Jesus was playing football!!

I love love love weekends!! Yeah, I love my work, but weekends are different. Saturday mornings are me-only mornings - time to sleep, relax etc. Then youth group, friends etc in the evening. I only ever speak Spanish at weekends as most of my friends don't speak English. It still doesn't feel like my life sometimes - but someone elses!



Sundays? My favourite day of the week. I LOVE it!



At church today it was the last of the celebration services for the churches 21st anniversary. Followed by a picnic - well Carne Asada. The church provided the meat and tortillas and families had to bring their own chismol, avacados etc. Not being a family and having all this food, different families adopt me and bring extra food for me! Sweet huh? I sat and looked around me at one point during the picnic and realised every single person in the church knows me - I am truly accepted! If you remember, back in November the Pastor asked me to make a Prayer Calender with photos of every single family and person in the church, and I also had to make a Directory - details like addresses, jobs, phone numbers, DOB etc. It was v hard work and nearly killed me, but it was so worth it. I took photos of about 200 people and so got to meet each and every person in church and talk to them, take their photo. Some Couldn't make it to church and I went to their houses to take their photos etc - so I got to see where people live. I don't remember the name of everyone - mainly the old people who don't come every week. But everyone knows me! As I sat and looked around today it was very apparent. I am a part of the community in every way.



Anyway, after church, I went and drank coffee at a friends house and then it was football time. Every Sunday for 2 years now I have been and watched the boys play football. Our church is the only church team in the secular, town league. We're doing quite well this year. I love Sundays! All the other teams now recognise me too, which makes it easier being the only girl -and only white there! They are my Sunday family. And all my friends from church play in the team (well most of them!), todays game was going quite well and then at half time this man playing for the other team turned up...and looked exactly like Jesus!! It was hilarious. He went and played and they scored a goal - which I pointed out was because they had Jesus on their team! Sadly...it very quickly became obvious that 'Jesus' perhaps wasn't quite like the real Jesus after all 'cos he was blind drunk. Made amusing viewing!! He only got to play for 5 minutes before, after long discussions, they managed to convince him to get off the campo!! They had a whole load of fans....turned out they were all drunk too!! When 'Jesus'' friend came up to me with whisky bottle in hand and took my hand declaring we were friends, I just said no we weren't and went and stood in the middle of all my friends (men!). He was a scary man!! Never a dull moment.



As I write this David (Kulicha - Lorena and Jaime's younger brother) is lying on my sofa watching some random Mexican TV show whilst his laundry is washing in my machine. 'Lavandoria Gringa' is very busy at the weekends. Notice it's only the guys who come to wash their clothes in the machine! But it's my way of serving them and sharing what I have.



I can't tell you how much I love weekends and time with my friends, with my church, time to relax. Each weekend that passes it becomes more evident that I am a part of this community, this church, my friends. I need to work more on my Spanish - not a word of English on Sundays for sure! I still can't believe that is me!!

I really am very lucky to be living here. I hope tonight is going to be calm and uneventful. Work tomorrow....but it will soon will be Saturday again!!

Never a dull moment!

Figured I'd try and keep this better updated!

This time last Saturday night I was up at the hospital with Kike and his broken limbs and near death experience!

This Saturday night? We had our churches 21st Anniversary service (service number 3!) and then as always a group of us went and ate baleadas at our favourite place...the garage that is converted into a 'baleada restaurant' at night - the oil covered courtyard with tables! The difference is that for the first time in ages there were about 12 of us. We sat and chatted and relaxed together for about 2 hours, a really good time with friends. Then, as every Saturday night Adony came to my house to do his laundry in my washing machine (I offer it to all my friends to do their laundry as I live alone and am lucky enough to have a good water supply and a washing machine!). This time, as it was straight from church (via baleadas), Adony's mum came too and another friend Eduardo. They stayed and chatted (and Ado changed the strings on someone's guitar at the same time) whilst the clothes washed. In fact stayed and chatted a very long time, and we realised it was 11.15pm.

