In Country!

We made it, safe and sound! Kara and I flew from Philly to Fort Lauderdale and then down to SPS.

Waiting to board the plane in Philly

The first leg was a bit delayed due to wind/rerouting, but we made it up in the air. The second flight was also a bit delayed because of the incoming aircraft, but only by about 20 minutes, so we still landed in Honduras on the 21st! Overall, everything went quite smoothly. Baggage took some finagling on the front end, but the agents were gracious with us and didn't charge us as much as the fee schedule for our overweight bags (Spirit Air's policy is 40lbs, not 50!). When I'd been doing online check-in the night before, I was shocked that the exit rows were still available on both flights. (For no extra charge?! Sign me up!)

Ahh, the lap of luxury

Our layover in FLL was about 3 hours long, so we had some Steak n' Shake for our last American meal. I slept almost the entire flight to SPS, and we landed just before midnight. The line for migration was quite slow, but everything went well. Our bags all made it, and customs was easy -- just turned in the forms, had our bags X-rayed, and went on our way! I'm so grateful for how smoothly the travel day went. The Connecting Peoples Coordinator for MCC here in Honduras, Lars, was there to meet us at the airport and take us to our lodging for the night. We loaded our bags in the team pickup and headed to our Airbnb apartment! By the time I was finally laying down, it was about 2am, but I was so excited to be here that it took me awhile to fall asleep.

View from our balcony

Mountains in the west make me feel at home

In the morning, we got to meet Keyla from Colombia. She'd arrived about 12 hours before we had. We each made ourselves some eggs in our own style as we were ready for a little breakfast protein. Lars stopped by with some baked oatmeal, over which the four of us shared what brings us to Honduras. 

YALTers - fast friends

Keyla, Kara, and I went down to enjoy the pool while Lars went to the MCC office to take care of some paperwork. Around 1, the four of us went out to lunch at a local restaurant and I had a delicious steak -- about half a centimeter thick -- with rice, salad, cooked veggies, and a tasty sauce.

Back at the apartment, we had a little time to look over some of our readings for this month before heading to the home of Lizette and Cesar, the area directors. They welcomed us with watermelon around the dining table before we took to the living room for our first session with Lizette. We shared our "Rios de Vida," which was a very meaningful way to share our stories and get to know one another. We also talked about how to be "wounded healers," the different kinds of trauma, and being aware of and breaking circles of violence. There is much we will continue to delve into on these topics! To finish the session, we made journals to help us remember our roots and values -- and process our growth and the fruits we see this year. The covers are sandpaper -- the journey will not always be easy.

Mine has the yellow square in the middle

We'd been considering cooking dinner in the apartment, but it was already 7 so we decided to head to another local restaurant and get baleadas. I had one with chorizo, refried black beans, and avocado. Yum!

I slept quite well last night.

Almost all of the conversations yesterday were in Spanish. It's the first time I'm able to say I spoke more Spanish than English in a given day! Although I have to think a fair amount before I speak, I'm understanding most things and was fairly happy with how well I was able to communicate, especially as a starting point for the growth I'll go though this year on the language front.