Christ and Candy

Just back from an afternoon and night in San Pedro Sula. Arrived at the Terminal by 6:00 a.m. and caught the first bus out to Santa Cruz. It turned out to be my old favourite – Divine Women. The Divine part of the sign and window shading has disappeared and the driver is new. Fortunately, the other iconic protection is still in place and the new driver has acquired many of the “skills” of the old driver so that “Divine Women” has lost none of its carnival ride qualities.

Last week Manuel and I spent two days up in Tegucigulpa chasing down the funding for our project. We met a new gentleman who has already begun sending emails to the Minister, Vice-Minister and the man who is the roadblock. That is the most action we have seen in some time so we are pleased with that. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

At this point in time, it looks as if I have two weeks remaining in Honduras. That has been a very frustrating thought as there were so many things on my “To Do” list. It has been hard to sit in limbo for the past few weeks not being able to make firm plans but not wanting to let the time slip away empty in case the funding came through. Many hours spent thinking at night about all this. Sigh.

Yesterday morning I was feeling rather down about the whole thing and headed in to San Pedro Sula to visit a friend and to watch Real España play in the afternoon. I detoured to walk down to some new friends’ place and see if they wanted to come. It was a fifteen minute walk and, when I arrived, the guard told me they were away. I turned around and started back – this time uphill. As I trudged along, I met a small girl with unkempt hair and dusty bare feet. She was coming from the small pulperia up the road. She was sucking on a sucker of some sort and had two candies in her hand. When she saw me coming, she stopped and offered me one of her candies. I was very touched.

Mother Theresa often talks about meeting Christ in the people around you. Certainly, this little girl was a brief incarnational event. She was willing to share half of what was in her hand with a stranger who was obviously from a different culture and economic class. How delightful.

Five beehives are now built and drying. Today we begin getting the top bars made. Sunday morning I went out with Rosa at 6:00 a.m. to look for good places to put the hives. Hopefully by Wednesday they will be in place. There is a type of small, biting insect that inhabits Rosa’s property and it takes out a small chunk of skin. For some reason they chose my ears as targets and my ears are burning today. Fortunately, they are not swollen so I don’t resemble an Irish rugby prop.

Henry is working on the smoke house today (getting materials is a long and arduous process which eats up time like a starving mastiff) and I found the bamboo for the shelves and it is ready to be cut. He will also build a bit of an incinerator this week ... I hope. Looking forward to trying out the smokehouse and seeing if it produces something that is of market value.

The fair is coming to town. Games of chance and little side shows are setting up in the streets and carnie people are manning the booths. Do all carnie people look alike? The “Amazing Spider Girl” tent is up and broadcasting. I didn’t bother going to see that. It is so strange to think of people with such small amounts of disposable income using it on these shoddy games of chance. It is so fascinating to watch and wonder.

Last night I was reading a small excerpt from an article by Mother Theresa. She talked about different types of homelessness. She suggested that one of the worst types of homelessness is NOT “being somebody to someone”. I was struck by how much of our lives are often spent fruitlessly endeavouring to be ‘somebody’ to someone. Often that someone we have chosen is not interested in our being a ‘somebody’. We become patterned (like a young fledgling) to a certain person or type of person and are unable to focus on others who might be able or even wanting to give us the recognition that we need and the validation of our worth and humanity.

We took some cuttings from the Stevia plant on Friday and they seem to be hanging in there. We may have a number of new plants if this is the case. That would be fantastic. We are going to make some more cuttings this morning.

Talk to you later,
Bryan