Tomas's father grew up here. He was one of eight children. Some of them still live here. His aunt, Matilde, who lives in the house below had 15 children. This morning the boys were playing with a group of about 10 boys. I asked if any of them were Bonillas, 4 said yes! All day Tomas was introducing me to his cousins. This house is over 150 years old. When it was built, it was the only house around. Today it is in the center of La Libertad, population a few hundred.
Inside the house, we hung hammocks to sleep in. Susana and I slept in a "bed" that I wish I had gotten a picture of. It was made of a nice wooden frame, but the mattress was a woven mat. And it was short. But what an experience.
We borrowed a horse, grabbed some kids (who were probably relatives) and walked to the river. This picture does not do justice to the view!
The family still owns 4 manzanas of land outside of town. We asked around and were told that a manzana (spanish for apple) is about 4 acres. We walked up the mountain property and picked green mangoes. They weren't too bad.
Tomas paid a little boy 7 Lempiras for these iguanas. His aunt made soup. Tomas's wife and children ate tortillas and rice. :^)
I don't think you can see this in the picture, but there is steam coming up from the water. It is burning hot. In fact, they bring pigs and chicken here to kill them.
These kids were sitting on the rock wall near the "aguas caliente" - hot waters. I started talking to them and found out that they are the children of Tomas's cousins cousin.
Here is Susana with her cousin Viviana (and the biggest pig I`ve ever seen). Viviana lives with her grandmother, Tomas's aunt, in the house we stayed at. Susana and Viviana really hit it off. It's amazing how little kids can play together all day and not understand a word each other is saying.
At the end of the day, we drove to the next town, San Miguelito, to see a huge boulder. The kids had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped and asked someone who let us come in. Of course, when we explained that we were family of Tomas Bonilla (Tomas's grandfather), the old man knew exactly who we were talking about and decided to accompany us. Luckily it was just up the next hill, because at this point there were over 20 of us in the van. So, we all climbed the steps up to the top of the boulder. We sat down on the benches and Cousin Oscar, the preacher from Comayagua, began to preach. Then we sang, and it was absolutley incredible. The perfect end to the perfect day.
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