Photo Diary

January 8, 2010

In honor of my slow slide towards a photo-diary (as mentioned yesterday), I’m going to introduce over the next few weeks a few of the Hondurans who are important in my life.

This is Elvia, my host mom who lives in La Cuesta.

Elvia is at times timid and soft-spoken but can pierce the air as she belts out the assigned chores each Saturday morning. After 3 months without seeing one another she looked seriously concerned when I walked in the house 10 lbs lighter than when I left. I probably heard her say, ‘come sin pena’ (an order to eat without shame) more than anything else while I was visiting. She tried to undo 3 months of tortillas and beans in 2 short days. She fed me torrejas (It’s like French toast cooked in raw sugar), tutti-frutti (chopped up fruit), tamales, sandwiches, and baleadas until I fell into a food coma New Years Eve.

This is Stefany, my 6-year-old host sister from La Cuesta. She is wild, spunky, and loves to dress up in frilly pink dresses. She is very much ‘the girl’ in a household full of boys. She loves to watch LazyTown and Backyardigans every Saturday while her older brothers do chores.

Here are Fernando (left) and Flavio (right), my host brothers from La Cuesta.

They work hard in the field with their dad 6 days a week, year-round and love to impress me with their strength during arm-wrestling contests. Flavio was my personal Spanish teacher during training, often spending evenings with me at the dinner table working on homework and chatting. He likes to steal my camera in order to make long videos of himself making funny faces and farting.

Flavio knows a fair amount of English, however most of it are phrases he learned playing Grand Theft Auto. Nando likes to stay up late watching movies and texting with his novia who lives on the other side of town and eats 12 tortillas every meal. While they are both lighthearted and exuberant at home, once outside they both clam up and get shy. Flavio is my best friend in Honduras.