It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Yesterday was an overwhelming day in the clinic, especially after being worn out after this week's brigada. Once things slowed down in the afternoon, we finally had the chance to talk with the techs after missing them during our brigada. They told us that the entire week was super busy. While Rolando and I were running pre-clinic on Friday, the waiting room area filled up, patients were lined up all along the main hallway, and they even began to encroach upon our pre-clinic work space. It felt almost claustrophobic at times, but at least there was plenty of work for the volunteers to do!

The two new volunteers, Elisabeth and Christine, arrived yesterday as well. We took them grocery shopping, to the ATM, and cooked a big spaghetti dinner to welcome them. We spent a couple hours chatting and began giving them the low down on what to expect as a volunteer here. It's weird to think that just two weeks ago we were in their shoes! They're both sweet girls and I'm looking forward to working with them and getting to know them better.

Alex gave the five of us tickets to a mini-carnival today, a charity event put on by Teguc's Citi Bank in honor of its 200th year in business. There were a lot of food stands, games, live music and entertainment, some cool handicrafts, and informational booths about various charity organizations. We spent time there this afternoon to eat lunch and enjoyed some of the entertainment!

The rest of the day was kind of slow and relaxing. We walked to the lavandería to drop off our laundry and picked it up later, all clean and neatly folded (and without loosing a single sock!). The family who runs the lavandería gets a lot of business from the volunteers who come through, so they always love to see new faces and ask us how things at the clinic are going. Lourdes, the owner of our apartahotel, is also very familiar with UFS volunteers and she is a godsend! We enjoy talking to her every once and a while, and we can count on her to help us with anything. Another "neighbor" we've befriended is Eric, a young guy who runs a small pulpería on the street corner by the clinic. We go by his store often to by snacks or lunch during our work days. He loves to hear about our brigadas and to practice some of his English with us.

Leah and I watched a couple movies on TV this afternoon; there was even a thunderstorm for an added "surround sound" effect during the scary, stormy scenes! There are often American movies on TV either in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles that are fun to watch. We're trying to get all the immersion we can, especially sometimes we're bad about talking in English when we're not in the presence of a native Spanish-speaker. At the clinic yesterday, when we finished our work for the day, Leah and I were having a conversation in Spanish when Alex walked by. He gave us a weird, surprised look and made a silly comment about our Spanish speaking. At least we're making an effort!

A cool view we discovered from our apartment balcony: the Honduran flag flying on a hilltop.