In the News...

While I was out on the bike yesterday, I started thinking about something I had seen on the news on Sunday. I was flipping through the channels and stopped on one of the Honduran stations. Up until about a month ago, it had been a Guatemalan channel. The news was on so I tried to see if I could understand what was being said. I could.

They were talking about two ladies (they looked like very early 20s) who had been assassinated in Tegucigalpa. Yes, assassinated. One was shot in the face, and the other in the chest. The part of the report that is hard to get used to is the footage that goes along. Video news here does not spare on gore or dead bodies. So, all of the viewing world got to see these two young women lying on the ground. Dead. After a few minutes of watching the report, the next shot of one of the ladies (the one shot in the face) had her body mostly, and mercifully, covered by a sheet. The report kept droning on and on, that the cause was unknown, etc., and after a few minutes, I changed the station. I didn't need to hear, or see, any more.

While riding, I was thinking about that news report, which then got me thinking about another news report. When I was in NJ, I got to share at Chapel service at the school where my friend, Angela, teaches. After the service, Angela told me that I might get to be on the Korean news. I asked, "You mean a regional station that broadcasts in Korean?" "No," she said, "on the news in the nation of Korea."

Ang's school has about 25 or so students from Korea who board at the school. It just happened that on the day I was there, a news team was there doing a story on those students. It was pretty cool to think that maybe, just maybe, some folks in Korea heard a little bit about the ministry here in Honduras. What about it, Cucc? Did you get to see the final footage?

So, I kept riding for a while, deep in thought and my own inner monologue. Then it hit me: My inner monologue was happening in Spanish. Really!! Wow! That is definitely a step in the right direction of language acquisition. Of course, when I realized it, I didn't know the Spanish word for monologue. I took a guess at it, and was mostly correct, although I misplaced the accent. For the curious, the correct word is monólogo. Which means an inner monologue is un monólogo interno.

This morning I needed to go to the bank to make a payment which will get me one step closer to that elusive residency carnet. I had a long (very long) wait in line. I struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me. She was quite friendly and I think we both welcomed the diversion from an otherwise incredibly boring, and did I mention long, wait. 45 minutes. I was amazed that I was able to do so well with my Spanish. We talked a little about my frustration with it, and she told me to just keep doing what I was doing -- talking with others -- and it would come along.

Maybe I am beginning to make real strides in learning Spanish.