Yamaranguila Adventures (Part 2)

I decided to continue the story of Yamaranguila. Even though we only lived there for three months, it was a crucial moment for our family. We realized that being a missionary family was not going to be easy. We realized how far we really were from home. I mean we obviously knew we were far away but this was the time we realized that everything we knew was gone. We had a taste of what it was like to be outside our comfort zone. We no longer had things that we used to never have to think about. We still sometimes have things like that but now we’re somewhat used to it.

This was what our house looked like.
There is the family and the guard of the complex plus one of the orphan girls.

When we moved we were shocked first by where we were going to live. We saw we were living on a complex and so we had our house and several other buildings and a chain-link fence surrounding the entire complex. The house we moved into was United States looking but it wasn’t the same. In the States we were used to wooden houses or ones that had sheet-rock; our house was made of cement. We had no dishwasher, which wasn’t too odd as our grandparents didn’t have a dishwasher, but it meant us kids had to wash dishes. It was more of the house wasn’t right for our family, it was odd. One of the weirdest things was that missions teams would walk through the back door without knocking because it used to be the place where they ate. We would sit down for dinner and suddenly the door would open and a man would start to come in, think better of it, apologize, and then leave.

Us sisters were the only real playmates we had.

Right next door to our house was the orphanage which had two little girls and a family of four living there. The house looked very much like ours, it just had more rooms. The family was very nice, but we didn’t speak any Spanish so we couldn’t really play with them. The family’s oldest was fifteen (I think) and the younger one was ten (I think), the two orphan girls were five and four (I think, I say this because it was a long time ago and I’m not 100% positive). We would go over to their house sometimes and I remember watching one of the Rocky movies in Spanish but I didn’t understand anything. We couldn’t really play with toys as they didn’t have very many and we were told not to let them into our house so they didn’t steal our toys. I know that sounds awful to be judgmental about a people and assume they’d steal but we were warned not to let people into our house unless we fully trusted them. We did end up having the older girls in to play once we knew them more. It was hard to play with them since we didn’t speak the same language and so we didn’t form a strong connection with the family.

On the complex we had a church in the center and when teams came down they would have a dental clinic in the church. My family would be helping the dentists out, we would pass them tools or help keep the people’s mouths open, or run errands. While there was a team down a little bubble in my mouth appeared. We showed it to the dentists and they told me it was a swollen glad and In order for it not to come back they would need to cut it open and stitch it up. I did not want stitches in my mouth but my dad told me I had to. I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes, imagining playing with my best friend again, as they stitched the glad up. It was odd having stitches in my mouth and I didn’t like it. While I was eating later that evening, one of the stitches came undone and I freaked out thinking I ruined it. I went to the dentists and they said that when it was time the stitches would come out, no need to worry. Phew! I was very thankful that a team was there when I had that happen to my mouth because I wouldn’t have been able to fix it if they weren’t there.

My chipped tooth!

Also in that church we’d have a service either on Saturday or Sunday, I don’t remember well, but we’d have people from the village come to hear the sermon. My family took on the task of leading worship, with my mom playing keyboard and my dad on guitar, and I think I sang with them or me and my sister did. One time after the service, I was playing with the microphone and my mom told me to stop touching it. I didn’t listen to her and I pulled the microphone out of the stand straight into my mouth. I slammed it hard against my teeth and I remember moving the microphone away from my mouth and tasting pieces of something, I thought it was the microphone itself. I look down and I see something white on the microphone and in my hand. I freaked out as my tongue felt at my tooth, or what was left of it. I ran into my house and looked into the mirror. I had chipped my tooth! It was not a baby tooth that would fall out soon either; it was a fully grown tooth, no replacing that one. I remember looking into the mirror and telling myself that I looked like a monster. I now realize that only a tiny bit of my tooth was chipped, but then, it looked like half of it was gone! I cried for a very long time and I was ashamed to tell my parents, especially my mom. I eventually did tell them and they didn’t freak out like I thought they would. There happened to be a lady dentist there that lives in Honduras and she offered to fix my tooth, the next time we went to the capitol, for free. We were very grateful for this!

