Copan part Dos

We're still here in Copan and almost through our first week of language school. My (Kaleb) brain is about to explode. This morning, I spent four hours learning how to use our word "for" in Spanish (por/para). I like to think that they have unnecessarily complicated a perfectly benign word, but oh well. The words are theirs, and it's my responsibility to learn them.

The last few days have gone really well. We've walked quite a bit up and down hills in town and stopped in the local stores (tiendas), but for the most part, we've stayed close to our "Home" in Copan. There's a nice little study table next to our room that opens to the outside where we study quite a bit.

Stacey doing what I should be doing.

We're joined every evening by our little study buddies: geckos. We've seen them here before, but they're much more faithful at our house here. They actually make a little noise late at night, but it's semi-pleasant, very much unlike the parrot in the cage in the shed. It's song (a.k.a. incessant screeching) is not so wonderful at 4AM. But the geckos are great, we watch them eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and flies every night. They can stay as long as they like.

A study buddy and the reason we love him.

The rest of our time at the house has been fairly uneventful save for one unexpected moment. I headed into the kitchen to get some water out of a big jug of filtered water. The bottle sits on a stand which has a little fruit basket underneath it. This detail is important because something else was in the basket when I walked in. I couldn't tell what it was in the darkness, but it scrambled into the corner and made a bunch of racket before it came flying back at me. I jumped out of the way to as a squirrel the size of a Doberman ripped past me out the door, past our room into the courtyard. I turned on the light to find three half-eaten bananas hanging out of the fruit basket. House mommy came walking in as I was picking them up, and I tried to explain to her what happened (Right now she's probably thinking that some sort of rabid half monkey/half alligator was roosting in the kitchen, judging from my ability to impart information in Spanish). All-in-all I think a good time was had by all.

We did have the opportunity to go horseback riding yesterday up into the mountains near Copan to a small village at the summit. There was a great little co-op of local women up there where the women made traditional clothing and dolls in a nice building set up by a Japanese non-profit a few years ago. The road/path was super-steep and only accessible by foot/horse, so we were a little surprised to find something so well organized up there.

The fellow that led the trip explained that he (and others) took it upon themselves to try to take tourists up there to try to bring some sort of business in for them. The town was definitely very poor, but it was encouraging to see folks from the city, international community, and local cultures working together to improve the situation. We hope to see a lot of this over the coming years.

There's a little slideshow below of some pictures from another lady on the trip. Hope you enjoy them and have a great week. 

 

Damos gracias adios: Por la oportunidad de ver a la gente del mundo trabajando juntos para mejorar éste paiz (For the opportunity to see the people of the world working together to improve this country.)