Villa Nueva
Yesterday Jason, Brian and I went to visit our friend Cleo's house. She is an older lady who works as a cleaning lady at the church and school, and she is one of the most joyful people that I have ever met. She comes over to our house and cleans twice a week too, so we have gotten to know her really well (I know, we are really spoiled- but everyone down here has someone help clean). She has taught us how to cook traditional Honduran food, and she stays for dinner sometimes too.Two weeks ago she invited us to come to her house and we were finally able to make it yesterday. Her house is about 15 minutes away in a colonia (neighborhood) called Villa Nueva that is built on the side of a pretty steep mountain. The whole colonia is really poor. There isn't any running water so a water truck comes every couple of days to give people water, which they store in big 30 gallon barrels. Cleo's house is two rooms- a small kitchen and a living room/bedroom, both of which are fairly small. She lives there with her daughter, Karen, who is 9 months pregnant right now and her son, David, who is 13. Someone left David on her doorstep when he was 5 months old, so she took him in and is raising him as her own.
They made us tortillas con quesillo (two corn tortillas with cheese and bologna in between that is fried) and banana soda (people here love it, but it tastes kinda funny). Then we talked for a while- they don't speak any English, so our Spanish has been getting a work out. Cleo's ex-husband came by and we got to meet him. He is living with another woman now, which is fairly typical for most "families" here. Then we all walked to the new property that Cleo has bought- it is on a very steep slope and there are only stairs that go to it. There is a small wooden shack on it right now, but she wants to eventually build a house on it. And we are going to try to help her do it, but it looks like it will be more work that we had thought. It is a long way to carry the material and we don't have the expertise to build everything (especially since it is on such a steep slope). They build everything down here out of concrete and bricks/rocks, so it is different that what I am used to. But we are going to talk to the pastors at the church and another missionary who has experience building, and we will see what we can do. All in all, it was a very sobering experience. We really do live like kings.
I will upload some more pictures soon.
posted by Whitey @ 10:54 AM
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