I got my tooth fixed; I’m not sure if it was still in those three months or after we moved to Zambrano. Nothing else happened in Yamaranguila that was too crazy or shocking. The rest of my stories occurred in other areas of Honduras. We lived in Yamaranguila for such a small amount of time and it was quite a long time ago so I can’t remember too much of what happened. I remember certain events, but mainly I remember certain feelings. Even though we don’t have very many fond memories of living in Yamaranguila, we don’t regret living there. Yamaranguila, thankfully, did not ruin the rest of our outlook on Honduras. We just took it as another stepping stone for the missionary life we had ahead of us!

Goodbye, until next time!

College Tips

In the spirit of my finishing most of my college applications, I am going to give some tips in finding the best college for you. And I know you’ve probably seen several of these but I have some things that helped me and I thought I could share them.

1.       Make a Possibility List

When schools come to visit your school, ask questions on what you think you’d want in college.

I say ‘think’ because you may not know what you want until you see the school doesn’t have it. So ask questions like: Do you have _________ major? What is the student to teacher ratio? How big are the class sizes? Tuition and total costs? Scholarships? And the list continues. If you see that your questions are being answered to your liking, remember that school! Write it down if you have to, tell your parents, just remember it! I remembered my list of seven colleges by telling my parents about them.

2.       Visit (if Possible)

Once you have your list, try to visit them. Once you see the campus, you might be able to say that one college is better than the other. I am blessed with a mom who plans our summer trips to the States (every two years or so) in detail. This summer she added a full road trip going from North Carolina to Virginia to Tennessee to Missouri to Illinois to Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania to New York to Connecticut, and finally, to New Hampshire. Not every state on this list had a college that we looked at, it was just the way she planned it. The seven colleges were in NC, VA, TN, MI, PA, and NY. By visiting the colleges I could see if I would fit in while

walking around campus. I would ask myself if I saw myself walking these halls and living in these dorms. I was also able to feel the spiritual aspect of the school. I could see if the schools were strict Christian schools, loose Christian schools, or just schools who had the name ‘Christian’ plastered on the flyer. Through visiting I was able to narrow my options down to four.

3.       Which is Number One?

Now that you narrowed down your list, if you were able to do so, you need to decide which one is your favorite. You can talk to your parents, mentors, siblings, friends, and God about this. I mainly talked to God about my decision. I laid out my four college brochures and I felt myself leaning toward a certain college. This college was my favorite while visiting, it had my major and the campus was beautiful, it had a wonderful spiritual aspect as well. I felt God telling me that this college was the one. I was hesitant at choosing that as my top as I didn’t want to make a mistake in choosing. But I realized that I really loved this school and if I felt God leading me to it, then I shouldn’t be fighting it. What I did was establish that one as my number one and then I told myself to be prepared for it to change. It never did.

So, take your list and number them from the perspective of, “If I get accepted to all, I’d choose…” And go from there. So I have my colleges ranked from 1-4, with the best case scenario being me getting accepted to all.

4.       Is This the End?

When I had my list I was wondering if I should keep it like that and not add any more. But even if I had my list, my school would still have college visits looking for students to apply to their university. Since there were still schools coming to my school I decided to pay attention even if I had my list. While doing this I added a fifth school to my list. I kept my ears open just to see if there was anything else out there.I also talked with my dad about it and it was alright to apply to that newly-added-to-my-list college. I still have my number one, but you never know, maybe God had planned for me to go somewhere else than my number one but I didn’t see it yet?

5.       Apply

This is the final step, well before you have to actually say ‘yes’ to a certain institution. When you ask questions, in steps 1, 2, and 4, ask how to apply. Find out if you need to mail it, if it is online, or if it is on the Common Application. Once you figure this out, you start the application process. Make sure you have everything you need!

                This is the end of my tips for college searching or at least what was best for me when I was looking. Some of these things you may have seen in other lists or in other people’s stories. Some of the things you may never have thought of them. College planning is a crazy time. I mean, you’re figuring out what’s going to happen in your future. Looking into the future is sometimes scary. But nevertheless, it is a necessary process in life: to look into the future. Don’t take this “looking into the future” as a way to plan it out and get angry if things don’t come out the way you want them to. Right now I’m in the 6^th step and soon I’ll be playing the waiting game!

                Goodbye, until next time!

Yamaranguila Adventures (Part I)

When we first moved to Honduras, there were several things that were strange to us. Since we were so used to the United States, it was weird to see how certain things were done in Honduras. We had only come on a week missions trip before moving, so we weren’t experts on Honduran culture.

