Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday filled with delicious food and loving family.

Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated down here, but they do have a celebration at the school. So today after 2nd period, the whole school gathered for a mini-mass in the gym, and then we all feasted together. It was pretty awesome. One of my homeroom parents cooked a beautiful turkey for our class, and the PTA provided rice, mashed potatoes, bread, and cake. I was going to make sweet potato casserole but was unable to procure the majority of the ingredients, namely the sweet potatoes themselves. I did, however, find cranberry sauce at the grocery store!!! Our celebration was most excellent, despite the lack of one more carb one our plates...

In the spirit of the day, I wanted to throw out some things that I am thankful for. There are many things that I take for granted, and I have recognized this in the past. But nothing shoves the things you take for granted in your face more than living in a developing country.

I am so thankful for you, my friends and family. Your love and presence in my life is an immeasurable blessing. Each of you has helped to make me the person I am today, and I would not be who I am, where I am, without you. Your encouragement and support through the good times, bad times, and really really crappy times in my life are very much appreciated. And I am so thankful that even though I am not with you, I still have you.

Lately (to be read "since I moved here") I have complained about the internet. It's too slow. It doesn't work when it's raining. It doesn't work when more than one person tries to use it. It doesn't work because it's sunny. blah blah blah, on and on goes my list of complaints. But I am thankful that I do have it, erratic and crappy though it may be. It is better than nothing. And through the magic of the internet, I have able to keep in touch through email, chat, facebook, magicjack, and skype. Thank you, Al Gore.

I am thankful for my job. I make less money now than I did as a waitress in college. But I make money. Enough to pay my bills and still be able to explore this beautiful world God created. And to eat multiple meals everyday. I have indoor plumbing and a refrigerator, a solid roof over my head, and an air conditioning unit. And I have ample opportunity to share these blessings with others. I am truly a wealthy woman.

I am so thankful to be a child of God. That he loves me as I am, but desires so much more for me. That he has given me a role to play in his master plan. That he has given me all of these things, not only to show me how much he loves me, but also to show me how I can be more like him. And that he has patience and grace for me when I screw it up.

Again, I hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Sorry this wasn't very funny. I'm not Matt Chandler, and it is hard for me to inject humor into something like this (as you can tell by some of my weak attempts towards the beginning). Besos y Abrazos. Thanks for listening.

As I mentioned in a previous post, some things are a little different here compared to back in the States. Shocking, I know. One thing that is very different, and a little bit confusing, is the name situation. Not the names themselves, but the quantity of them. For those of you unfamiliar with Hispanic culture/customs, you need to understand that they really like names and have as many of them as possible. And it confuses the mess out of this poor gringa.

Your typical Honduran has four names: first first name, second first name, first last name, second last name. My "Honduran" name would be Kelley Nicole Stephan Bishop, or Kelley Nicole Stephan de Bishop, depending on how formal you wanted to be. So all of my students have four names. That wouldn't be a problem, except they are not consistent in which names they use. It is kind of mood driven, I think.

For example, I have a student who is listed in all school records as Juan Castillo. For the first couple weeks, I thought he was absent because I never got any work from him. But I kept getting work from Juan Rey, who was not listed in anything I got from the school. One day Juan Rey approaches me and asks why his grades aren't available online, and I tell him he isn't on my register so I can't enter his grades. At this point I learn that he is Juan Rey Castillo. oh, ok. Several days later, a teacher comes in and asks me about Moises. I don't have any students named Moises. So we figure he's in another section. Then one of the girls from his class comes in and asks if I have seen Moises. I don't know who Moises is. But apparently I do. Apparently Juan's full name is Juan Moises Rey Castillo. And sometimes he likes to be called Moises but sometimes he likes to be called Juan. His application for the school has his name as Juan Moises Rey Castillo, but his birth certificate is Moises Juan Castillo Rey. I changed the names because I can't use real student information. But I have a similar story for at least one student in each of my classes. It is a lot to keep up with.

I am helping with the elections next week, and recently received an email from a Dra. Lissa Matute Cano. Before I could even get to the "difficult" part of my response (I was writing in my very limited Spanish) I had reached a dilemma: which name do I use? The first last name? The second? Both? Too many choices to even do a coin toss for. Fortunately, two of my students were in the room. So I asked which would be appropriate to use. The response? "psssh, I don't know, Miss. All of these names are confusing. My first last name is one thing, but on all of the school stuff, they use the other. On my passport they put both, but on my drivers license they only put the first one. I don't think it really matters. We are confusing with our names." Straight from the horse's mouth.

Despite all of the confusion that comes from having a thousand names that you can use at will, it is apparently equally confusing to have too few. I was recently interviewed by the student council because I am a new teacher. First question: "ok, Miss, what is your full name?" I responded truthfully. Kelley Nicole Stephan. Instead of being met with a second question, however, I was met with the same question, with emphasis placed on key words. "ok. What is your full name?" I explained that in the United States, it isn't customary to have four names...some people do, but by no means everyone. Blank stares. The girl writing down the responses looked a little flustered. Then one of the boys asked, "well, what's your mother's last name?" I told them her maiden name, and he said, "just write that down. We don't want to confuse people." Gotta love tolerance for cultural differences.

