo, she had named him Konrad Jose. I almost cried. It made me miss the original Konrad something terrible. I called him up at Eastern Mennonite University to offer my congratulations. Konrad Konrad

Alright Internet, you win. Laugh your head off. Paying for an unusable service is a riot. An uploaded picture per hour is comedic genius. I can still write though - you can't limit me there; so write I shall. It's been almost a month now since I've been back and life has quickly returned to normal. In a good way, in a pre-2011 sort of way. I don't want to disparage the year that I lived in Los Laureles - I really do miss it in fact, but the act of living there limited the amount of time I actually truly visited other people in their homes. People instead visited me and did so around my schedule. It limited my time for activities with the youth of the community, as much of my life was occupied by maintaining my home, caring for the guys living with me and searching for water. And it limited the amount of quiet, alone time I had - the only time I had to myself was either early in the morning or late at night. Now though that I'm back living where I ...

Did I say loathe? I meant love; but I do loathe their internet service. It's a joke. In two hours I was able to load this picture of me writing in my journal in Los Laureles. fun fun. I have a lot of great photos and stories to share but this internet is really putting a cramp in my creative flow. Let's try this tomorrow. 

a gecko in los laureles. sounds like a book title. many people i meet loathe these little creatures. shoo them away with brooms. i love them. welcome them into my home. home(s). why? they eat cockroaches. like it's their job. i like that. that's a creature i can get behind. 

This about sums them up. This is day 2. There's more to say and show, particularly the third member of the team (that small brown girl is not him), however honduran internet being the splendour that it is I cannot upload any more photos. 

Last week was a rollercoaster of sorts, it being my first week back in Los Laureles, wanting to see everybody I'd been missing for 4 months and also trying to avoid the chaos that is Holy Week in La Ceiba. I'll write more later this week about my transition thus far back into Honduran life. Today though was about as normal-laureles as one could get; I visited Marta, joked with Carlos about his older brother Jose, listened to middle-aged women gossip, watched Chihua have his front-four teeth pulled by a traveling dentist, hauled water with Cristian and cleaned our Laureles house to This American Life . Life is grand. pichol and mateo  their older brother, chita his new best friend, junior alvina, kelly and michael

  >>> In this morning's paper. <<< (click that thar link)