25 August 2008
Hey, chochachos! It’s a balmy Monday night here in Tang-Town…I just got back from a rockin’ birthday party. My family hoisted me into the truck at about 5:00pm, explaining we were going to go eat dinner at my mom’s sister’s house (she has 5 sisters, four of whom live here in Talanga, as well as her 86-year-old mother). When we got there, I was promptly handed a plate of yellow rice with furry crab legs sticking out of it (seriously, they were furry). I looked around and saw other folks chomping on them and sucking out the meat, so I tried to do that as casually as possible, which of course meant that I got a mouthful of crab-fur and tried to surreptitiously remove it from my mouth without anyone noticing, which obviously didn’t happen. Crab: 1, Hayley: 0. Whatever, dude, I didn’t want to eat you anyway. What kind of a sea-creature rocks fur? FAIL. This ended up being a birthday party, which I didn’t realize. For Honduran standards it was incredibly short, we were out of there before 7pm! I had a cup of ice cream, a butt-load of coke, and some delicious pound cake. And I only ate a little bit of crab fuzz. Oh, also, the birthday song they sing here is hilarious. It goes like this: “Now we want cake, now we want cake, even though it’s just a tiny piece, now we want cake! And coca-cola too. And coffee for the old people. And cookies!” SO TRUE.
This past week was platanos, p-l-a-t-a-n-o-s. Tiny chickens came and went, I spent most of my waking moments either teaching little children or planning to teach little children, and, most importantly, I totally ate a jillion pieces of Pizza Hut pizza in Tegucigalpa. I also had a Heineken. And then I went to a grocery store, and I bought a bag of Peanut M&Ms, and it was the best day ever. They’d dragged us all to Tegus for some immigration business, which was boring, but that was totally okay because the lameness made the subsequent feast that much more mind-blowing.
So the other day Alexa bursts into my room, and says, “LOOK WHAT I GOT!!!” while thrusting a baby chick into my face. I don’t totally love chickens (because sometimes they turn into roosters and I think we all know just exactly how I feel about that particular variety of Satan Foul), but this thing was the size of a tennis ball and made all these adorable “piu, piu” noises, so I was okay with it. She named it Gecko. So anyway, apparently she found it in the street, and decided it needed a home, and cuddled this thing all day long, giving it tomatoes and letting it chase her about. She was playing with it in the Cocodrilo when a little girl came up with her mom and said it was HER tiny devil-rooster, and that she’d lost it. Alexa gave it back in a fit of tears, and the little girl’s mom felt so bad that she showed up the next day with a NEW chick for Alexa. Meanwhile, one of our three dogs, Mia (the other two are Ninja, and J-Lo…they used to have a male named Puff Daddy, but he died. Poor J-Lo.) gave birth to several puppies, all of which died except one. Alexa was very excited to have a puppy all her own, until Mia sat on it and killed it. This means that in two days, she’d received and lost two pets. But things were going all right, now that she had Gecko #2, and then the day AFTER that, one of the kitchen employees in the restaurant showed up with a puppy for Alexa…which promptly ate Gecko #2. SO now we have no chickens, and one murderous little puppy who shit in my room yesterday.
In other news, I have saved a ton of babies with my incredible charla-giving skills (a charla is sort of like a talk/presentation). With my gringa partners, we taught the kiddies about self-esteem through the extremely applicable activity of selecting an animal that represents you and drawing a picture of it. It’s tough because these kids are NOT used to any degree of individual thinking or creativity (at least not in the smaller village schools), so our projects are usually met with canned answers (i.e., the only thing the kids claim to enjoy is studying and paying attention to the teacher and they all have the same favorite animal). We wanted to do self-esteem with both age groups, and the big kids’ project was great—using my headlamp, we traced the silhouette of each kid’s head, and following a discussion on their own individual characteristics and interests, they cut out images from magazines and pasted them in the brain area…whether they knew it or not, they were augmenting their self-esteem like the dang dickens. This activity was too much for the little guys, though, which resulted in the animal-esteem activity…kind of a stretch but at least it got them thinking about their own characteristics, and we tried to focus on why they’re each special. We did similar activities at the other school where I’m working, which is called Jose Trinidad Cabanas, located in a little aldea called La Esperanza. This school is called a “unidocente,” which means it’s a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher for all six grades. It’s located against a gorgeous backdrop of purple mountains, and it’s a very humble, sweet school. The big kids take care of and help the little kids, and the teacher is wonderful. After our projects, we take them outside and play awesome hippie games in the grass.
