Leche--baby no more...

Leche has grown two fold since we found him in Catacamas wandering the streets without a home.  He has been an invaluable asset to our stay here in Honduras.  When we are having a tough day Leche definitely tries to help in any way he can.  He hasn’t had an accident in the house in a while and we no longer need a leash when we take him for a walk.  He has started teething and will bite anything you put in front of his face.  You can expect a friendly bite whenever you try to pet him. 

Leche used to not be able to walk over the smallest puddle.  He would whine and complain crossing the sewage ditches in the street.  Now he hops right over playfully.  We even took him to the river the other day.  All of us hopped right in and Leche jumped from rock to rock on the river and thought really hard about jumping in right away but decided to lie down and bathe in the sun.  After we were swimming in the river for a while we decided to test his buoyancy.  We dropped him in the water and we were surprised to find that he swam very well.  I would stand on one side of the river with Leche and Rob would be waiting on the other side after a 15 or so foot swim.  He looked like a Lab the way he was swimming, which may be a part of his genetics. 

I took him for a walk today just when it was getting dark.  This is a favorite time for the dogs since most of the heat is gone.  Leche acts really tough in front of the street dogs by barking and growling and when he gets into trouble he drops his ears and finds one of us for protection.  I tried to get some pictures of him while we walked but he is a bit camera shy.

The other day we were watching a history channel show about the most dangerous airports in the world.  We came to find out that Tegucigalpa is the second most dangerous airport in the world behind Nepal whose airport is well over two miles high and significantly slanted.  Tegucigalpa has the shortest international runway, and just past the runway there is a cliff that drops onto a highway.  In 2008, a plane slid off the runway and killed a group of passengers and other civilians on the highway.  When flying in, I remember it being extremely difficult.  We circled the city a bunch of times and came in for a steep landing between buildings and mountains.  I came to find out that the pilot needs to hit three exact checkpoints on the ground before he can make an approach.  Finally, we hit the checkpoints and landed to a screeching halt.  The entire plane started clapping when we landed—of course I found this odd because I didn’t know that flying into Tegucigalpa is about the most dangerous thing you can do it Honduras.

Other than bad transportation and an update on Leche, everything has been pretty standard—classes are going extremely well as the kids are picking up English quickly.  We have found that the truth in Honduras is somewhere between the rumors told by six or seven people.  As we become more integrated into the community and our Spanish improves we find out dirty little secrets about our friends in the town.  You kind of have to assume that everything you hear is a lie.  There is a culture of “chismosa” or gossip—mostly because people are bored out of their minds.  We can only wonder what they all say about us.  Please comment if you have any questions about life in Honduras or teaching and living abroad.  Thanks for reading!