My mom had told everyone that we were just going on vacation for a couple of months. My dad never would have agreed to it otherwise. My mom had gotten the house in the divorce and used the money from its sale to have a small brick house built for us in La Colonia Aurora, a subdivision in San Pedro Sula, the second largest Honduran city. While the house was being built, we would check on it at least once a week, which was a welcome break from the tension in our temporary home.
Our house was literally the very last one built in the subdivision. This had some advantages: one of the biggest lots around, only 1 next-door neighbor to deal with, and huge trees along the fence that separated our yard from the "monte" (Spanish for "woods"). Over the next 4 years we would come across all kinds of critters on that lot: snakes, frogs, scorpions, tarantulas, and large black moths the size of an average bird. We even had a buzzard fly into our house one time. The disadvantages to our house were vulnerability to thieves, who burglarized our home almost monthly, and a long walk home from the Spanish Catholic school we went to at the other end of our neighborhood.
While waiting for the house to be built, my sis and I were loathed by our housemates, teased by neighbor kids, and put down by teachers at our first school, where my mom got her first teaching job. She pulled us out of that horrible school as soon as she got a better teaching job at The Centro Cultural Sanpedrano (CCS), where she soon worked her way up to Director of Courses. I remember spending hours there every day after school, studying English vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. My mother made sure that we didn't fall behind on English skills while learning all other subjects in Spanish at school. She always had stacks of workbooks for us to work on, and she gave us quizzes weekly.
Though we enjoyed hanging out at Mom's work and munching on the cafeteria specials like valeadas (huge flour tortillas filled with mashed beans and mantequilla crema, an indescribable melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness) and tajaditas (thinly sliced, heavily salted, fried platanos that are eaten like potato chips), we also loved spending all the time we could at our new house. My sis and I quickly became best friends with Candy, the little girl next door. She helped us learn Spanish, and she learned English just by listening to us. One day my mom said "Close the door please", expecting one of her daughters to perform the task. To our surprise, Candy closed the door. She was a fast learner.
From digging out huge forts in the sandy loam in our yard, to playing dress-up or pretending to operate a fruit stand, we always found creative ways to have fun with Candy and our other neighbors. Sometimes our fun would get us in trouble though, like the time we decided to tie rope around someone's neck to play horsie, and galloping around outside the house, she (I think it was my sis) took a corner too fast which somehow caused the rope to get caught on a rock and nearly choked her to death. Another time I pretended to faint dramatically and wound up slamming my lower sternum into the corner of my mom's car. It seemed like an eternity before I could breathe again, but I obviously didn't die. I'll bet my sis wished I would've though, because some time after that we got in a fight and I cornered her in the living room with a sword that my mom had hung on the wall as a decoration. I didn't kill her, but she wailed like she believed I would.
We had many adventures away from home, too. We frequented several beaches: Tela, La Ceiba, and Puerto Cortes. There we always bought pan de coco (sweet rolls made with coconut) sold by friendly little half-naked, barefoot black boys. We didn't think much about sunscreen and usually got so burned that we'd peel for a full week after each trip. There were day trips to historic sites, such as Castillo de Omoa, which was more of an old Spanish fort than a castle, and Las Ruinas de Copan, a large collection of Mayan pyramids and other structures. Alfredo liked to take us to his coffee farm on a mountain along Lago de Yojoa. It was our favorite place to visit because it was such a sensory adventure every time. It would start with a breakfast of fried fish at an outdoor restaurant, followed by a rowboat ride across part of the lake. Then we'd hike up the mountain for what seemed like hours. About halfway up, we'd always stop at a peasant's house for tacos and coffee. That was the only time my mother ever let me have coffee, and I savored every sweet drop. When we got to the top of the mountain, Alfredo would describe the house and swimming pool he planned to build there someday. Then we'd head back down to the peasant's house and take a swim in the creek there. As we'd walk away from the creek, I'd always get a sad feeling inside from having to leave the lush mountain and return to the city.
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