Beans for Breakfast?

No, I have not fallen off the blogging bandwagon again.  I had to reformat my computer this week.  Back in April, for some unexplained reason, my Microsoft Word suddenly stopped working.  It wasn't a HUGE deal.  I could still work in publisher and create things I needed for school. 

My sweet friend offered to reinstall Microsoft Office on my computer.  First, he unintalled the previous edition.  Well, when he went to install the new version, an error message popped up.  So we tried again.  Still nothing.  I borrowed another CD thinking that maybe the disk was just bad.  Nothing. So now I was left without access to ANY of the Microsoft Office programs.  After many months of looking online for possible solutions, I decided it would be easier to start over. 

Fast forward to Thursday and my same sweet friend came over and reformatted my computer.  It's great!  I haven't had my computer running so fast in a long time.  The only catch...the version of Microsoft 7 he installed was in Spanish.  If you don't know, the keyboard is different in Spanish.  I have spent the past couple of days switching all the settings  back to English....thus the break in blogging.  But I'm still here and, besides the fact that all of my websites now come up in Spanish (google, Facebook,msn, etc...), everything is back to normal.  I figure it will do me a little good to think while I'm surfing the web :)

Speaking of surfing the web, I was on Facebook earlier this week and saw a post from a friend that gave me a good laugh.  She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Gracias when I first came to Honduras:

Went for a run, and when a cat started hissing at me from someone's yard I *obviously* had to feign a kick in it's direction.... the woman on the porch was not amused.
Ahh yes, a year back in the US and still making awkward cultural mistakes. :)

It really made me think about how accustomed to the culture I have become.  I woke up this morning and what did I fix for breakfast?  Eggs and refried beans of course!  I cannot remember a day when beans were not a normal breakfast food.  I went for a run last week and there was a man walking carrying a rifle and a machette.  It didn't even phase me.  I politely greeted him and kept running. 

I often wonder how the adjustment will be when I make it home.  I know this experience has changed me.  I have seen a level of poverty that should not exist in this world.  It has made me grateful for the life and family I have been given.  I could be the naked child in the street who hasn't eaten today.  I could be the 11 year old girl nursing her baby at the bus stop.  I am so blessed.  I'll leave you with this article I read the other day about food waste.  I don't consider myself a "green" person, but the part that struck me was how much good food is being thrown away every day and yet I see families struggling to get by.  I don't know if there will ever be a solution to world hunger, but I feel like we can all do our part to get by with a little less so we can share a little more.