Dia Tres: 6/12/09

The only Spanish words I knew before I arrived in Quimistan were taco, burrito, and Ricky Martin. However, over the last few days I have learned a few more words and phrases. For instance, frijoles means beans and I’m pretty sure I will remember this word for the rest of my life. Between the refried beans at the majority of the meals and literally spending all day planting beans with a pole on the slope of a mountain, I believe I have had enough beans to last for an eternity. This morning Annalise, Lauren, Miss Beth, and I trekked through the jungle, or in my case rode on the back of a motorcycle, up the side of a mountain to plant beans for the community in Santa Clara. Unfortunately, the hard-working Hondurans that we worked with thought that we were too slow. Due to this, they only let us hand them beans. This taught me that the Spanish word for lazy is perezoso. While we slaved on the hot slope, the rest of the group finished digging the trenches for the foundation of the classroom and carried 350 bricks up the hillside to the house that is being built. As we are expanding our Spanish vocabulary, the children of Honduras are also learning a little bit of English. For me, the most rewarding part of the day was after we walked back to the truck and a little four year-old boy was waiting for us. As he saw our group he piped up and said, “Hello, how are you?” This “adopted” son was able to travel back to Quimistan with us. On the bus ride back to Quimistan, he fell asleep on me and everyone was silent as they watched him sleep. Although a few of us are learning a little bit of both English and Spanish, we are reminded that love is a universal language.

P.S. Feliz CumpleaZos is another word we learned today as it is Donald’s nineteenth birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONALD! 🙂
God Bless,
Cecelia (17)