the aery beat

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Notes from Greg

Ever helpful, Greg sent me this email regarding the food in this post. Very important information! Thank you, thank you, sweetie.

Hi Alisa,

The bean dip fondue is called "anafre" The dinner dish is called "plato tipico"

Love Greg

Abracadabra

I'm miserable. Like growing-my-bangs-out-in-seventh-grade miserable. Yes, this year rivals junior high misery. Is that depressing or what?

I haven't decided if realizing, accepting, and embracing the misery (which was not a choice, as beaten down as I feel) is liberating or suffocating.

Probably suffocating.

One thing seventh grade didn't have, though, is these two lovies:

My sweethearts, my cuddle bugs, my little cutie pumpkin pies.

My compensation.

My sanity......and my insanity.

Can someone please wave a magic wand and make this year end?

[These pictures of the Binkie Princess were taken at the beginning of the month in Lubbock.]

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Notes from Honduras 4

A picture of Copan Ruinas, as we drove into town.

It was much more charming than it looks. (But not TOO charming: So it was perfect.)

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We drove straight through town to a butterfly house to see all the pretty mariposas.

A lovely setting.

I saw a pineapple plant! I'd never seen a pineapple plant before. I was very excited.

There was a wide variety of butterflies. But they were hard to capture with the camera.

This one posed for me, but only because she's old and tired.

We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. We also had fun with our big laminated card of butterflies as we searched for and identified different kinds of butterflies.

My favorite one was mounted inside. It was a gorgeous blue metallic. See a picture of the blue morpho here. Isn't it breathtaking?

Look, a flower...

and it's not a tulip!

This is a view of the surroundings beyond the butterfly house.

It was so hazy (and humid!) that you can't see it in the above picture, but if you look closely at the hills in the distance, you can see a large area that has been deforested. The area surrounding Copan is lush: Trees, wildlife, and foliage are dense and abundant. It's just how you would imagine a jungle. But there are large areas that are stripped of their trees for the lumber and grazing. It's generally accepted that the fall of the Mayan city of Copan was brought on by deforestation. There was not a tree for 45 square miles! That's difficult to imagine...except for the fact that it is slowly happening again.

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After our visit with the lovely mariposas, we returned to the town and visited the small Mayan museum on the town square. (I love little local museums. Often underwhelming, but never without charms.)

The town's municipal buildings on the square.

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Then we did a little shopping for the kids. (After I stopped in to buy myself a "panuelo." Thank goodness I miraculously remembered the word. I forgot what a necessity a handkerchief is in 90% humidity.)

It's nice to know the EXACT SAME souvenirs are sold in Peru and the Dominican Republic (and many other places, I'm sure).

We settled on buying a soccer jersey for David. (It probably would have been more appropriate for Mary, who does circles around David in soccer, but I figured we didn't need to rub it on any more that his 2-year-old baby sister can kick his bootie in "futbol" any day.) A very nice lady at a little souvenir market helped me. She was so kind and patient with my Spanish, which, these days, is pretty rusty. She explained the different teams within Honduras, and gently laughed with me when I couldn't make up my mind and even returned ten minutes later to make an exchange. I say all this because our trip was so fast that we never really had a chance to interact with anyone in a meaningful way. Greg and I are both very reserved, so we're never ones to get invited over to dinner by the taxi driver. But it's always nice to spend a few minutes to get to know someone on a slightly less superficial level. Maybe even make a new friend. There wasn't really time for that--and it's doesn't happen as easily when you're not traveling with children. But from my limited interactions with people--like this woman at the market (or Sergio at the hotel, another story)--I have a very very good impression of Hondurans. I would love to spend more time with some of them.

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Anyway (I told you this would be rambling and random), I finally settled on this jersey from the Marathon team, located in San Pedro Sula. They are currently the country's champions. Greg fully approved of my choice. In fact, it had been his first choice all along. Do you like it?

Well, guess what. The following day, as we were driving back to San Pedro Sula, and I was watching the towns, with their bodegas, go by, I realized something: Salva Vida is the Honduras national BEER!!

This shirt is a walking BEER COMMERCIAL!

AND GREG KNEW IT!

Hello, Husband! The kid is FOUR! And we're MORMON!!

I asked Greg if he would want David wearing around a Budweiser shirt? No. Coors? No. Heineken? No. Corona? No.

Salva Vida?

"But I like the colors."

Yes, that was his response.

Oh well. David loves it. He wore it Friday. To a speech evaluation at the local elementary school. Good thing no one there keeps up on their Central American beers or he would have been expelled. (Well, except for the fact that he is not enrolled, so he couldn't be expelled.)

So, I have a set of Presidente dominoes from the Dominican Republic that I got on my mission. Presidente is the Domincan national beer. It may not be an entirely appropriate souvenir for a Mormon missionary to bring home. But it's better than turning your four-year-old into a walking advertisement for alcohol!!

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We checked into our hotel: The very lovely and intimate and beautiful and serene Yat B'alam Hotel.

Told you it was lovely and intimate and beautiful and serene.

Here is a view of the street from the balcony upstairs.

This is the one of the views from our room. It may not look like much in the picture, but I loved the old tile roof, the palm trees, and most of all, the mountain vista in the distance.

