CatrachoLandia...

Here are just a few pictures of my Christmas here in Honduras!

Singing in the choir on Christmas Eve...

The kids' part of the service...

And my brother Franklin and I enjoying some Christmas presents (I didn't get a mask for Christmas, I was just borrowing Ivan's!)

Christmas Banquet

Stepping back a little over a week, I have some pictures from our youth group Christmas banquet at Horizonte Queretaro!

The banquet was an evangelistic event - we asked the youth from churh to please invite a non-Christian friend. We figured about 35 or 40 from our church would come, and that maybe 10 would invite a friend. When it came time to buy food and stuff, we had 94 people registered to come!! 85 actually came!

Here are several of the university girls:

Aide, Ana, Whitney, and I

My good-looking little sister Gaby, and little brother Roberto

And, me with friends Dany, Ana, and Kike (KEE-kay)
It was a fun night!

"Home" Number 2

Greeting from Honduras! I arrived safely here sunday afternoon, and am staying with my wonderful Honduran family! I don't have much of a plan for my time here other than relax and hang out with friends and family. I'll be here until January 8.
Hasta luego!!

And Some Good Mexican Food...

... to tide me over while I'm in Central America!!

I actually took pictures of some of my favorite foods here (yeah, I know, I'm kind of lame...)

Here's my very very favorite food - it's called a gringa! The gringa is on the right, it's a big lump of white cheese and BBQ pork all melted together, and some places even add pineapple. It's eaten in flour tortillas. It's really really yummy!
I didn't get a picture of "mole" (MO-lay) which would be my next favorite food... It sounds kind of sick, it's chile sauce mixed with chocolate. It's usually eaten over chicken, or used instead of enchilada sauce!

Here is a "Guajolote" (wah-hoh-LOW-tay), or also called "pambazo" in outher parts of the country. It's a big sandwich. The bread is dipped in really yummy sauce and toasted on a grill. It is filled with meat (I like pork, chicken, or chorizo sausage), lettuce, tomato, beans, jalapeños, and cream. Definitely a good choice in mexican food!
And here's one that would make "health fanatics" cringe even more than the first two foods - the "Elote" (ei-LOW-tay). It's corn on the cob. Now, corn on the cob is pretty good for you - here they serve it boiled or roasted. However, when you eat it the mexican way is when it starts the arteries a'cloggin'. First you put on butter. Then mayonaise. Roll it in shredded white cheese. Squeeze on some lime juice, and sprinkle on some chile powder. There you have your cooked mayonaise on a stick! No really, it's really tasty! The one in the picture was bought on the side of the road out in the boonies. It's the best elote place!!
And I'm sure you're familiar with tamales, but you've probably eaten them with chicken or pork and spicy sauce. I like them like that too. However, since tamales are commonly eaten for breakfast, I usually acompany my chicken and green sauce tamal with a sweet tamal! The pink think in the picture is indeed a tamal. It's stawberry flavored with raisin. My favorite is pineapple flavored! We had gringos here when we were eating these particular tamales at church, and there were two guys looking at the tamales and thought the pink ones looked gross. but I gave them a taste, and they also liked them better than the meat ones! The women were afraid to try the sweet ones... they missed out...

Next Sunday, I'm off to the world of "ketchup is the spiciest thing we can eat." HONDURAS!! I'm very excited about going there... there are even foods there that I enjoy, even though they aren't super flavorful. Looking especially forward to baleadas (flour tortillas with beans, scrambled eggs, and melted cheese), pupusas (gorditas to mexicans, or corn meal patties stuffed with cheese, meat, or beans), and cuajada - my favorite Honduran food (salted curdled milk that's hardened enough to cut with a knife! No, I'm not kidding...).

I probably won't be updating this blog for another 2 weeks or so, so enjoy the 4 posts I did today!!

Merry Christmas!!

State Fair!

The State Fair of Queretaro is going on right now, and I went last night! I unfortunately didn't take my camera in with me, so I have one picture... of us in the car leaving. There are two GIGANTIC expo center-type buildings (think two buildings that dwarf the Jackman-Long at the Oregon State fair) full of really cheaply priced goods! I bought some earrings for less than half the price that they sell them for in the Centro. We (Brisa, Lluvia, Justin, Dany, Aide, Shultz, and I) beat our way through the crowds for about 3 hours of shopping. Then, we hit the rides. I don't think I've been on fair rides in at least 8 years, and 8 years really ages you a lot!! I can't handle rides like I used to! But it was very fun! And, of course, the yummy greasy fair food was WAY overpriced, and Im not supposed to be eating it anyways, so I limited myself to an apple-flavored pop. Fair food in Mexico = french fries, hamburgers & hotdogs, corn on the cob (with mayo, cheese, and chile!), stuffed churros (Mmmm!!), pancakes (yes, pancakes!) potato chips with salsa, and fruit popsicles covered in chile powder. Anyhow, even without food, it was really fun!!

(the picture is Brisa, Aide (eye-day) and me)

And the Winner Is...

CHIVAS!!!!!!!

The Mexican League soccer final was yesterday, and my favorite teams, Guadalajara Chivas, were in it. And they WON! And it was against my LEAST favorite team - Toluca!

Here is my probable new favorite Chiva - Omar Bravo.

Omar and Bofo

Bofo with my as-of-right-now favorite Chiva - Oswaldo Sanchez

Unfortunately, it is very likely that Oswaldo will be moving to Tigres of Monterrey. Such is life.

Where Do I Live??

For those of you who have always thought that it never really gets very cold in Mexico, this picture is for you! heehee! This is me before leaving for my spanish class last week - I leave at 7:15am, and it is COLD. Not as cold as it is in Oregon, but considering that we have NO HEAT in our house, and I have yet to be in ANY building that does have heat, once it drops below about 45 degrees, it gets rather uncomfortable! About 3 weeks ago, there was actually frost on the ground, and people here say that they'd never seen frost in QRO before (although most of the people who live here who I know are originally from Mexico City...) Anyhow, it was dumb of me to leave the majority of my winter clothes in my parents' house... I bought the scarf/hat/gloves here! I like the weather here, it's kind of unpredictable!

Queretaro Nativity

For some reason, I have a fixation with Nativity scenes, Latin American style.
A few weeks ago, to my great joy, they put up a life-sized nativity scene in one of the plazas en downtown QRO. So I had to take some pictures...

Here is the Jesus' birth scene:
And, like all large nativity set-ups in Mexico/Central America, it also includes more scenes possibly based on Bible stories, as well as a typical village scene from the country.

Here are Mexican children doing piñata in their village:

And here is Bernal QRO/creation... Not sure how a lion and girraffe got in QRO...

The three wise men coming to see Jesus: (in latin america, the wise men have names, which I don't remember, and one comes from the middle east with his camel, another from china with his horse, and another from india with his elefant)

And, they put up a "hell" scene too. Not my favorite.