               

The first place we lived in was called Yamaranguila. Yamaranguila was in the middle of nowhere, high in the mountains. It was past another town in the middle of nowhere, called La Esperanza. It took about thirty to forty-five minutes to get into La Esperanza. So when we went into that town, we’d usually stay for quite a while. We would go into La Esperanza to do our grocery shopping. We would have to go to three different stores to buy all the food that we would need for six people for a week or so. Other people would not only be staring at us for having white skin and for speaking English, but also for buying so much food. Most Hondurans would shop for that day and then come back tomorrow for tomorrow’s food. They didn’t plan ahead or have a grocery list like we did. If they forgot something, they would just come back for what they missed. We would have to wait until the next time we drove into La Esperanza, that’s why we made sure we didn’t forget anything.

                We would also drive into La Esperanza to go to the internet café. We did not have internet at our house and the only way we could access the internet was by going into the town. The internet café was a small building with a little desk, a little bathroom in the back, and finally a row of cubicles with a computer per cubicle. You paid for a certain amount of time to use the computer. We would go for an hour or two so that my parents could update people in the States about what was happening with our family. A lot of times we would split up and have one parent go to the café and the other goes shopping; we kids would choose

This isn't the one we went to, but it was similar.

who to go with. When we went as a whole family to the café, the kids would sometimes use a computer for “homework” our dad would give us; as he homeschooled us for a while. Going to the café wasn’t that much fun but it was necessary to go. I remember one time I got sick with diarrhea (I know it isn’t pleasant but it happened!) when we were at the café. I had to go into that little bathroom, because there was nowhere else, and I had to bring in my own toilet paper and sit down on the gross seat. It was horrible. I felt terrible and that bathroom was so disgusting. But I loved that bathroom, as it was such a relief to have somewhere, no matter how icky, to go.

                In Yamaranguila we owned this little van/bus and we called it the busito (little bus). Now this busito was a terrible car for Yamaraguila. The roads were so dusty that the car would fill with the white powder and then shut down. We got stranded a couple times on the road to and from La Esperanza. Once the car wouldn’t turn on in La Esperanza so we couldn’t go home, we were stuck there. My dad stayed to get it fixed and the rest of us took a yellow bus half way to Yamaranguila and I think someone from the complex we lived on picked us up from there. Now, for those who do not live in Honduras, a yellow bus is a school bus used as a form of public transportation. These buses are not the safest or the most comfortable. They tend to be overcrowded and smelly. They cost about a dollar to ride but you never know what will happen on them. Thus we did not want to be on that bus for very long and were happy when we finally got to get off. Another time a rock from the road shot up into the underside of the car and caused it to stop working. We were stuck on the actual road to La Esperanza and had to call someone from the complex to pick us up. That busito might have lasted longer had it not been through those Yamaranguila roads. We no longer have that car, as it doesn’t work anymore and it costs way more to fix it than it did to buy a new one.

             

   There are many other things that occurred in Yamaranguila, even if we only lived there for a couple months. In another post I will add to these adventures, but for now this is all. Yamaranguila was a fun time, yet crazy. There were so many weird things and odd customs that we did not understand. We were first time missionaries and we didn’t know if this life would work. Now we live about three to four hours away from Yamaranguila and we no longer have our crappy car (sorry if you don’t like the word, there is no other way to put it). We don’t have to drive for a long time to get to a grocery store, nor do we have to go to three different ones. We also don’t have to go into the city to an internet café as we have internet at our house. Many things have changed since Yamaranguila, it seems as if it were for the best though. I sometimes miss it but I’m glad I’m where I am now. I’m happy and safe, no worries about shopping at three different places or cars getting filled with dust. Yamaranguila, even with the crazy stuff, wasn’t a bad place to live; it was actually quite fun!

                Goodbye, until next time!

Best Friend Adventures (Part I)

Some of the craziest things I've done in Honduras have been with my best friends. Today I’ll share some of the ridiculous things I've done with my best friend who lived in the middle of nowhere. She lived about thirty minutes higher into the mountains than we did; this is when we lived in Zambrano. She was the first MK I met and my first MK best friend. She was also my only friend in Honduras at the time of meeting her.

