Monday, March 02, 2015

    A very busy day has left us tired and ready for sleep, but it was a good kind of busy.  With the extra practices done and the recital over there was time to get back to the exercise routine, and since it was Monday, I could go back outside.  Glade is finished with his membership to Casa Campo so just did the treadmill downstairs and walked outside a little, too.

    Hooray!  This was my last haircut and color day doing it all myself.  I can’t wait to call Jenn when I am home and make an appointment for a little TLC from my hairdresser!

    Our friends from the egg farm, Julio and Gloria Salgado, came for us about 11:30 this morning and took us out to lunch and on a tour of the old part of Tegucigalpa.  Lunch was at Friday’s at a mall we haven’t been to for a long time since it is a little further away than what want to pay taxi fare for.  The meal tasted very good and the company was great.  Gloria speaks English and came to the US to get her BS degree at Lewis and Clark College in Lewiston, ID.  She has been teaching school in Tegucigalpa for 14 years.  Her husband understands quite a bit of English, but like me with Spanish—he doesn’t speak it much.  They have one daughter and her name is Gretel.  She attends a private bi-lingual school as do most of the children here and her parents take her and pick her up every day since paying for bus transportation is so expensive.

    Our drive through the old part of Tegucigalpa was very hilly with unorganized narrow streets going every which-way—especially up and down.  Big buses and trucks maneuvered very steep inclines on roads neither Glade nor I would ever drive on.  The traffic was fairly heavy and there was lots of waiting to get where we wanted to go, but that is just part of the journey.  You just can’t be in a hurry to get someplace here.  There were no stop lights, no street signs, and apparently no traffic rules.  At each intersection, and where traffic merged—which  happens constantly—cars just nosed their way into traffic while the drivers honked a message “I’m going now” and the other drivers honk “Okay” and then the first one honked again “Thanks.”  It is common and seems a little crazy but we don’t see many accidents.

    We came home tired but so happy for a chance to spend this time with our friends.  It was sad to say good-bye knowing we will probably never see this family again.

    Family Home Evening was great, but I kept nodding off during the constant drone of Spanish.  The other six couples in our group are all Latin Americans and so everything is still in Spanish.

    I took a few pictures today so you can see our friends, the Salgados.

     Good Night!  Love and our best prayers coming your way—

Lunch at Friday's with Julio and Gloria Salgado

The next several pictures are from Gretel's school.
We stopped mid-afternoon and picked her up.
This is a turtle pond in the courtyard.  There were lots and lots of turtles!

A school entrance.  

Pre-school area

Adorable kids waiting at the classroom door for the bell to ring!

An outside view.  The school is divided into three areas by the age of the student.

It was crazy when the dismissal bell rang and there were kids everywhere!

Just more kids!

Glade and Brother Salgado are in the left center of the photo.

It just wouldn't be my post if there weren't gorgeous flowers in it.  

Up close

Glade with the Salgados and their daughter Gretel.

The private buses for the kids.  Transportation is very expensive.

We went to a park at the top of a steep hill that overlooks the old part of the city
and the surrounding hillsides of Tegucigalpa.

The paint on the trees is to keep insects away--especially ants
and wasps--and is for decoration as well.

The center section of this hill where there are no houses is where
Hurricane Mitch leveled all the homes there in 1998.  They have since
built canals there to help drain heavy rains.  No homes are allowed to be
built there now because of the danger.  A landslide just wiped out that
whole section of homes.

I really want these in my yard at home!!

The road in the center leads out of the city North towards San Pedro Sula.

The building in the center is a famous cathedral

I was trying to get a view of the steepness of this road, but the cars came too
fast and I had to get out of the way so the photo doesn't show how steep it really was.