life is bueno!!!

Do you ever have those days that you wish would never end?? Well that's how our day was yesterday. Our voyage began at 8 am where we headed to the river to engage in white water rafting with one of the most experienced and energetic guides i have ever had the privilege to be with. While our beacon of the river was laying out our instructions,,i couldn't pry my eyes from this 55 foot high rock. It was love at first sight and I couldn't help but to interrupt by saying "please tell me we can we jump off that thing?" Only 5 out of the 8 of us could make the ascend on the backside of the rock. When we victoriously conquered the climb,, my fellow companions(who were all male) started to admit that it's a bit higher than they had imagined it. So i said,,"you guys gonna just stand there or are ya going to jump?" One of them said "ladies first" and before they could finish their laugh with their imaginary high fives,,i rolled my eyes and leaped into the river below. Of course they all jumped soon after cause they couldn't be shown up by a chick.We spent the rest of the afternoon in deep concentration and solid formation as we conquered the river. It rocked!!!! After lunch i drove us to the Rio Zacate where we took a short 45 minute hike up into the dense jungle. Our destination was a beautiful waterfall surrounded by small swimming holes. There were also rocks all around that were good for jumping off of.

It was one of those days were i wish all my friends could have shared it with me!!!!!!!

random thoughts

The first part of my day was spent volunteering at the orphanage again. It was another intense, amazing day with those kids. This evening i decided to migrate to the urban area of La Ceiba. i reluctantly decided to run errands with my pop(who runs a non-profit organization out of Honduras). the car ride would give me some quiet time. we strolled into the town mall after a surprising success at maneuvering through the taxis and oblivious drivers; and that was just in the parking lot. Pops ran into the bank to be provided with a customer service rating of negative forty four and i window shopped to postpone being bored. i focused through some recently spit shined glass at one of the most uninteresting things i could possibly peer at; cell phone covers. i am still oblivious to their actual purpose, but i am open to their definition. my guesstimating would be that there was an absurd number of 200 diverse covers in an unfortunate 18 variant colors. certain ones looked like a bedazzler threw up on them and others portrayed a net worth that was most likely higher than my own. the counter girl, who looked alarmingly happy, motioned to me with her eyes to take a closer look. i shook my head no thanks.."i couldn´t afford the insurance policy on those," i thought but didn´t say. there was a sudden nauseous foreboding that swept over me as i surveyed that mall. i sensed that i didn't belong there. everything from within wanted to scream-"you crude, self absorbed colony of lost souls!! There is more to life than this! Lives based only on material possessions will never know what their one chance at life has to offer! Get over yourselves!!!! " but as i brought my heart back down to its resting rate,i realized that if i would have verbalized my "poor excuse for a slogan" story- then i would have been just like them. i don't ever want to judge people for what they presume to be. the rich judge the poor. the poor judge the rich.hippies judge the yuppies.yuppies judge the hippies. carnivores judge the vegans. vegans judge the carnivores.it is all just one heinous cycle of ridiculousness. Adopt the phenomenon that everyone isn't like you for a good reason. as my grandmother would say "be kind to EVERYONE! "That's the greatest thing i have ever been taught.

DayThree

It’s enlightening how much you learn every time you decide to take that leap out outside of your comfort zone. Being in Honduras is a beautiful, enlightening, and growing experience for me. I am looking forward to spending the afternoon at the orphanage and I can’t wait to take the boat ride to Utila tomorrow so I can go diving for the first time!!!

वे वेरेन'टी doctors

It was a cool day, unusually cool in fact for this flatlands part of coastal Honduras. The sun had been stuck behind a lazy herd of cumulus clouds and didn’t seem to be coming out anytime soon. The wind seemed to be blowing at an ever constant rate, strong enough to feel your shirt get tighter and hear the whipping of the excess cloth at your back. We were walking through a field of high grass, watching as the directionally perplexed wind cast its orders over the army of green blades. The village plot was mostly grass with exception of the dirt islands each hut seemed to be marooned on. This dirt was also another soldier the wind would bark orders at, periodically forcing it to spiral upwards and surround the hut with a small twister of dust and ashes. Walking up to this archipelago of houses made of nothing but sticks, mud and sweat, we knew our destination immediately. Her waving hand drawing as much attention as a small brown women could in a fog of dust, we headed toward her. As we approached her you could see all the years and all the worries openly displayed in the deep creases of her skin. The only distinguishable features of her face were the red-veined pupils around her dark eyes. The rest blended in with the folds and lines of poverty. Firmly across her forehead, the once white bandana now adapted to its surroundings and camouflaged itself with grass stains and dust. She spoke slow and soft barely discernable over the clucking of the chickens staging their protest while searching for anything edible on their barren isle. She directed us inside a door-less doorway into her dining/ living/ bed room where an obtrusively swollen man lay vulnerably on his bed. As we walked in a child oblivious to our entrance laid adjacent to the man with no other obligations than to watch his ever slowing chest rise and descend. The boy seemed concentrated so hard on the man’s chest, as if he was rhythmically counting the seconds in which the man’s chest should rise again, dying a little himself every second longer that his grandfathers’ chest stayed level. Nearing the bed I felt my eyes stay on the ground not wanting to witness his possible last breath. Stepping close I was suddenly startled as two hens raced from underneath the bed between my legs dashing for the open air as if I was there for dinner. The man laid depressingly still on his bed, which consisted of a wooden frame and yellow twine that was tightly laced around the frame looking more like an uncomfortable net than a bed. The man’s grandson woke him and directed his bleary consciousness towards us. We smiled trying to put him at ease, knowing we couldn’t hide the concern on our pale spoiled faces. Speaking broken Spanish, we tried to console him as if we ourselves were the doctors that were going to drain the fluid from his drowning lungs. A strong gust of wind came through and rapped the tin roof causing a vicious noise, silencing the entire room. Looking down from the roof back into the beaten face of the man, he started to try and reposition himself. This action strained him so that his eyelids started to creep open for the first time. As I bent down to grab his arm I came face to face with his now entirely open stone gray eyes, in which I couldn’t see or feel anything that resembled a life inside. The grandson now jumped to help recognizing his grandfather wanted to try and sit up. The dying blind man sat wheezing, sweating, and crying. His crooked confused frown and tightly shut eye’s showing strain in the wrinkles protruding from his squinted lashes like whiskers. He sighed trying to decide on whether he could give one more attempt at life. He reached out and the small brown woman quickly met his hand with hers knowing that it was her thick-creased fingers he was expecting. The man was wearing a half torn open shirt with a layer of dust and ash that also covered the dishes, tables, and hearts of everyone in the room. As the man managed to his feet a fleet of lethargic flies spread in anger as their usually immobile feast slowly rotated into movement. The sun was lower now and was cutting through the slats of the wall highlighting thin strips of unsettled dust throughout the room. I watched as the old man’s expressions would sluggishly break the plane of those illuminating particles in what seemed was slow-motion. We weren’t the doctors and he knew that, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t help. What we had was ourselves, our energy, our passion, and in this case, a van.
Saving lives aren’t only done on movie sets, and they don’t always have some dramatic story leading up to a life-or-death climax. Sometimes all it takes to save a life is a ride to a hard to reach hospital in a forgotten about countryside, which might seem mundane to us, but a miracle to others.


