A Gringa No Brasil

Here's a quick update of what I've been up to this month...

Enrique Iglesias came to Tegucigalpa! He was coming through on his Euphoria Tour. I was a little iffy on going at first because the tickets were so expensive, but two other volunteers came from the other side of the country for the event so I couldn't possibly bail on them. While we were waiting outside the stadium we met a few guys from Enrique's crew. I thought he would have more latinos working for him, but everyone we met was from the States so the gringos speaking English stood out. After chatting for awhile, they offered to bring us in to the Platinum section! We had paid for the nose bleed seats, but their all-access passes got us into the area closest to the stage. It was awesome! He put on an amazing show. About half of the songs were in Spanish and half in English, just like the new album, and he also threw in some oldies like "Bailamos" and "Rhythm Divine". Afterwards the guys that brought us into Platinum invited us backstage and to the bar at the Marriot to hangout. Unfortunately Enrique headed straight to the airport after the show, but we still got to meet the band - very cool group of people. What an amazing night! Pictures!

Last weekend we had a regional welcome party in Danli for the new volunteers. Normally it's divided up by department, but this year we (the dept. of Francisco Morazan) joined in with the PCVs from El Paraiso. We made it into a sort of competition between the two departments with an "awkward family photo" theme. If you have no idea what that might entail, check out http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/. It's hilarious. El Paraiso's clothing theme was jean shorts with a turtleneck or pastel polo. FM (my department) had to wear floral (the more the better). I didn't own anything worthy of the occasion, but I went to a second hand clothing store and found a fantastically ugly ensemble for just $1.50. The game plan was to do a scavenger hunt, relay races, and a bunch of other activities all in these ridiculous outfits and take awkward family photos along the way. Unfortunately it rained for a bit which killed a lot of the motivation for outdoor activities. So instead we took indoor awkward photos and played some games inside and on the roof once the rain stopped (no one really wanted to run around town looking that absurd anyway). You can check out the photos here, but here's one for a preview:

In other, not so awesome, news - a cat died in my ceiling. I have no idea how, but it got in between my metal roof and the ceiling tiles. I was helping with a training activity for the new group of trainees all day Monday, and when I got home I noticed a funky smell in the living room. I looked all around, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from so I gave up and went to sleep. I left home early on Tuesday morning to go to Teguz to help with a project to clean out and organize the volunteer library. I hoped that the smell would dissipate while I was gone, but it was worse when I got home that night. Again I looked around and found nothing, but then I noticed some maggots on one of my chairs. There was no reason for them to be there so I figured they must have fallen from in between the ceiling tiles. I was really hoping something hadn't died up there, but that's what the clues were pointing to. I also called another volunteer and he confirmed that "if it smells like something died in your house then something died in your house."

I went over to tell my landlord that I thought a rat or something had died in my ceiling, and he said he'd take a look. Wednesday I spent the whole day again in the library in Teguz, and I guess my landlord didn't have time because it still reeked when I got home. Thankfully the stink was mostly in my living room so I could still sleep ok in my bedroom. Yesterday (Thursday) again I was in Teguz, but this time when I was walking home from the bus stop I ran into my old host sister who told me that they had pulled a dead cat out of my ceiling, all nice and wormy. EEW. So glad I wasn't there to witness it and be obliged to help out. They used a lot of Raid to try to kill the moths and maggots that were left behind, but they definitely missed a bunch because it's still raining maggots in my living room (or I guess drizzling would be more appropriate). The ants have been helping me clean them up though.