Gringos Are The Worst

I've been hanging out with a lot of Gringos (and other hangers-on) and I mean a lotsies. This may come as surprise to some of you because if you know me you're painfully aware that one of the more absurd quirks that I have developed in the span of my time here in Honduras has been the general feeling of loathing and disdain that seems to envelope me whenever I see another foreigner (Gringo especially) on the street. This other foreigner in question of course has done nothing wrong, although they're usually dressed like a gypsy, and smell the part too. No, the fault lies entirely in my court; I simply have come to assume that Honduras is mine - I am the only white person living here and so to see another white face is to thusly disrupt that false paradigm that I've created in my head. This isn't to say I don't like Gringos & Expats; heck some of my best friends here are white...

  As you can see.

And lately these new-found white people friends have been everywhere with me.

Within the past 2 months I've made friends with a whole lady flock of white friends.

Now you might say to yourself: "Oh my, look at all those nice white girls from the United States."

And you'd be wrong.

And probably a little racist too.

Because two of the girls are Austrian mid-wives, one is a Canadian mid-wife, one really is an American (by way of New York) and the other (the tiny one you can barely see) isn't even white. 

She's an Indian from Texas!

The other Saturday I took my flock into the mountains to hike them out to the waterfall.

I've done this before.

And before.

On our way out I made sure to stop off in Laureles and pick up a few children to accompany us.

Here's Nery, one of the kindest children you could ever hope to meet.

Juan Carlos is wondering about somewhere...

...oh there he is with the Lady flock.

Nery seems to be enjoying himself there too.

In that we've received copious amounts of rain these past few months, the falls were particularly strong that day. So much so that I was a little scared of standing under them as I usually do.

I included this one only because it kind of looks like snow there on the rocks...which I miss.

I takes about an hour to hike to the falls and about another hour to hike out.

Upon commencing our return trip, one of the ladies from the flock placed her iPhone in my camera bag.

When we were 5 minutes from the exit of the trail I discovered that the iPhone had fallen out somewhere.

She and I and one of the boys turned back around and went looking for another hour with no luck.

That was really a lot of fun.

The next day I was sitting in church and just felt the heat wafting in from the outside.

I had the sudden urge to go back up to the mountains and spend the day in the river.

Upon leaving church I called my old reliable neighbor in Los Laureles, Johnny and asked to borrow his truck for the afternoon.

I then proceeded to pick up the lady flock, a whole slew of children from Laureles and some snacks and off we went.

Abel

Doing well in spite of losing his mother not too long ago.

Me and Chucu high upon the rocks.

Austrians are strange, this I've come to believe.

And they hate the Germans...just can't stand them.

Here's a kid I hardly ever see.

Darwin Espinoza, youngest brother to two of my closest companions, Lauro and Sergio.

Manrique

Another that doesn't usually join us for outings.

A

Strange

Entry

And then there is Nadine the Austrian Mid-Wife

All in all in what was a relaxing and enjoyable weekend

Even if it was spent with White People.