Ryan Skelton; Co-owner Wanderlust Adventures
Tuesday, June 24th
La Bomba



Life is contrived of continuous circumstances that constantly shape and define us into who we are. There are those who wait desperately for those moments that are going to alter their lives forever. There is an internal cluster of hope that impatiently waits for that opportunity to change your life’s course for the better. I have found that the longer I wait for those “life-changing” experiences to occur, the more melancholy I become. My confidence slowly expires. My regrets double. My failures come to a complete stop which in turn means that my goals are not being reached. My life turns into a mundane existence that is set on repeat every twenty four hours.
I do not want to co-exist; I want to illuminate. My aim is to immerse myself into situations that have the potential to make my existence unforgettable. I want to learn patience by persevering through incidents-- and not by waiting on the chance to persevere. Life can be worth the journey. But it’s entirely up to you.
Today I gained an appreciation for those who dedicate their lives to a cause of worth. As our small group traveled down a lonely dirt road, I couldn’t help but to be anxious for our arrival. There is no need to go into details of the setting because you already have an image in your mind as to what an orphanage entails. The thing that made an impression on my soul was the fact that everyone was all smiles. The owners of this orphanage were an incredibly positive and inspiring couple. To be in such good spirits, with the knowledge of what these kids have already endured, is a feat in itself. As I learned their stories, my emotions traveled from curiosity to malice to empathy. Quickly I turned my emotion to relief—that these children had somehow made their way into the lives of this couple.
A young, weightless boy rested in my arms for about an hour as I listened to how he and his twin sister had been born to a sixteen year old girl. The orphanage was going to act as foster care for this young teen until she could support herself and the children. The young mother went off into the mountains to find lost family that could be of some use in making her life a success story. Instead she was met by a gang of uneducated criminals that had nothing better to do with their time than rape and kill her. Those twins will never be held by their mother again.
There was one little girl that was hiding in a corner in her flowery dress that gave a new meaning to the saying “pretty in pink”. She had sad eyes-but a hopeful smile. If her biological mother would have know how beautiful she would become, would she have left her to rot in a garbage can with the ants feeding at her skin?
I was told of another child’s recurring nightmares. She was already haunted by actual ghosts of her past and she was not even four years of age. Her second year of life had been spent being sold on the streets for sexual purposes by her mother that claimed to be a witch. Occurrences like this make an anger sweep over me like no other. But I can’t allow myself to be overcome by hatred or my time loathing will outweigh my time helping. Then what good would I be?
The last girl I will mention spent the first ten minutes sizing me up from behind an overgrown shrub. After I inquired about her past, I wondered how much she remembered. I worried if she had flashbacks of being clinched by her mother as they rode on horseback, struggling to outrun her enraged father. The father was chasing them down with a machete because he did not give her permission to take the baby to the orphanage. But the mother did not want her baby to share the same fate as her first born child. Details on the death of the first born were scarce; but ended with the fact that after its death, it was unburied by roaming dogs and chewed apart in the backyard.
As we drove away from the compound, my first human instinct of guilt swept over me. A hundred questions flooded my head and all I could think of is “why?” I decided that if I spent all my time pondering the question of “why”—then I would never have time to answer the questions like “how- can I help?” The couple that operates the orphanage have dedicated their precious lives to answering the question “how can I help?” Their perseverance captivates me. Their dedication is jaw dropping. Their patience encourages me. Their ability to stop at nothing inspires me.
It’s times like today that bring me out of co-existing into LIFE.

My quote of the day: “Travel produces a temporary inspiration that is sustained only with vision.” -s. skelton
Starla Skelton-owner of Wanderlust Adventures
June 26th, 2008
Villa Nuria