que pinta somas

Things continue to be bueno.

Our gerente, Hmno V. is super pinta, and we have been, oh, so well fed these past couple of days. In terms of you know, acutal internship work J. & I have been busy learning about micro financing, self-employment workshops offered by the Honduran government, and all the jerga, digo caliche, necessary for teaching talleres de autoempleo ej. chamba=job, pisto=dinero, pulperia=small store thing. We've been making lots of phone calls to past participants of CRE (Centro de Recurso de Empleo) workshops trying to promote our workshop (which starts next week--gulp) and it's been a delightful and humbling experience speaking Spanish via phone. A lot of memories from my tenure working at the U.S. Embassy Caracas switchboard have come flooding back and I realize people are a lot more friendly when you call them offering free self-employment workshops than when you are trying to explain why their visa was denied.

J. & I continue to enjoy a delightful comraderie which was only reinforced by the companionship inventory we conducted at the Tegucigalpa Distribution Center with a Spanish copy of Preach my Gospel as we waited for Hmno. V. The whole world still thinks we are sister missionaries which explains why the nice delivery man from La Gran Fa Chinese Restaurant asks God to bless us, and which came in especially handy today when we were looking (lost and) for Baleada Express and some nice members decided to stop and help the sisters. We accept it because we are super white and in church clothes and conduct companionship inventory, so really, what else are people supposed to think? I (not so) secretly love it.

J. & I continue to drink liters, or actually quarts because Central Americans don't seem to use the metric system, of orchata and eat baleada upon baleada. Yesterday we ate an absolutely divine piece of postre tres leches on our way back from the Tegucigalpa temple construction site. The temple will be finished next June, but it's still exciting to see it in progress. It's located in a pretty nice area of Teguz with a spectacular vista of the city. Relatedly, the San Salvador temple open house is in July and J. and I are dead-set on going.

Also, I am a flood with ideas for my next folklore project which may or not include interviewing rehabilitated ex-gang members. We'll see about that one.

On a final note, I have some words for my male friends who served missions in Latin America and continue to regale me with stories of how their little 19-year-old selves were traumatized when so-and so started breast-feeding in front of them. I'd just like to say, that seeing (multiple) men drop their pants in the middle of the street to urinate and/or defecate has equal, if not more, potential for emotional scarring. So suck it up guys.