(I highly recommend this hotel, if you ever happen to be in the area. It also has some wonderful shops downstairs, where you can buy things that were actually made in Honduras. One shop sells beautiful, fragrant handmade candles made by a women's co-op that raises awareness about spousal abuse.)

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Dinner that evening was wonderful!

We started with this popular appetizer. I can't recall what the name is. But that's not important. What's important is how yummy it was!

It's basically a fondue of beans and cheese. Yum! I want some right now.

The main event was delicious too. Beans, rice, strips of beef, and fried ripe plantanos, served with cream, lime, and a chunk of cheese. And a pretty tomato.

It was so good. I'm not much of a beef eater, but this was some of the best steak I've ever had. It was so simple and so good. Food does not have to be complicated. Just good. Wow, I'm getting hungry...and craving this.

(Good food can be one of the worst parts of traveling--because then you CRAVE it when you get home. And no matter how hard you try, you can never quite recreate it.)

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That evening there was a tremendous, frightening storm! I was mesmerized by the sound of the rain slapping the tile roof. (At least it wasn't as deafening as it would have been had it been a metal roof.) I leaned out of the window and watched the lightening light up the jungle. I had this moment of feeling CONNECTED. I felt connected to the other families enduring the storm. I knew there were mothers comforting their children all across the valley. And for generations there had been mothers in this valley who had comforted their children in storms such as this. I thought of the Mayans. And more so than at the museum or the following day at the ruins, it was the storm that brought them alive to me. There were mothers, just like me, who had to comfort their children in the night, who worried what damage such a storm might bring. Who prayed for it to pass quickly. They were human beings, just like us. We really are all a part of the same family. God's family.

Notes from Honduras 3

The big to-do about Copan is the sculpture. Take this stele, for example:

Elaborate. Flamboyant. The carving is very deep, and in some places nearly fully round. The height of this style was during the reign of 18 Rabbit from 695-738 AD. Art was very important to 18 Rabbit, and the best artists in the Mayan realm were drawn to Copan.

What is on the other side of the stele? Super cool Mayan writing, of course!

Here is a closer look. (Notice the remnants of red paint. Everything would have been plastered and painted in bright colors.)

Those are not simply pictographs. It is an entire writing system. Some of the glyphs represent words, and some of them represent syllables. Others represent place names and gods. To complicate matters, different symbols can be used to represent the same syllable. I think it's fascinating. You can learn more here. And doesn't it LOOK cool? I love the way different languages LOOK.

Another stele:

Here is another view of the same stele:

Isn't that writing awesome?

A close-up:

More writing, this would have been on the outside of a temple:

Here is writing incorporating the Mayan number system:

Enough with the Mayan writing (for now anyway). Here are sculptures of men performing a very sacred ceremony. (The key is that little loin cloth.)

You'll have to ask Greg for details of the ceremony. (He courageously suffered through this book.) It's interesting, but not for the faint of heart. "It" being the book, the ceremony, and just hearing about the ceremony.

The last picture from the museum that I will share is this guy:

What a warrior! (I love his shield!) Oh, and check out that fashion forward footwear.

After the museum, we stepped into a cafe for baleadas and Fanta. (Why does Fanta taste better in other countries? Can anyone explain this to me?)

Then we drove up the road to the village of Copan Ruinas, our destination for the night.

Can you spot the stray dog in the picture? Actually, there were far fewer stray dogs than I had expected. (Perhaps the jaguars pick them off?)

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Here is the number one most surprising thing about Honduras. They have a helmet law! That people obey!! Holy cow, there isn't even a helmet law in Ohio! (Or here, but that would be expected.) Like many other places in the world, you'll still see an entire family on a motorcycle--but they're all wearing helmets! Isn't that great?! This truly endured Honduras to my heart. (Yes, I know I'm a weirdo: "Sure, Honduras, I liked your food and your jungle and your ruins, but what I really loved is your helmet law!")

Friday, April 23, 2010

Notes from Honduras 2

Our destination was the Mayan ruins of Copan. (Has anybody read Collapse? There is a chapter about Copan.)

Since it was the hottest time of day, we decided to visit the museum on site at the ruins that afternoon. Then we would return Monday morning to see the actual ruins.

Copan is all about the ARTWORK. Like it says here...

Many of the pieces have been removed from the ruins (and replaced with replicas) and housed in the museum. Since Copan is all about the sculpture, and most of the original sculptures are in the museum, the museum is a must-see.

Speaking of replicas, this is a full-scale replica in the museum. It's of "Rosalila," an inner temple found inside the largest pyramid in the center of the acropolis.

It's a super important archaeological find because of its well-preserved elaborately sculpted facade. There were even traces of paint found on the original, so we know in what colors it was decorated.

Mayan rulers built on top of the previous ruler's construction accomplishments. When a new king ascended to the throne, he would demolish or at least partially destroy the previous ruler's temples and build right on top. Mayan cities are layers and layers of temples and shrines. (This must be MADDENING for archaeologists!) "Rosalila" is remarkable because it was so sacred that the next king did not destroy it. He built a giant temple on top of it, but he was careful that the new temple encased "Rosalila." It seemed a miracle to archaeologists to find a PRESERVED temple inside the giant temple at Copan.