Also at this time Ado realised he had locked both his house keys and car keys in his car!! Judith hadn't bought her keys with her and due to a sad family situation no-one else was available to help. So, I drove them back to their house in my car, the boys jumped the front gate and eventually managed to break into the house to find some spare keys! Then we drove back to my house and Adony's car. None of this a quick process. The good part in it all was that whilst the boys were breaking into the house, I was in my car with Hermana Judith and was able to have a good chat with her. Her life is v sad and conmplicated right now and she is very lonely in her house whilst Ado works out of town during the week, and her daughters both married and moved away (one to the States). Husband? Difficult subject. So, she feels lonely and at times scared or upset. So she now has my number with instructions to call me if she needs anything (she can't drive), if she needs a ride somewhere - or if she just needs company cos she's lonely!

One of her daughters, Eunice, is expecting her baby round about now and I'm on stand-by to drive Judith down to San Pedro Sula should she need to go quickly!

So, the evening ended after midnight, but was just really lovely, all things considered. Apparently Saturday nights will always be eventful. But I like it.

The Big 5

Yet again I find myself appologising for not keeping this updated enough. Busy busy = very tired = no updates! Sorry!

So, the World Cup is still a big part of life. Poor Honduras. Poor England.

Enough of that! What else has been happening? Let me fill you in on the 5 biggest things this week....

1. I have a new puppy! So I have Sheba (German Shep crossed with ?) who is 7 months old and now I have Tshabala (Rottweiler cross) who is 2 months old and looks like a lion! Tshabala - named after the surname of the South African who scored the very first goal in the World Cup! She is very sweet. They are both going to be v large dogs! My once calm lion of a dog Sheba is now learning to be a guard dog as the little one is teaching her to bark! Probably a good thing! They get on very well and together will protect my house!

2. My friend Kike (Goes to my church and I used to teach English to) ended up in hospital last weekend. He works at the Scipture Union camp and was leading a group of Gringos (Americans) abseiling/repelling down a waterfall. He's done this countless number of times, but it had started raining and was slippery and he was just getting the last girl down to safety when she slipped and the 2 of them fell from the top to the bottom. Had 1 person fallen alone they would not have made it alive, but they bounced off each other on the rocks and both survived! It took 5 hours to evacuate them out from where they landed and to the hospital. I had friends around at my house Saturday night, after Youth Group, using my washing machine to to do their laundry when they got a call to say what had happened to Kike. So we piled in my car and drove up to the hospital late at night to be there for him and his brother and sister, all friends of ours. To be honest I was more there as a taxi driver! Kike has a broken collar bone and broken rib and cuts to his head - and the most swollen eye I've ever seen! But he's ok and doesn't need surgery. The girl came off worse and also had broken bones and stitches to her head but needed surgery so was medi-evac'd back to the States the next day for surgery, which went well. Both are doing well.

3. Also this week there is a big epidemic of Dengue Fever sweeping the country It hasn't been this bad for a few years. The news and hospitals are full of it. Aparently the Dengue mosquitoes are different from normal ones - and have black/white stripey legs. I can't say I stop to check their legs before I squash them when they're biting me!! I'm not overly worried to be honest. It's not as if I can do anything about it!

4. The saddest thing of the week is the kidnapping of David Orellana. I haven't written about a kidnapping on here for a while now. It's still going on ALL the time, but the media has been curbed from writing about it so much. Anyway, David is the father of students/friends from my old school. He is a good Christian man and goes to church just our of town with a lot of friends of mine. He is also very wealthy indeed. He was taken Thrusday morning from near his house. The kidnappers have called the family to say they have him, but now it's a waiting game. The kidnappers will now wait so as to increase the anxiety of the family - and they will in turn comply with the demands. Please pray for his safe return.

5. This week is the anniversary of our church Eben-Ezer. To celebrate, they have been having services led by some of the different ministries in church. A lot of services means listening to a lot of long sermons in Spanish - a killer!! But good fun and I enjoy being involved. Tonight is the Youth Group led service so will be more lively. I do love living here!! Tomorrow we have a picnic after church.

