The National Religion of Honduras

Sometimes visitors from the United States ask me: “Would you say Honduras is primarily Roman Catholic?” and I find myself replying: “No, I would say it is primarily Soccer-Fanatic.”

When Honduras plays a world-cup qualifying match in the city, I don’t need to turn on the TV to know if we have scored a goal. The cheers rise up from the barrios and resonate in the farthest corner of Tegucigalpa (which is where I live, in the outskirts, in the campo).

When Honduras isn’t trying for the world cup, there are two main teams, two main loyalties in the city: Olympia and Montagua. It’s like the civil war, in which families were divided (“one wore blue, one wore grey”) – except in this case: one wears blue, the other red.

The loyalties run so deep that actual gangs have formed around these teams. Olympia’s gang is called “the ultra faithful” and Montagua’s “Rebel." The gangs are so bad that you can’t wear your favorite team’s jersey to the game because you risk getting jumped.

Yesterday we got caught in the middle of a “marcha” of one of the Team Gangs. Apparently Olympia and Montagua were playing in the city (we had forgotten) and people took the streets, waving banners, singing, and stopping traffic. Our car was stopped in the middle of this chaos…the ultra faithful simply marched around us, lifting the banner over the car creating a tunner. Rey and I made sure to clap loudly and cheer to show that we were Olympia supporters and not to accrue their anger.

In 1969 there was actually a war fought over soccer. El Salvador invaded Honduras when things heated up over a World-Cup qualifying match.

All of this being said, Elijah has beeen affected by the national religion of Honduras. Every evening when the heat of the sun begins to subside, he goes out to the main square of our community to play soccer with all of the neighborhood kids. He can dribble the ball, score goals (from about 2 feet away), and his method of re-obtaining the ball if it is stolen is to cry until he gets it back (we’ll have to work on that). Of the few words he says, “ball” and “goal” are some of the favorites.

I am happy that Elijah is learning soccer and making friends, I only hope that we are back in the states by the time he old enough to join a team gang!

Why I will never be on Reality TV

Our life as a missionary family would make a good TV show. There’s drama and adventures, unusual characters and comedy (Rey), and the camera loves Elijah. However, my day today exemplifies why I will never be on a Reality TV show (if I was ever invited).

I woke up too early (thanks, Elijah), and my first thought was of the inch of dirt in our water tank, and the unsettling reality that when I bathe, wash dishes, and my hands to be “clean,” I’m really washing everything with dirty water. This put me in a bad mood.

Faced with a day of incarceration stretching before me, I turned on High School Musical and lay on the couch while Elijah found ways to make the house messier and messier.

By 11am I had worked up a sufficient scheme to regain the car. I would take Elijah on a Rapidito to AFE, where I would then pick up the car, a couple of things from the grocery store, and return home. However, when I arrived at AFE I discovered that Rey had taken the car seat out of the car. Naturally I did not see it sitting by the door when I left.

Soon a ½ hour trip had become two hours (after going back to get the car seat, giving the teachers a ride into town, etc., etc) and we were infringing on the Red Zone: nap time. I should have given up then.

By the time we made it into the grocery store parking lot, Elijah was just closing his eyes for a nap.

“Elijah, wake up! I’ll give you ice cream if you just stay awake long enough for us to get home!”

(The 1 ½ - 2 hours that Elijah naps at home are a sacred time. Sometimes I actually get to read the Bible without it being snatched away and pages torn out. I guard this time religiously, although it rarely seems to happen. Thus, I am considering switching my devotional book to a children’s illustrated, cardboard bible. And now you see the depth of my spirituality as a new mother.)

Consequently, we missed his nap again today. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The ice cream was not the best idea. Elijah discovered that it was much more pleasurable to wipe it all over the grocery cart than eat it. I think he is a budding artist.

So, the reason I will never go on Reality TV is this: it might catch the twenty days of the month in which I, and my family, are sufficiently put together. But more likely it will catch moments such at these:

- Me licking the dirt off the ice cream so that Elijah wouldn’t eat it.

- Blaring Kanye West on the ride home, to an impressionable toddler. Yes, he may learn to swear, but I hope instead he learns: “That..that..that which won’t kill us, will only make us stronger!”

- Me with disheveled hair, sweating, with washable marker all over my white t-shirt, grumbling at Rey

The irony of my determination to never go on Reality TV, is of course, that I divulge my dirty little secrets on a public blog. But we laugh and learn, right?

Rotavirus

Last Thursday evening Eliljah began vomiting…and it hasn’t stopped since. On Saturday after a sample of his stool (diarrhea) was examined, he was diagnosed with “Rotavirus,”- a familiar word, but something I had yet to understand.



Now that I do, I know that if the Rotavirus were a person, I would immediately knee it in the stomach, slap it in the face, and spit at its feet.



Apparently Rotavirus infections are responsible for approximately 3 million cases of diarrhea and 55,000 hospitalizations for diarrhea and dehydration in children under 5 years old each year in the United States. In developing countries, the Rotavirus causes over half a million deaths worldwide every year due to dehydration caused by diarrhea (http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/stomach/rotavirus.html).