I can’t believe how time is flying here. I only have two weeks left here (I leave Talanga on September 9th)!! On the 8th, I find out where I’m going for two years…the suspense is making me all sweaty (seriously, I’m sweaty!). I really hope my community is teeny-weeny, in the mountains, and that I get to work with babies…we’ll find out, I guess. Maybe there is a community somewhere of tiny babies that live in a tiny village in the mountains, doing tiny things, needing my guidance…
In other news, I am trying to follow the haps of our main man Obama…I heard he picked Joe Biden as his VP, which is totally rockin’. We’re gonna make shirts that say “GANA OBAMA!” and parade around like shameless Americans. Speaking of being shameless Americans, this past Saturday the catholic volunteers in Talanga (there are five of them, they’re basically doing a mini-Peace Corps type deal for a year, and they’re all our age, living in a house together down the street) hosted all 15 of us for dinner. We made spaghetti and vegetables, listened to American music, spoke English, had a couple beers, and played games (I’ve become infatuated with these crazy hippie community-love games from the 70s called New Games). I managed to haul a sizable group into the backyard for a rousing round of Prui, followed by Skin-the-Snake. This was excellent until someone rolled in dog poop. It was basically the first gringo-only celebration I’ve been to since coming here, and it was kind of nice to just relax and speak delicious English.
Well, the geckos that live in the walls are chirping, so that means it’s about time to get my sweaty butt to bed. I love you guys. Tell Obama I said hi!!
Paz,
Hayley
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
holy moley it´s hot
16 August 2008
Hey, chochachos! It’s Saturday MORNING right now, which is crazy. I totally did a terrible thing culturally-integrating-wise…the rule of thumb is if you’re invited somewhere with the family, GO. But this morning, when my sister Dulce came knocking on my door at 7:45 to see if I wanted to go with the family to get coffee in a village nearby, I said…no. And then I slept until 10:00. And it was awesome. And I regret nothing. So there.
This week has been an interesting one, to say the least. For starters, I had another host brother staying in the house—he’s probably 30-something, named Carlos, and has a little 9-year-old son named Carlitos. They both spent a ton of time in England, so they speak excellent English with adorable british accents. Anyway, my little 7-year-old sister Alexa has had to suddenly share everything with her cousin, including toys, television time, and most importantly, her extremely cool new gringa friend. They’ve basically been bickering non-stop, several of which episodes have ended in tears. I really like Carlitos, he’s very bright and sweet and funny, so it’s a shame that they’ve dissolved into war.
I finally started doing some actual field-based training this week—so far it’s just been the same as it was in Valle de Angeles, going to classes all day without any actual practical experience. On Friday (yesterday), I took the 8am bus with three other gringa friends, Bug, Ana, and Sara, and we headed out to a little aldea (village) school named Buena Vista. The school was build by the community parents, and it’s tiny—just a building divided into two classrooms, one for the 1st, 3rd and 4th grades, and one room for the 5th and 6th grades. Each class has 20-30 kids, ranging from four-years-old to 16-years-old. There are just two teachers, and no principal or anything like that. They told us that the parents are heavily involved, and without them they wouldn’t have anything. The little school house is surrounded by patchy grass, where the kids play soccer during recess. They are several small scrubby trees, each housing about three little kids hanging from the branches. They have no electricity or running water—they don’t even have a pila! All the water they use has to be brought from home. The parents take turns bringing the Merienda Esoclar, or the state-mandated “school snack,” which arrives at about 11 or so every morning. It’s usually some rice and beans with some tortillas, though when we visited they had little tamales. A lot of bigger schools have their own kitchens so they can make the kids food on site, but little Buena Vista has no such luck. We showed up as the kids were lining up under a little thatched-roof awning, and the teachers had them clap to greet us, then sing the national Anthem, then pray for us. It was all very sweet. Then we split up, two gringas per classroom, and observed for the morning. Unfortunately, much of the Honduran educational system revolves around rote-memorization and copying, and it was no different here. The teacher would stride to one side of the class, show a card with the letter “T” on it to the little guys, then have them copy “Ta, Te, Ti, To, Tu” over and over again in their little notebooks. Then she’d walk to the other side of the room, write several long division problems on the board, solve them, and have the children copy it into their notebooks. Not a lot of creativity nor self-exploration being facilitated here…it’s hard because I’m looking at their culture through my own biases from being raised in the states, but I have a hard time valuing this style of learning. That said, these teachers have extraordinarily difficult tasks, teaching a classroom with such a wide range of developmental stages, and they work very hard for very little, so I can’t criticize what they do.
