Una Semana

It has been a week. In some ways it seems like it has been a year and in other ways it feels like it’s only been a day.

It has been a long week. It has been an exhausting week. It has been a week that has stretched me more than I even imagined it would. It has been a week of learning, of growing. I have definitely seen that in my Spanish. My mind is a confusing place right now… I honestly can’t tell you what language I’m thinking in at a given moment. I do think in Spanish most of the time. It’s generally when I am really tired or talking about a subject that I don’t know a lot about or rarely talk about in Spanish that I think in English and then have to translate to Spanish. And then throw in the occasional Chinese for “thank you”: [seeyaseeya]. And sometimes, actually a lot of times, I switch languages mid-sentence. I am pretty sure that I continue speaking in Spanish, but I don’t really know.  It’s interesting for me to pay attention to.

Today we went to Nueva Suyapa! This was probably the thing that I was most excited about Honduras for. My senior year, I wrote a fable—in Spanish, of course—for El Verbo, the Christian elementary school in Nueva Suyapa. I’ve also learned a lot about Nueva Suyapa in my high school Spanish classes and from Association for a more Just Society (AJS). We actually didn’t spend a lot of time in the town. We walked up the “Montanita,” the little mountain that Nueva Suyapa is on. We got to see the vegetable gardens that groups of women grow up there. While we were on the mountain, David, the brother of one of my Spanish teachers, met up with us. He had actually come to my Spanish class senior year and talked to us about the work he does in Nueva Suyapa, so that was a fun fact for the day.

I was really dizzy today. For those of you who don’t know, dizziness is not a new concept for me. The thing is, I had been doing so much better—like, for months. But today was really hard. And it was different than normal, so I don’t know what it was/is (because I’ve been dizzy the past few days, and still am, but not like in Nueva Suyapa or on the mountain). It’s very possible that it’s the altitude because Tegus. is higher elevation than Michigan and Nueva Suyapa and la Montanita is even higher. But, no worries, I know how to live life dizzy, it’s just really frustrating and when I’m so dizzy that I can’t walk, it’s pretty hard. The professors did take me to the doctor, but they didn’t think anything was wrong. Now I’m just keeping an eye out for triggers and stuff.

This weekend we’re taking a 4-day weekend and going to Cusuna, a rural town (without things like electricity), 11 hours from Tegus. It’s on the ocean, so it will be fun to spend time at the beach. We’re going to be learning a lot about the Garifuna culture there, too.

Right now I am listening to a sermon (a little strange? Maybe, but something I love to do), but I can’t really hear it due to the chubasco-->Caleb, that’s for you, for the rest of you, it’s a strong rainstorm—outside. My room has a door and a window (on the same wall) that face outside, but not to the street. They face something like an outdoor room… oxymoron?... it has walls, but it’s outside and half of the “room” has a roof. That half is next to my room, so it’s not like I would get wet if I opened my door right now. The roof is tin. That’s why it’s extra loud. (To my dear craft girls: I didn’t live in the tree houses with tin roofs with you, but I live with a tin roof now for 4 months, so I understand.) It’s starting to calm down now and I’m running out of things to say.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers and encouragement. I’ve had some people ask for my address here…

Jessica Lamer
Apdo 30676
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Central America

Me extrañan mucho a todos (I miss you all a lot), pero estoy mucho más cómoda aquí ahora (but I’m a lot more confortable here now). Espero hablar con ustedes pronto (I hope to talk with you again soon). ¡Cuídense! (Take care!)

Con amor y un abrazo,
Jessica

Tercer Dia

Well, today I had my first, and hopefully last, encounter with tear gas. We were walking to Hospimed—a hospital in Tegucigalpa—for a tour. Right now, the teachers in Honduras are on strike. All public schools are closed, and have been for 3 weeks. Today there were protesters in the street outside the Universidad Pedagógica. The protestors were blocking the street so that no traffic could get through. I even saw rocks in the road. Well, impeding traffic is not allowed, so the police had to use force to get the people to disperse. They used tear gas. We didn’t know what was going on. At first we thought they were shooting guns, because that’s what they sounded like, but there was an awful lot of smoke for it to be guns. People were running in every direction. I was toward the back of the pack (there are 29 students here), but I just kept following the people in front of me. Then a couple people around me and I started to notice that not all of us were together. We stayed back for a few seconds to try to find them, but we couldn’t see them and the smoke was getting to us and then we realized that it wasn’t smoke. We didn’t know what it was yet, but we did know that our throats, mouths, noses, and eyes were burning. It was hard to breathe and to see, but we just started to run, still following the people in our group. We would run and then wait to try to find the others (there were about 10 people who weren’t with us) and then the gas (someone told us that it was tear gas) would catch up to us and we would run some more. Finally we got a hold of the others and they were all together and safe in the mall. They were in the back of the pack and ran in the opposite direction as us. (One of the students with them is from Honduras.) Those of us that had kept going forward finally made it to Hospimed. A doctor talked to us, but we didn’t take a tour. We just went back to our casas. So now I’m back in my casa. My face still burns, but I’m safe and I’m not panicking anymore. It was quite the adventure for the third day.

Segundo Día

I have never felt so alone in my entire life. I’ve never cried so much. I’ve never wanted to be in Grand Rapids so badly.

I love my host family. They are so great. They make sure that I feel like I am another daughter. The thing is, right now, all I want is my own family, my SpringHill family, my Calvin family… and I don’t have them. It’s so hard.

I’m just really overwhelmed right now. I feel like I don’t know enough Spanish. I can communicate, but it takes awhile and I’m just not good at it. (But I am starting to think in Spanish again because as I’m typing this I keep starting to type the words in Spanish, but then translate to English.)

Please pray for me. I am exhausted and I don’t want to be here. I just want to go home. I feel like this is too hard and I just can’t do it. Pray that these feelings will pass and that I will feel what I know in my head: that this will be a great semester and that this is where God wants me to be right now. Please also pray for encouragement, peace, confidence, and comfort.

I love you all.