Checklist for Gringos - #LaAventuraDeLaVida

~ Sept 16, 2013 ~

Guidelines for visiting students' houses in Honduras:

• Unless you like looking like you have chicken pox, wear bug spray. Honduran mosquitoes like gringas.

• Wear tennis shoes. You never know when you are going to be jumping across rivers, hiking up mountains, or squishing through mud.

• Bring a lot of water. After jumping across rivers, hiking up mountains, or squishing through mud, you'll be thirsty.

• Don't wear a watch that you might be even slightly allergic to. The combination of heat, humidity, and sweat will not be helpful. At all.

• If you are given a piece of fruit by a family, eat it right away. Two hours later, neither the fruit, your bag, or you will be happy with the results.

• If possible, install another set of eyes to watch where you are going while at the same time not tripping over rocks, tree roots, and broken sidewalks.

• If there are dogs barking furiously in the yard, just stand outside the gate and yell "buenas!" until someone comes out to let you in.

• While tramping through brush, keep a close eye out for snakes and stay close to the guy with the machete.

• When you have no idea what people are saying, just go off of facial cues - when they smile, you smile. When they laugh, you laugh. When they look serious, you look sympathetic.

• Whenever a family offers you food, take it, say thank you, eat it graciously, and fervently pray that God kills all the bacteria before it gets to your stomach.

• Realize that any hardship you are facing is the everyday normal for the families you are visiting. They don't have the option to leave; to have a hot shower; to have clean, drinkable water come out of a faucet in their house; to have money to get groceries at a Walmart down the street; to have a car to get places in; or to have a toilet to go to the bathroom in. Even if you don't understand a word they are saying, you are both hijos del mismo Dios - children of the same God - and that is what is truly important.

Previous posts in this series (most recent listed first):

Getting There: Saying Goodbye and Hello - #LaAventuraDeLaVida
La Gracia de Dios (the grace of God) - #LaAventuraDeLaVida