17 August 2008
Holy dang, it is raining like the dickens. It’s about 9pm right now, Sunday night…I just hung up with my folks! (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) It’s rad, they call me every Sunday night, which always helps quell the homesickness I’ve built up over the week. I think about home every day, mentally re-living bike adventures in the warm Evanston night air, climbing little trees and skateboarding with Max and Harrison, dropping bags of water on people from my balcony…god, those were the days. Not that I’m not loving Honduras…I just had such a good time back in the states, too. I really, really miss everybody…HUGS.
This weekend was really awesome. Saturday was similar to last week’s…a bunch of gringos came to Talanga from their prospective FBT sites, and we lounged around, beating the heat by consuming fried chicken, ice cream, beer, soda, popsicles…we had plans to go hiking by the caves again, but the heat got the best of us and I spent a lot of the day in a semi-reclined position. Today, Sunday, was TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOOOOOME because my host family and I fried up some chicken, packed it in a giant plastic tub with a ton of tortillas and beans, put on our swim trunks and headed for the hills. We drove to a family friends’ house out in the campo, where we somehow loaded Dona Dulce, my sister Dulce, her brother Carlos, his son Carlitos, Alexa and her little friend, a family friend and her kid, me, and three other men into a tiny vehicle that can best be described as the cab to a big-rig, minus the big rig, with the normal tires removed and replaced with huge tractor tires. This tiny beast could scramble up Mt. Everest if it wanted to. Most of us, including myself, crammed ourselves in the “bed” of this thing, while everyone else wedged into the cab. We rambled through small fincas of banana, coconut, and mango trees, before making our way into a wonderfully fragrant pine forest, driving over cut rock and up and down impossible little hills. After about half an hour of butt-crunching driving (the metal truck bed was mega-ouchy), we arrived!! We unloaded the food and hiked down to AMAZING THINGS!! A river turned into a sweet little waterfall, falling into a small pool with lots of little rocks for climbing and jumping. We all sat down and immediately dug in, everybody ripping pieces of chicken off with the tortilla and then shoving the whole thing in your mouth. Soda was served up in plastic baggies, which are tied shut, with a hole nibbled into the corner for sucking (typical Honduran beverage consumption). After our picnic we swam around for a bit, then hiked down to an even MORE awesome sight. A huge waterfall plunged down into a very deep, silver-colored pool, which was like a giant crater, with the enormous rock walls rising 30 feet above the water. I got the balls to jump off the cliff into the water, which was awesome. Huge green jungle plants were growing off the rocks, with bright green algae poking out around the waterfall, and crazy ferns everywhere…it was beautiful. We swam around and jumped off the rocks for the rest of the afternoon, finally heading home around 4:00pm.
Oh man, guys. Hells of bedtime.
Love,
Hayley
P.S. I´ve been receiving from letters from you guys!!!! THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Seriously it´s like the hungry kid who hides Kudos granola bars under her bed and secretly eats them under the covers at night, only instead of hungry it´s miss-y and instead of chewy chocolately goodness it´s letters from home. Everything else is accurate.
Hey, chochachos! It’s Saturday MORNING right now, which is crazy. I totally did a terrible thing culturally-integrating-wise…the rule of thumb is if you’re invited somewhere with the family, GO. But this morning, when my sister Dulce came knocking on my door at 7:45 to see if I wanted to go with the family to get coffee in a village nearby, I said…no. And then I slept until 10:00. And it was awesome. And I regret nothing. So there.