So they are the main events of just one week! School plods on as ever. Has it's ups and downs. Actually I've been having some great lessons - teaching about foods etc. Tolearn about drinks, I took in different fruit juices, milk, coke etc, and they had to try them and rate if they liked them etc and then they got to mix and invent different combinations. They have strong stomachs....coke and milk mixed together turned out to be a favourite! Gross. Then on Friday Lorena and I put 1st Grade and Prepa together to learn different meats so we cooked up loads of different meats and we all sat and ate them. My kind of lessons!!! Kids have had great fun. I will put some links to the photos up next time - my super slow internet takes forever to upload photos. The cable company don't have an internet signal to my house (it reaches all my neighbours, just not my house!!) and so I use a USB modem from one of the Mobile/cel phone companies. I can't afford the fast one so have the sloooow connection instead!!

That's about it!

Oh...to put your minds at rest, I am not worried about me being Kidnapped!! I only hang out with Hondurans, live by myself. If they take me who are they going to call for the money??? No-one!! I've been here long enough that everyone in town recognises and knows me, they know that I'm not worth taking! Also - kidnapping a white person = international involvement. Not likely. Worry ye not. Being mugged? Quite likely - but tis the same anywhere in the world!

I truly love living here (most of the time!). I have some great friends, am really involved in my church and community - and it's home. In a few weeks I go home to England to be with the family for 2 weeks for my brothers wedding. This visit is going to be more about family time than racing around the country catching up with everyone. So, if I don't get to see you please don't take it personally - I just don't have much time!!

New Address!!!

FINALLY....

You can all send me things! Yaaaaay! Post from England NEVER arrives...or takes up to a year. But....post from the States makes it in a few weeks!! Safely. And....it only takes a couple of weeks for thigns to arrive from the States!

SO.....I have made friends with a simply lovely couple who came down from the States to visit the school, to see how they can help. When they heard I can't get mail from England they were horrified and offered to forward me things! So.....you can all mail me things to the States...and they put it in another envelope and forward it to me!! So letters and small packets are GO!!!

Chocolate....packets of Angel Delight (choc or straw).....Bread sauce...different sauces for meats etc...anything....stickers for my classes.....tea bags.....

This is the address:

Katharine Marrow
c/o Bill and Mary-Jean Murphy
806 Fleming Street
Columbia, TN 38401
USA

Please please can people test this process!!!!!

My new Honduran address if you want it for fun (I am still living in the same house, it's just I finally have my own PO Box in the POst Office!)

Aptdo 115
Siguatepeque
Comayagua
HONDURAS

BUT TRY THE AMERICAN ONE!!! All my American friends get mail so it will work!!

Come on England!!

I tried to spread a little bit of English spirit in Honduras on the day of Englands first match in the World Cup - far too many Americans around here.

It's the English flag - despite the fact he's wearing a Honduras football shirt!!

Teams!

Oh my...so much has happened since I last updated this! Where to start??

At work, in La Providencia, this is the start of work teams coming down from the States to come and work with the kids/construction/in the community etc. So there are always lots of people around and coming into the school to meet the kids. The first of the groups was 2 weeks ago and were truly wonderful people. It was a small group of 8 lovely people - all teachers/head teachers/ experienced folk - who came to see how they could help our school, help improve it, see what we need etc. They visited our school, talked to us and then visited other schools in Sigua and also the big, expensive private schools in Tegus, to get an idea of what is possible here, what others provide etc. For me personally they were a God send, people who could advise me, support me ...and help me!! It was wonderful to spend some time with them and they will be an amazing asset for the school - and for my work here (organising the English programme!) On their last day at the school they were in tears saying goodbye to us and the children and to the amusement of the kids we - their teachers - were also in tears saying goodbye to them. They made an amazing impact on us all in different ways!

Since then, other groups have started coming down and pass in and out of the school. There are 28 in the group this week and they are building walls, sorting out the bodega (warehouse) etc. It's pretty much a different group every week now til August. The novelty of being the only Brit wears off after a while!!

Here is a picture I took and printed off for the Education group who came to visit us!! Cute huh?

The following week was 'Environment week' across the country and to celebrate the end of the week we took all the kids on a walk around the mountains, in the grounds Providence owns, behind the school. Their little legs made it and it was so much fun!

Here are some photos! A walk in the mountains (<------- click on that link Dad!)

Look at this web page!

Craziness..... but all fine here in Sigua!

Look at this..