I had been looking forward to my parents visit since before it was even planned. It is so difficult to describe Honduras and The Ranch over the phone. I was so excited for them to finally see the things I talked about and meet the people I described to them each time we talked.
As we drove from the airport to The Ranch, Uli and I pointed out notable places in the city and Uli gave us some great history of Tegucigalpa that even I didn't know. As we pulled into the ranch, I pointed out the various buildings (clinic, school, tallere, etc.) that they had heard so much about. I think they were surprised that I have been able to live so far outside the city and in the woods for the past 8 months.
As is typical of Honduras and the ranch, we were celebrating dia del nino (day of the child), which required a full day of planning and full day of celebration, which meant I wouldn't be doing any therapy while my parents were here. It was a little disappointing because they didn't get to see what a typical day was like, but also fun because we played games and interacted with the kids. However, as is also typical, the day was very chaotic and tiring. I think that it was a little overwhelming for them and made worse by the face that they didn't understand what anyone was saying. I also didn't really realize how much we have to walk to get around the ranch until they pointed it out and looked haggered by the end of each day.
For me, one of the most important things to show them was the hogar where I spend my nights with my 14-16 year old girls and their tias (caregivers). We spent 2 nights in hogar with the girls and again I think they were a little overwhelmed, but the girls loved meeting them and tried hard to communicate with them. One night the tias cooked tajaditas (fried plantian chips) for them, so that they could try a homemade traditional food. I love tajaditas, but I am not sure they were very impressed. Also, this was after we had just finished a dinner with a small group of girls from my hogar. We cooked Baleadas for them, which is another traditional Honduran food that consists of a flour tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, beans and a cream called mantequilla. This event was really fun for me and I was so proud of how well behaved the girls were around my parents.
After 3 days on the ranch, my parents were ready to move on the Roatan for a short beach vacation. I think they had eaten enough traditional Honduran food and were ready to get to a location where they could communicate with people. We arrived at our hotel in Roatan and were a little disappointed to find that it wasn't exactly on the beach and wasn't the fancy resort style we had been looking forward to. We stayed in a cabin situated on the rocks at the end of the West Bay beach. However, it didn't take us long to appreciate the small community of the hotel and enjoy waking up to the same faces every morning. Every employee of the hotel knew who we were and greeted us by name throughout the day. The hotel had its own dive shop and I was able to scuba dive privately with the dive master for one day and with only 4 of us the second day. This was much better than the large dive groups we saw leaving from the other hotels. The weather in Roatan was not ideal because it was extremely hot and we spent a lot of time laying in the air conditioned room or floating in the ocean. It was a vacation full of rest:) Another downer was the presence of sand fleas who covered us in bites the first day that just got worse as time passed. We had been warned of these, but never could have imagined the damage they could do without being seen or felt. On the upside, mom and dad totally spoiled me by feeding me very well and surrounding me with the things that we don't have on the ranch. I soaked up the air conditioning at every oportunity, ate a lot of fresh sea food and vegetables and the best was watching college and pro football while sipping on cold beers.
It was great to see them and finally I can tell stories about the ranch and they will be able to visualize the places and people. I also think it opened their eyes to the life and situations of the kids.
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