One Month

Today marks one month. One whole month in Honduras. That's crazy!

On the one hand, the weeks seem to fly by on the Ranch. On the other hand, it feels like I've been here forever -- not just one measly little month.

Sorry for the less-than-exciting blog update, but it's been a busy past few days. I just felt like saying: Happy One Month Anniversary to me. :)

Nos vemos!

P.S. Ranch weather update: All of a sudden, it is freezing and crazy windy this week! I was wearing tank tops last week. Where did this come from? Good thing I stocked up on cardigans before I left. (Cardigans = Crucial. Isn't that right, Emily?)

Rainbow in 4 Takes

Rainy season is technically over in Honduras, but the last two weeks have still seen quite a few showers.

The downside? The rain, the mud, the element of surprise.

The upside? The rainbows.

Pretty awesome, huh?

Carrie Daut Is Not A Baker (Part 2)

SO!

Thanksgiving dinner WAS AWESOME. I think it turned out better than any of us expected. We had a delicious turkey, delicious gravy, delicious mashed potatoes, delicious green bean casserole, delicious yams, delicious stuffing, delicious salad, delicious cranberry sauce, and delicious homemade pies.

And it all tasted just like Thanksgiving is supposed to. You would have never known we were in Honduras. Seriously. It was that good.

And yes, you spotted them -- those homemade crescent rolls. Here's how that turned out:

The dough does not start out looking very good. 

I'm smiling to stop the oncoming I-can't-cook breakdown. 

Still very unsure. 

Nervous and thinking, "This better freaking work." 

After a stressful experience getting the dough to flatten into a circle, divide into triangles, and roll into crescent shapes, I finally force these suckers onto a cookie sheet.  

Actually not looking tooooo bad. 

We all made it to the dinner table in one piece, so I guess that's the most important part. 

Now, after slaving away up to my elbows in dough all afternoon (not exaggerating), I was pretty upset with the final result. I didn't think they actually tasted that good. The volunteers, however, ate 'em up!

Giant sigh of relief. I made about 60, and we probably ate half during dinner. Word on the street is that the other half were devoured by breakfast this morning. :)

This year, I am thankful that the volunteers' crescent roll standards have sunk so low. Happy Thanksgiving!

Carrie Daut Is Not A Baker (Part 1)

Alright people, it's Thanksgiving. And we're trying to do it right from our little corner of Honduras.

Tonight, the gringos are getting together for a huge Thanksgiving feast. The menu will supposedly include turkey (!), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, homemade pies, and more. It sounds so legit, doesn't it???

Since tonight's cena is a group effort, each person signed up to bring a plate. Celeste and I are teaming up, and we signed our names next to mashed potatoes and rolls. Simple enough, right?

We managed to purchase both real potatoes AND snag a box of instant ones at the grocery store (great find!), but the rolls have been a little trickier. The refrigerated Pillsbury type are nowhere to be found (we should have known better), and dragging back bags and bags of possibly-stale bread from Tegus just doesn't sound fun.

Our solution? Homemade crescent rolls from scratch. Can it really be that hard?

Can we really be that clueless?

(Note: If you know me at all, you know I am allergic to the kitchen.)

Anyway, blind to my own ineptitude, I did a trial run last night. It turned out...hmm, let's just say that it could have been worse and it could have been better. (At least we got one thing straight: instant yeast and active dry yeast are not the same thing. Katie Dowd, I can hear you laughing from here.)

This afternoon, we'll pick up the challenge where we left off. Wish me luck, and remind me to never attempt anything, from scratch, ever, ever, ever, again.

After a few adjustments, the dough finally rose!

Dough, I really really hate you.

"It's like I'm at the planetarium."

On the Ranch, the stars are something else. They're bigger than big and brighter than bright, and they actually twinkle. They make me understand the term "blanket of stars," because it's like there isn't a single square of empty sky to be found. They're everywhere. They're gorgeous.

Saturday night was the first time I really noticed the stars here, but boy did I notice them.

I stood for a long time in the courtyard outside our room, head thrown back.

And all I could say was, "It's like I'm at the planetarium."

Line Drying Therapy

You know what's kind of therapeutic?

Line drying your clothes.

In Guatemala, I was spoiled. I had real washing machines and real dryers. Laundry felt the same as it always had: go as long as possible without washing clothes, do six loads one Sunday, complain that everyone else was trying to do laundry that day too. Took me right back to college.

In Honduras, things are slightly different. I don't have a washing machine, and I definitely don't have a dryer. I'm supposed to be hand-washing all my clothes in the pila -- the big stone basin outside. (For a great pila how-to, see Thayer's post about it! She's currently in Guatemala, and the girls just taught her how to hand wash like a pro.)

Instead of supposedly washing all my clothes in the pila, I've actually found a washing machine loophole. (Shh! Don't tell!) The volunteers of NPH Honduras have one washing machine in their house here, and they let me use it! God bless you, volunteers.

Still -- no dryers though, which means we line dry everything. It also means I can't go weeks without doing laundry. For one, you'll run out of clothesline space for all those clothes. Two, line drying takes time, so you have to account for that when you realize you're almost out of clean pants.

I've decided line drying isn't actually that bad. I even find it kind of...therapeutic. Borderline enjoyable. Not as enjoyable, I realize, as if I'd had to wash all those clothes by hand and then hang them up to dry, but you get the idea.

Not. Half. Bad.

Hint: When you run out of clothesline space, 

you can always use the bamboo that divides up parts of the garden. 

That's the door to our room right there!

Let's Talk About Fear

Let's talk about fear. Is that okay with everyone? Because I've been wanting to for a while. But I haven't. Due to...um, well, fear...I guess. So let's talk about it.

Sometimes people tell me I'm fearless. I can recall exact moments and places I've been told I'm brave: engraved on a graduation present, over shish kabobs in a guy friend's kitchen, written on a card from my best friend.

Those weird, seemingly insignificant moments stuck with me. They stuck with me because each time, in my head, I was thinking, "Whattt? I am?"

Gradually, after hearing it a few times, I started to believe. You're right, I'm not afraid to live in unknown cities, unknown countries. I'm not afraid to make new friends or learn new languages. I'm not afraid to take adventures. I'm not afraid to live far away from the people most important to me; I'm not afraid to miss them. 

Maybe I am fearless. Hah, look at that!

Cue the engasada chorus. Really, Carrie? Get over yourself.

I believed it though, I really did. And I was pretty darn proud of myself.

But since moving to Honduras, I'm starting to think differently.

It's not what you're thinking. It's not suddenly dawning on me that I am, in fact, afraid of scary capital cities and communicating in Spanish and starting over with friendships and learning a new job and missing people. Those things may frustrate me sometimes, but they don't scare me. I don't fear them.

Maybe though, just maybe, I am starting to realize that I fear other things. Plenty of people go gallivanting around the globe, taking risks and making stories, but does it make us fearless? I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I think people like us fear mortgages and leases and car payments. We fear being entrenched in our life; we fear commitment. We're absolutely terrified of the word regret and the phrase what if? And we are scared to death of looking back and thinking we settled for even a millisecond.

Just like others' fear may keep them anchored in one town their entire life, our fear keeps us moving. It keeps us trying everything to make sure we don't miss anything. It has us creating blogs based on our mantra -- that you only live once. :)

My favorite definition of fearless is actually this one: "Fearless is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. It's having fears. It's having doubts. Lots of them. Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death."

Call it a quarter-life crisis. Call it what you want. But if that's what it takes to truly be fearless, then what does that mean for me?