Somethings are obvious of course. I need to learn more of the language, the culture, the food, and the streets. I need very specific, clear directions to get just about anywhere as I learn to live without a my beloved gps. After my first trip to the grocery store, it was clear that I would need to learn an entire new way of cooking meals. Making real beans involves more than a can opener and rice is a whole other story. I'll admit I took my first load of wash to a laundry service, but since we are living on a missionary budget I knew that could not last very long. However, I was overly confident that a washboard would not be all that hard or complicated. I should have known better. Pastor Arturo happened to witness me standing and staring at the clothes, the washboard, the soap, the bucket, the bowl, the other type of soap and the stones beside me. After a good chuckle, he taught us how to wash our dirty, sweaty clothes "just like his mom did when he was a little kid." There are foods I just stare at until someone else starts eating, because I have no idea how to eat it with just a spoon in one hand and a tortilla in the other. Even still, it generally ends up all over my face.Learning these simple things that most learn here as little children is very humbling. I realize how many conveniences I depend upon back home. To the point where if they were taken away from me I'd be completely lost.
I also learn more about the people and their struggles each day and my heart grows for the Honduran people. I have witnessed their strength and optimism in the face of poverty, corruption and growing violence. Their faith is exceedingly stronger than anything I have known in the US as they quite literally pray for their daily bread and praise God when they receive it.
I have learned that the Honduran women have a strength about them that in reality should terrify any man. I mean seriously any woman who washes a family-size load of laundry on a washboard each day has larger guns on her than man I've met. But they also speak with such hope and gratitude when I am sure I would have already given up. I met a woman who is 95 years old, cannot walk, hear or see to save her life, and lives in a tiny house on a dirt road way up on the mountainside. Every day, her son picks her up out of bed and sets her on a plastic chair on their porch. She happily sits there each day, helping any way she can and loving on her grandchildren. Teaching them about God and feeding them lessons of hope and peace.
I guess I have learned quite a bit in these four itty-bitty weeks. I love it. Every lesson. Each day I feel like I am a little bit more in touch with the real world. It's hard and it's humbling, but it is just beautiful.
