Around Town

El Mercado 

In between monsoon style rain I have been able to get out and about a bit this past week.  With the other gringos that I'm in school with, I went to the beach, the mercado (market), and lots of other places around town.

Rambután

I have fallen in love with rambután, a fruit with crazy hair all over it.  I've never had lychee in the US but from what I can understand they are very similar. You can buy it on just about any street corner and at every market stand, along with green oranges, bananas, etc.

Other than fruit, the food is fairly plain.  LOTS of rice and LOTS of beans.  Also lots of pork chops.  I have had the super common pupusa-tortilla/potato/cheese contraption made flat and grilled, and they are good.  Not many, or really any, vegetables to speak of other than plantains.

Half of the Gringo/a Group

One of the most exciting things I have done so far is going to the Honduras/Jamaica futbol (soccer) game.  Wow!  What a difference from sporting events in the states.  The first challenge was getting into the stadium.  I guess for crowd control purposes, the stadium is divided in half with a 10 foot tall fence topped with barbed wire.  Unfortunately, our group ended up getting split up and on other sides of the stadium.  After figuring it out we were able to get on the same side to watch the game.  What an experience!  Honduras ended up winning 2-1 and with each goal the crowd went WILD.  Woman took their shirts off, kids blew incessantly on plastic horns and men screamed.

My favorite part though, was the wave.  In the circular soccer stadium the wave went around at least 10 times.  If not more.  It started tamely enough, but by the end everyone was throwing their basura (trash) up in the air along with their hands when it got to them.  Then the kids would run around and quickly collect all the trash so that they were ready to throw it in the air again by the time the wave came back around.  It was like trash confetti--such a happy time.  I kept chuckling to myself thinking about what would happen if you tried to do that at a stadium in the states.