In Honduras, the Rotavirus is epidemic, and easily passed as germs stay on objects touched by infectious children for two days.


On Thursday Elijah began vomiting, on Friday he was diagnosed, but on Saturday, though he was thin and weak, he seemed to show signs of improvement. He walked around and showed interest in playing. However, despite his apparent improvement, he began to refuse to drink liquids. By the doctor’s orders, Rey and I forced Pedialite into his mouth with a syringe every 10 minutes. When night fell and Elijah went to bed for the evening, Rey and I were less vigilant with the forced rehydration therapy. We figured he needed his sleep and did not want to wake him every ten minutes. . In retrospect, this proved a dangerous mistake.



The next morning when we took Elijah to the doctor for his daily injection of medicine, his condition suddenly deteriorated. His eyes seemed to shrink into this face, his lips were chapped, and when I asked the doctor if we should take him to the hospital to get rehydrated he said “yes.”


Our doctor in Honduras goes above and beyond many doctors in the States. We didn’t know where the closest hospital was (now that we live in Linda Miller) and it’s difficult to navigate Teguc since many of the streets are unnamed. Our doctor led us to the hospital in his car, to a pediatrician he knew and called ahead of time, asking him to come to work on a Sunday just for Elijah.


In the car Elijah’s condition worsened and I was beside myself with fear for his life. His eyes could not focus and he was fading in and out of consciousness. He was as limp as a doll and his heartbeat so faint that at one point I couldn’t feel it.

“Elijah, Elijah!” stay with me! My reaction to Elijah’s condition was practically giving Rey a heart attack, who drove like a mad man following the doctor through the winding streets of Tegucigalpa.


When we finally reached the hospital the pediatrician met us at the door. Things that Elijah normally would fight over (like taking his temperature) were easy because he was so listless. He had lost 4 pounds in three days and his face was so small, all eyes.


Putting the IV in Elijah was not as difficult as I expected because Elijah was so weak. After 4 hours of rehydration he began to look better: his eyes were no longer shrunken into his face and some color returned to his cheeks. The doctor said that he was “moderately dehydrated,” and the danger was to see if he would keep urinating and his kidneys functioning properly.


Four days later I am relieved to say that Elijah is 100% better. He is eating, drinking, (and urinating) normally again, and playing with all of rascaliness we once knew. He still has weight to put on to get back to normal, and is still at a lower energy level than normal (which is about what I can handle!). But he is healed, thank you God.


I feel so blessed that we have the means to take Elijah to a doctor, and the hospital, and the huge support we received from everyone here. Thank you for your prayers.

Casa del Campo

The wind rushes through the aluminum roof and candles flicker. I step outside to the pila to wash dishes and catch a glimpse of the sun descending behind the trees.

My counter top is a rustic, handmade table from the market. I awake to the crow of a rooster in my front yard and buy mangos from a street vender on my dusty walk home.
Although seeds blow in and litter my kitchen table, uninvited guests with too many legs creep in, and the electricity comes and goes like the water,

I am growing to love my casa del campo.

New Community

Last Wednesday was the big moving day and just as Rey predicted; it was much easier than I anticipated. We had a lot of help. A friend lent his flatbed truck. All of the young men from AFE showed up to lend a hand. The teachers of AFE spent a day cleaning our house in the Miller in preparation for the move. The Ordonez family helped us unpack and Jessi took charge of the movers and directed them where to put the furniture. Although we only began the moving process that afternoon, Rey, Elijah and I were able to sleep in a well-arranged house and clean sheets in our beds that evening. The next morning we awoke to a knock on our door. The neighborhood kids had already staked out the house and the possibility of a new place to play. Two little boys in particular have not left our front porch since we moved in – William and Lester. Jessi warned me that they are the buggers of the neighborhood, but I am so far delighted by their antics. They remind me of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer – complete with Spanish freckles and falling apart shoes. Elijah too has grown to like them, as long as he gets a break every once and a while. Our other fast friends are Lisy and Evelyn, who come to the Amor y Vida church. Lisy is a skinny little girl that reminds me of myself and her friend Evelyn is a nine-year-old teenager. Yesterday we went on a walk around the community on a fruitless search for ice cream. Although ice cream was impossible to find, the girls invited me to see a dead body in a neighbor’s house. (He died of natural causes. Not sure why they were storing the body there instead of in a funeral home). I declined the invitation.

Not only have the neighborhood kids staked out our place, but also some of the AFE kids have already dropped by. We have had such a constant stream of visitors, in fact, that Rey advised me to set up some boundaries. When he lived in the inner city during his time of ministry in “Gainsville Outreach,” he learned to strike a balance between serving the community and preserving his time alone with God. Thus, when the gate is open, come in to play! When it is closed, our family needs some quiet time together. From the isolation of where we were living before, what a delightful change!