surreal moments, copan edition

So every once in a while, my friends and I stop and look around at where we are and what we are doing. Every day we seem to have these really surreal moments like we are living someone elses lives. Here are a few:

1. The four of us crammed in the back of a souped up Toyota Carrola - complete with two spinners and two missing hubcaps - riding through the Copan countryside, with American pop songs blaring, on the way to the coffee farm where we will be volunteering.

2. At said coffee farm, measuring and bagging coffee beans, while my friend seals the plastic bags in a machine. Wouldn't be so strange, except that she does this for a living in the States and today she did it in Central America.

3. Listening to a Honduran cover band play Metallica, among other American rock songs, while the bassist headbangs and the crowd goes nuts for the heavily accented English songs.

4. Realizing at about noon each day after classes, that I have just spent the last four hours speaking completely in Spanish, and for the most part, I knew what was going on.

Also noteworthy is my interactions with my family. See, I haven't eaten a green vegetable in a week and a half. So I mentioned this fact to the school director, who promtly calls my madre and tells her to please cook more vegetables. She confronts me last night when I got home, and said - Hey, I thought you said you ate everything and now Enrique said you only eat vegetables? After some difficulty, I think I managed to explain I do eat everything, but sometimes I like to eat vegetables. Green ones. So for lunch, they had set out a massive mound of broccoli, green beans and tomatoes for me. They ate a meat and potatoe pie. Strange.

(I have a hunch that he also told Juancho to leave me alone, because be barely looked at me during lunch. A small part of me feels bad, and a larger part feels relieved.)

We've started seeing a lot of tourists filter into the city and we feel like they are infringing on our territory. We like to think that since we spend time speaking Spanish and hanging out with locals, that we are regular Copanecas.