Studying Spanish in Guatemala and Copan, Honduras: Sunday Walks with Ellen around Copan

After I had been here a week, I was introduced to Ellen Finn, who lives in Copan and who is from Capitol Hill in Seattle. She used to play Jazz, and knows Amy´s old Jazz teacher at Garfield, Clarence Acox. What a small world! She rents a small apartment on top of Elena´s house. She has befriended lots of Copaneco´s and several poor families who live in the mountains, and derives a lot of pleasure from handing out treats and small gifts to the locals and to her families. She tries to helps the locals however she is able. The photo is of Ellen and a daughter of Justa, one of Elena Gonzalez' helpers.

.
One Saturday, Ellen and I decided to have a go at baking cookies in her oven. She hadn't tried to use it after she had been scared off by an explosion some time before. However, we were able to clean it out and get it going, and we baked several dozen raisin and PNB cookies. Elena (center) and Justa came upstairs to Helen`s apartment to watch this amazing feat. No one in the house has had a working oven for some time, so this was a big event. The cookies were great, and Ellen had a great time passing them out to all and sundry in Copan. Later Elena asked me to try to repair her oven. We spent some time on a Sunday afternoon cleaning it and getting it going. We managed to eliminate the smoke, but found that the missing lower door allowed too much heat to escape. So the baking experiment was not a big success. Nevertheless, Ellen feels I could make a living fixing things like ovens in Copan.

One Sunday, Ellen invited me to accompany her on a 2 hour walk to visit some villages south of Copan. It was along a level road, so the going was easy. Ellen handed out treats as we went. Below are photos of the walk and of some of the kids we met.

This was our second outing, to a village called Llanetios in the mountains NE of Copan. Helen had befriended two families and wanted to take them Christmas presents.

It took about 30 minutes by 3 wheel taxi to get there - very steep and rough. Here we stopped to admire the view.

The first family. The parents were away. Helen says she is never quite sure how many are family and how many are cousins of friends. It just seems to be a big friendly bunch of kids.

The second family. Maria (light blue dress) is 19 and is very welcoming. She served us some tasty food (tamales) and showed me how to make a clay pot.

The sign to the pottery shop next to Maria`s home. This was built as a development project, to help the locals earn some money.

The village of Llanetios. A beautiful location. They have piped water, thanks to a governmental project. Soon they will get electricity. But the houses are simple and the people are clearly quite poor.