First full day in Honduras...

Dating to January 28th
My first full day in Honduras consisted of a lot of running around and getting more familiar with my new home, Santa Rosa de Copan. Santa Rosa I guess has a population of about 50,000 people, and seems to be much smaller than Ames as far as sq miles are concerned.
I met with more of the Caritas workers and went to the Catholic University in town. Here there are about 1000-1200 students who are study subjects such as types of Engineering all the way to Psycology. It has two main buildings, about 5 stories tall, and then a small chapel. It was very nice and cozy, and is located high on one of the many hills, with a great view of all of Santa Rosa. John is known as Juancito (little John) to over half the students and he know almost every other person as we walk through the town. He introduces me to many of them which usually includes me saying that I know Spanish "Mas o Menos" (more or less) just so that they don´t expect me to speak fluently. But then John goes on to say that I know Spanish "Mas que Menos" (more than less). I am not sure which is really true, because I don´t feel like I am able to speak very well, or sometimes even at all. Practice, practice practice.
Later that evening we went to a local food place where we met with a couple of other students from the Catholic University. Erlin and his cousin, Afellia (I don´t think I have this name correct). There I was able to try a local meal known as "Balleadas." These consist of a tortilla like dough wrapped around beans, cream and anything else you want. I had one beef baleada and one egg and avacado baleada. They were delicious! Oh yes, and let me also say that, all the produce down here is wonderful. John is a vegetarian, so at first I was little worried I wasn´t going to be able to survive, but with the abundance of fresh fruit and "verduras" (veggies) I don´t think I will have a problem.
But back to the evening. Dinner was great, and the company was even better. Erlin could speak a little bit of English, and he wanted to practice. I was getting a bit better and more comfortable at speaking Spanish. We talked of classes (he is in his last year of studying for Civil Engineering), food and sports. Then we got into a couple of serious discussions that I was surpised to enter into. Politics. Not something that I know anything about, not did I care to talk about. So after a brief discussion about President Obama we got into a dicussion about our values, and more specifically our Religious beliefs. He directly asked why I chose to be Catholic. This is a question that I really haven´t been asked before, and especially not while having to speak in a different language. But he was adimant about the topic, and was very interested to hear what I have to say. As a side note, he is a Catholic, very active in social issues at a young age, and he has grown up here in Santa Rosa and Honduras where I would guess that over 90% of the population is Catholic. Fortunately I have asked this question to myself as well, so I did have an answer in English that I tried to get across in Spanish. I succeeded in talking about the wonderful, worldwide faith community, the Eucharist, the needed Salvation that comes through Jesus, as well as my interests in Ecumenism and Interfaith work back in the states. I think overall he was pleased at my response, but this still makes me curious as to how different it would be to grow up in a community and way of life that focuses on the importance of God. This certainly is not the case in the United States, no matter how "founded by Christians" we may think we are. I think I am really going to enjoy life here in Central America.
Ok so to finish off this blog, here are a few words that I learned this day. "Tacaño" means cheapskate, "Catrachos" are Honduranians, and the Bishop is know as "El Obispo." I am starting to get the hang of this. I hear there is a bit more snow and weather back in Iowa. I hope you are all staying warm and safe.
Peace and Blessings from Honduras!