my poker face is bad y'all

when it comes to keeping a straight face in nearly any given situation...I can't. if i'm excited, I can't stop smiling. if i'm nervous, generally I can't stop laughing. if I'm scared, it's obvious. if I'm sad, it's apparent. if i'm trying to tell a lie, I laugh. if i'm mad, I mean...I look mad. on the one hand, I guess that's good because you'll never have to guess how i'm feeling. on the other hand, I'm an open book to all.. I say this with a surprising numbers of examples that have come up recently. most literally, I played a game of texas hold 'em recently and every time I went to bid, I laughed. if I was bluffing, I really laughed. have you ever seen, while flipping through channels, the world series of poker show? where the men (and maybe women? I don't recall ever seeing any) wear hats and sunglasses to cover their eyes? it wouldn't make a single difference for me because I'd be laughing the whole time. you may have already predicted, but I lost that game of poker. good thing I don't play with actual money. another example you ask? yesterday we taught a few of the older kids how to play the card game "bologna". it's where you go around in a circle and play cards in numerical order. the first person after the dealer plays all of their 2's, the next person plays all of their 3's, etc. well, if it gets to you and you don't have the number you are supposed to be playing, you lie and put down another card...and hope no one realizes you're lying. because if they call bologna, you get the whole pile of cards that have been played. take .4 seconds to make your bet as to whether or not I went on a winning streak. right, I didn't. why? I would always laugh. it's a curse really. or a blessing, depending.

so, 9 days left here in my home away from home. on the one hand, that's still longer than any of the previous trips i've made here. on the other hand, that means we've already "completed" 4/5 of our time here. every time I think about it I just get sad and do my best to push it out of my mind. the idea of getting myself to the point of coping with it just seems impossible. for 32 days now I have immersed myself in a culture foreign to my own and inevitably, I have adapted. that is not me saying that everything has been easy. I'm sure my face has spoken for itself on a number of occasions. sometimes I just miss the life I have in the states. but for the most part, the phase has come and gone. it's hard to understand and even harder to explain. after being here for so long, it's almost as if i'm afraid to live any other way. I don't always like waking up at 7:30 when I know, it would not hurt anyone to sleep in until 8:30 or 9. but i've come to love it because of everything that follows.

and every little thing means something. Al and I talked the other night about what the biggest thing we have learned has been since being here and our answers mirrored each others. we talked about living hour to hour and loving everything. every little thing that otherwise, we don't have anywhere else. the endless supply of free, fresh mangoes, the way the wind blows, the way each of the kids sounds when they laugh, the rain & the way it makes everything new, the way the mountains look after it rains or first thing in the morning, the vulnerability and the acceptance, the palm trees against the sun, the way it feels when someone calls me a Honduran or their daughter or telling us that they need us here, babies running into my arms when they see me, the way it sounds when a chorus of little voices come together to worship God. i'm taking every little thing in because it all comes together to make the place I love, just that, the place I love. God has blessed me with the chance to immerse myself in another culture and fall in love, all over again, with his creation.

how's my poker face?

xoxotracylynn