Horchata means many different things to many different people. I believe the drink originated in Spain, where they make it from ground up "tiger nuts" (not sure exactly what those are). It was brought over to Latin America, where there aren't a lot of tigers or tiger nuts. Each country in Latin America has their own variation of horchata, and each country thinks theirs is the best. I have only sampled Honduran horchata but it is really, really good.

Horchata is basically rice milk. Or rather, since I don't know what rice milk actually is, it is what I assume rice milk to be. Here in Honduras horchata is made from rice, cinnamon, and morro seeds. (Morro seeds are, I think, seeds from a calabash. Different sources say different things, and I have not been able to confirm this. However, I can confirm that there is no such thing as a morro plant.) Basically, you soak uncooked rice for a couple hours, toast the morro seeds and some cinnamon sticks, then blend all three together. Add water, strain out the chunks, and add sugar and lime to your taste. If I ever get the opportunity to try other variations of horchata, I will let you know. But for now, a cold glass of this stuff on a hot and humid Honduran afternoon is absolutely fantastic.

If you want to actual recipe, let me know. It's really fast and easy. I can even tell you some things to substitute for the morro seeds if you need to, although supposedly they are easy enough to find in the Latin food section of your local grocery store.

Last year for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I forced an entire class of prekindergarteners to dress and talk like pirates. It was a beautiful thing. This year, since I no longer had a crew of 4-year-olds to do my bidding, I had to figure out another way to celebrate. Fortunately, I am in the middle of pirate territory (pirates of yore, not Somalian pirates). So in honor of TLaPD, I went on a swashbuckling adventure to the nearby town of Omoa.

Not many people are aware that the Mayan civilization reached as far south as Honduras. It really is Honduras's fault, because they have these amazing ruins and they don't really do anything to let people know about them. Too bad for Honduran tourism, awesome for people like you and me who can go see these amazing places with no crowds.

Mom called me this week and said that the Dallas Morning News (I think?) had an article stating that Mel Zelaya is returning to power. This is definitely a premature claim, considering there is going to be a vote about it this week. I have a long list of jaded comments I could make, but I'll just leave it at "we'll see what happens." In any event, I'll do my best to catch y'all up on the current goings-on.



We left off last time with Mel covertly re-entering the country and holing up in the Brazilian embassy. The country was essentially on lockdown for several days, but things began to normalize (in most of the country, at least...I hear the capital, Tegucigalpa, has been a pretty crazy place since the end of June) and rumors of talks between Zelaya and Micheletti began to fly. (As a quick side note- a talk between these two has been "in the works" since shortly after Mel was flown out of the country. Micheletti refuses any compromise that includes Mel returning to power, while Mel refuses any compromise not including it...so there has been a bit of a gridlock.) The day the curfew was lifted, the headlines read something along the lines of "Plans to Compromise Being Discussed". But that same headline, or at least one similar, was on the front page everyday for a week before they finally realized that it wasn't really news. It really looked like there was going to be no progress made on that front for a long time. With national elections just around the corner, things were looking pretty bleak. (If you didn't read the other post about this...unless Mel is reinstated, the newly elected leader will not be recognized by other world leaders. That was the threat, at least.)

Finally something changed. People from both parties met with a group of American negociators headed up by Thomas Shannon. The result of this meeting is the Guaymuras Accord, aka the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord. This basically gives the Honduran Congress (with approval from their Supreme Court) the final say in what happens next. Ironically, this is exactly where the country was at the end of June. Way to go, USA. Thanks for all of your help.

Congress will be voting this week to determine when, if, and how Zelaya should be reinstated. According to Mr. Shannon, Honduras will be backed by the US, regardless of the outcome of the vote. Based on Mel's reaction (during a radio interview, he said that this signifies his return to power and peace to Honduras) and things that I have been reading, it seems that the USA is fairly confident that Mel is going to be returned to presidency. It makes me wonder if the USA will back Honduras no matter what...unless they don't vote the way they are "supposed" to. We will soon find out...Congress will be holding their vote later this week at the earliest. There is no deadline for their decision, so who knows when they will reach their decision.

Honduran elections are coming up at the end of this month, and I have an exciting opportunity for you! :) The Tribunal Supremo Electoral (an independent entity that is in charge of the elections) is asking for international volunteers to witness the upcoming election. They are hoping to show the rest of the world that they truly are a democratic nation. It is over Thanksgiving weekend, so I know that most people won't be able to come down and help. But if you think you know someone who might be interested, please pass this information along!

Volunteers will need to get here no earlier than the (early) morning of Friday, November 27 for training. I am including a link with regulations and a letter from the Alliance for Peace and Democracy, as well as the application if you are interested in coming down. Prayers are good, too. And I guess you don't have to come down for that. :) Thanks!!!