I've now made it three weeks in Honduras with very little culture shock or home sickness. But I have had a tough week with tummy sickness and other stuff I wont go into detail. I'm feeling pretty much at home here in Catacamas as we are beginning to make friends and even being asked out places like church and the water park. We take every offer we can get as we tend to get a bit bored cooped up in the house, spending far too much time on the internet.

So this week has been quite chilled and exciting. We went to church on wednesday evening with one of the teachers from school. The church was evangelical and very big and pretty, equiped with lots of musical instruments, spotlights, a projector and even a professional camera recording the service. We sat in the back but still achieved a lot of stares from everyone infront. Before the service had begun we were asked our names, and many hondurans can't understand my name, spelling it Hdpe and pronouncing it as 'ope'. I later heard mine and Kate's name being called out and everyone turned round, welcoming us to the church. I was a bit frustrated being introduced with some weird name but oh well...

Now on to the actual service. It began with a lot of cheery songs and people raising their hands up, getting very into the music. After about 45 minutes the strangest thing happened. The lights went out and about 15 people dressed in luminous white clothing ran onto stage and began to throw white balloons and confetti onto each other while rap music was being played. I have no idea what the message they were trying to give was but it was quite amusing. The rest of the service was quite boring as a woman preached about God for an hour, in spanish, and every so often would get very passionate and people would all clap at whatever she was saying. I sat there pretty clueless throughout. An interesting thing however, was when people began to walk up to the preacher and hold out their hands for her to touch them. I can't quite work out if I prefer their style of worship, as it is very relaxed and welcoming but a little too passionate for my liking.

Our weekend was much more enjoyable. Another teacher took us to the waterpark in Catacamas. We werent expecting much but were pleasantly surprised. As we arrived we could see three small monkeys jumping around on the trees inside the park. We got in for free as we were with Mr Rodriguez who teaches lessons there. This also meant that we were two hours earlier than everyone else and had the whole park to ourselves. It had everything, from palm trees and reggae music to hammocks to waterslides and waterfalls. We had such a fun time as I learnt how to dive (kate struggled a lot and ended up looking like an old granny falling into the pool). As there weren't any lifeguards and the safety isnt very important in Honduras we were able to go down the slides all together, ocassionally getting stuck half way. Although it was a successful day, I did end up pretty burnt and was laughed at by my honduran family. As we had so much fun and there was nothing else to do, we ended up going again on the Sunday, and decided to sunbathe the proper way; on their deckchairs using suncream. The funny thing was as Kate and I were in the direct sunlight, all the hondurans were hiding in the shade, quite fascinated by us white/red girls.

One thing I can say is that I'm pretty lucky. Here in Catacamas we have a cool water park, a massive sports field great for running or playing football and even has a stage for entertainment I guess. And we have just found out that we are living very very close to a circus! We've been hearing very loud music every night and decided to check it out today. It seems to be a portable circus with a few men living in tents around it. Although it looks quite dodgy we want to go to at least one show to see what it's like. So basically, while everyone is having floods at home in england, I feel like im on holiday and I can call this my home for a whole year. Loving it!

That's it for now, I need to quickly apply moisturizer as im deeply regretting not bringing any after sun.

Lots of love,

Hope

Xxx