This week has been an interesting one, to say the least. For starters, I had another host brother staying in the house—he’s probably 30-something, named Carlos, and has a little 9-year-old son named Carlitos. They both spent a ton of time in England, so they speak excellent English with adorable british accents. Anyway, my little 7-year-old sister Alexa has had to suddenly share everything with her cousin, including toys, television time, and most importantly, her extremely cool new gringa friend. They’ve basically been bickering non-stop, several of which episodes have ended in tears. I really like Carlitos, he’s very bright and sweet and funny, so it’s a shame that they’ve dissolved into war.
I finally started doing some actual field-based training this week—so far it’s just been the same as it was in Valle de Angeles, going to classes all day without any actual practical experience. On Friday (yesterday), I took the 8am bus with three other gringa friends, Bug, Ana, and Sara, and we headed out to a little aldea (village) school named Buena Vista. The school was build by the community parents, and it’s tiny—just a building divided into two classrooms, one for the 1st, 3rd and 4th grades, and one room for the 5th and 6th grades. Each class has 20-30 kids, ranging from four-years-old to 16-years-old. There are just two teachers, and no principal or anything like that. They told us that the parents are heavily involved, and without them they wouldn’t have anything. The little school house is surrounded by patchy grass, where the kids play soccer during recess. They are several small scrubby trees, each housing about three little kids hanging from the branches. They have no electricity or running water—they don’t even have a pila! All the water they use has to be brought from home. The parents take turns bringing the Merienda Esoclar, or the state-mandated “school snack,” which arrives at about 11 or so every morning. It’s usually some rice and beans with some tortillas, though when we visited they had little tamales. A lot of bigger schools have their own kitchens so they can make the kids food on site, but little Buena Vista has no such luck. We showed up as the kids were lining up under a little thatched-roof awning, and the teachers had them clap to greet us, then sing the national Anthem, then pray for us. It was all very sweet. Then we split up, two gringas per classroom, and observed for the morning. Unfortunately, much of the Honduran educational system revolves around rote-memorization and copying, and it was no different here. The teacher would stride to one side of the class, show a card with the letter “T” on it to the little guys, then have them copy “Ta, Te, Ti, To, Tu” over and over again in their little notebooks. Then she’d walk to the other side of the room, write several long division problems on the board, solve them, and have the children copy it into their notebooks. Not a lot of creativity nor self-exploration being facilitated here…it’s hard because I’m looking at their culture through my own biases from being raised in the states, but I have a hard time valuing this style of learning. That said, these teachers have extraordinarily difficult tasks, teaching a classroom with such a wide range of developmental stages, and they work very hard for very little, so I can’t criticize what they do.
17 August 2008
Holy dang, it is raining like the dickens. It’s about 9pm right now, Sunday night…I just hung up with my folks! (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) It’s rad, they call me every Sunday night, which always helps quell the homesickness I’ve built up over the week. I think about home every day, mentally re-living bike adventures in the warm Evanston night air, climbing little trees and skateboarding with Max and Harrison, dropping bags of water on people from my balcony…god, those were the days. Not that I’m not loving Honduras…I just had such a good time back in the states, too. I really, really miss everybody…HUGS.
This weekend was really awesome. Saturday was similar to last week’s…a bunch of gringos came to Talanga from their prospective FBT sites, and we lounged around, beating the heat by consuming fried chicken, ice cream, beer, soda, popsicles…we had plans to go hiking by the caves again, but the heat got the best of us and I spent a lot of the day in a semi-reclined position. Today, Sunday, was TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOOOOOME because my host family and I fried up some chicken, packed it in a giant plastic tub with a ton of tortillas and beans, put on our swim trunks and headed for the hills. We drove to a family friends’ house out in the campo, where we somehow loaded Dona Dulce, my sister Dulce, her brother Carlos, his son Carlitos, Alexa and her little friend, a family friend and her kid, me, and three other men into a tiny vehicle that can best be described as the cab to a big-rig, minus the big rig, with the normal tires removed and replaced with huge tractor tires. This tiny beast could scramble up Mt. Everest if it wanted to. Most of us, including myself, crammed ourselves in the “bed” of this thing, while everyone else wedged into the cab. We rambled through small fincas of banana, coconut, and mango trees, before making our way into a wonderfully fragrant pine forest, driving over cut rock and up and down impossible little hills. After about half an hour of butt-crunching driving (the metal truck bed was mega-ouchy), we arrived!! We unloaded the food and hiked down to AMAZING THINGS!! A river turned into a sweet little waterfall, falling into a small pool with lots of little rocks for climbing and jumping. We all sat down and immediately dug in, everybody ripping pieces of chicken off with the tortilla and then shoving the whole thing in your mouth. Soda was served up in plastic baggies, which are tied shut, with a hole nibbled into the corner for sucking (typical Honduran beverage consumption). After our picnic we swam around for a bit, then hiked down to an even MORE awesome sight. A huge waterfall plunged down into a very deep, silver-colored pool, which was like a giant crater, with the enormous rock walls rising 30 feet above the water. I got the balls to jump off the cliff into the water, which was awesome. Huge green jungle plants were growing off the rocks, with bright green algae poking out around the waterfall, and crazy ferns everywhere…it was beautiful. We swam around and jumped off the rocks for the rest of the afternoon, finally heading home around 4:00pm.