                When we first met, neither of us liked the other. I thought she was a stuck-up farm girl and she thought I was a stuck-up city girl. We both were wrong. We ended up realizing how much we had in common even with her being a farm-girl and me being a city-girl. We only found out how cool the other was when I went to her house for the first time. My whole family came to hang out with her family. She took me and my sisters, much to my dismay, to their chili patch a little ways away from the house. I can’t remember the conversation we had but it ended well. By the time we left, I knew I made a new friend. I remember playing some kind of spy game; little did I know that this game was the beginning of many, many others.

                There were several games and stories we made up, with several characters, places, and plots. There are too many to count, so I’ll only tell a few that I can remember most specifically. The game we most commonly played was spies. We played in different places too. We played in her house, in a missionary couple’s house when they left for the States for a month or so. We played by the river, in land owned by others or by her dad. We played in San Francisco (the town thirty min. away from us) and in Botijas (the town she later moved to, an hour away from us), we rarely played at my house though as there wasn't as much space to run around. We had different names from our real names, we had a couple names but the ones we used the most were Autumn (me) and Summer (her). We would always pretend to be undercover as singers so no one would know we were spies. We always had male characters that liked us or were teaming with us. Their names changed quite a bit. We would dress up sometimes, but not that often since we ran outside and got dirty.

                On many occasions we would walk down to the river in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops and swim or play in the mud. As much as it sounds gross, it wasn't. People pay to bathe in mud, we had it for free. That’s what we told ourselves anyway. We would sometimes go past the river and play in this cabin-thing that was owned by some guy but he didn't use it.

We would go under barbed wire fences to get there and we’d play spies. If her family wasn't home for some reason, I remember we would end up walking throughout her house singing and dancing pretending to be undercover agents. During the time when the missionary couple was in the States we would go up to their little house and we would play there. We would first check on their cats, and then we would start our game. Many times we would eat the food there or make juice. We once attempted to make a smoothie, it wasn't the best but it wasn't undrinkable either. Once she moved to Botijas we had to find other places to play, as all the above places were in San Francisco. We would play in the cabin on their property or in the guayaba (guava) trees, also on their property. We would play in her house too, but not as often as there were people usually there. We’d sometimes play in the sugarcane as well. We mainly walked up the hill and further on into the middle of nowhere and we would just run around killing imaginary bad guys. We found a river once but we didn't go there very much since it was farther away. We sometimes went under barbed wire fences to get to a place we called the Three Pines, as three Pine trees were on the top of the hill. We had to stop going there because the owner realized we were on his property and didn't like it. We once got lost by walking in the woods, but we eventually came out at the dirt road. One time we had the brilliant idea of sun bathing at the top of a hill. We had to go high enough where people passing couldn't see us, but I do remember someone seeing us and that was embarrassing. We weren't in bathing suits, thank goodness, we were in shorts and t-shirts but it was still embarrassing.

We once walked down a dirt road with my sisters and one of her brothers and we came across this abandoned house, so we decided to check it out. We ended up trying to get into the house but it was locked. We walked around the whole house looking for a way in; as my friend said the owner wasn't living there anymore. The house, I should mention, was a whole story above ground, the bottom part was for cattle and then there was a staircase leading to the door of the house. So we walked around the house, on a ledge, looking for a window open. We found an open window and sent her brother in. I remember we also got the door open, but the place where the window was open and the place where the door was open wasn't connected or something weird like that. We explored the house but I think we scared ourselves into thinking someone was going to see us in this house that wasn't ours, so we left.

We never went back to that house or did anything like that again. Another crazy thing we did with my sisters and her brother was walking up the hill by her house as ‘crazy bandits.’ We dressed up weirdly and held fake weapons pretending to be stupid criminals. We were a family, with my best friend as the oldest (even though I was older, she was way taller), her brother and I were twins (apparently we were the same height and acted crazy when together), and my sisters were either twins or they were just the younger siblings. We laughed so hard that day, walking up that hill yelling silly things and ‘shooting’ stuff. It was a lot of fun.

Me and her in Botijas!

There were many things that we did together, her and I. There are many details and stories that I failed to mention, mainly because there are too many. I knew her for almost all the time I have lived in Honduras, so we had many memories. I had so much fun playing spies with her. I loved her then and I love her now. She’s my best friend. Although she moved back to the States, we still have those crazy memories to look back upon. I miss her and the times we had but at least I can remember and enjoy those memories instead of being caged up by sadness. Because there are many stories with her, she just may appear in a future post. Since this is part one, it means by other best friends have their stories as well!

Goodbye, until next time!