Zamorano

Hey everyone!
Yesterday we had a much needed trip out of the city to the Panamerican Agricultural University called Zamorano. The eleventh grade was taking a trip to visit because they were having a Latin American Culture Fair and Brad and I were invited to go as chaperones. There were boothes set up for nearly all of the Central and South American countries and there was a stage set up where you could experience the different music and dance from all of the different countries. Since it is an agricultural university there was also some different science exhibits and of course.....a bug house which was sweet! My seventh grade science classes will be studying insects in the spring and since I have not yet been able to find a single insect identification guide of native Honduran insects, Brad and I bought some posters of native insects to put up in the school laboratory. It was an exceptionally awesome find!

We also met a guy from Virginia who had moved to Honduras and brought his GIANT English Mastiff to the fair. Since most of the dogs that you encounter here in Honduras are stray, dirty, pregnant, mean, emaciated, nipples dragging on the ground, etc. the students were terrified of this huge dog. But Brad and I were excited to see a clean, healthy dog for once and we were down on the ground playing with it. If you don´t know what an English Mastiff is, basically it is HUGE.....it´s head is the same size as mine and it looks like Nana from Peter Pan. We convinced some of the students to pet it and they got their picture taken with it. A funny side note: this HUGE dog´s name is Gecko and it is only the 4th dog of its breed that is living in Honduras.

We had a great time at the fair, although we did miss seeing one of the most exciting exhibits....the Garifuna dancing. The Garifunas are descendants of the slaves brought over by the spaniards when Central America was still under their rule. They now live on the Atlantic coast in places like Trujillo, Roatan, etc. and their native dances are supposed to be really cool. They were going to be the last act in the fair and so we couldn´t stay to see them, but Brad got his picture taken playing one of their drums......However, the photographer (me) forgot to turn on the flash.....oops! I really hope it turns out anyway and you can be sure that we will post it if it does.