Oh man, guys. Hells of bedtime.
Love,
Hayley
P.S. I´ve been receiving from letters from you guys!!!! THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Seriously it´s like the hungry kid who hides Kudos granola bars under her bed and secretly eats them under the covers at night, only instead of hungry it´s miss-y and instead of chewy chocolately goodness it´s letters from home. Everything else is accurate.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
the only person in talanga with a bike helmet
12 August 2008
Hey, chochachos! Life continues here in my dollhouse in Talanga, quite delightfully I might add. Today after a language test, my teacher took me out back behind his house where his host family (yep, even the teachers get host families during Field-Based Training) showed us around. Their yard is medium sized but it’s basically a mini-finca! A cluster of sugar cane grows in the back, and he wielded the omnipresent machete and hacked me off a whole stalk to take home. You just chop the outer layers off and chew on the tough, fiber-y insides until all the sugar-water is gone, then spit it out. I like to think of this as tropical chaw, and made several jokes along those lines. Then he saw me eyeing the mango tree, and invited me to climb to the top and pick myself a mango, which I promptly did. The canopy was beautiful and I saw a lot of really amazing-looking bugs I’d never seen before. Once I descended, he asked if I would also like a coconut, and proceeded to jab at a big bunch of them high in a tree with a two-by-four until they fell down. Again, the machete was wielded and I soon had an entire coconut to drink and eat. AWESOME.
Last Saturday was my one-month-versary of being in Honduras, which we celebrated with a big lunch at the restaurant my family owns, called Old House. All the gringos here in Talanga came, followed by a sizable chunk of PAM and Municipal Development gringos. We shoved a bunch of tables together, and before Dona Dulce knew what hit her she had over 20 plates to make up. I served as a waitress of sorts, handing out glass bottles of Canada Dry, Coke, and Fresca and marching out into the din of English every 10 minutes to bellow OKAY SO WHO ORDERED THE CARNE ASADA?! RAISE YOUR HANDS AND KEEP THEM UP!! It was the waitressing experience I’ve always dreamed of. Afterwards we trooped over to the Cocodrilo, the outside patio bar my sister Dulce Carolina owns, and hung out in the sunshine for a couple hours. It was essentially a giant English-speaking gringo-fest of ridiculous proportions. Sunday was also super tranquilo and, like all satisfying closures to a busy week, involved a minor spelunking adventure.
THAT’S RIGHT DUDES I TOTALLY FOUND A CAVE. And if by “found” you mean “was lead to by a gaggle of Honduran children” and by “cave” you mean “yes, a cave” then…YES. I got up at like 8:30, and after a typical Honduran breakfast of refried beans, fried bananas, fried eggs, half an avocado and several tortillas, I slathered myself in sunscreen and set off for the Parque Central (most pueblos have a little central park) to hook up with the gringas and their Honduran child-friends (my child-friend was uninterested). We paraded through town (whenever more than one gringo is in transit, it’s essentially a parade, minus free tiny-frisbees and crappy hard candy being chucked at kid’s heads). We wound through the dirt streets until we got to the base of a small hill, called Cruzita, because it has a giant Cruz (cross) at the top of it. If there’s one thing Honduras loves, it’s Jesus. Anyway, we clamored up the hill, then down the other side, then up a mountain. The view was AWESOME, we saw the whole valley and all the tropical/piney glory that is Honduras. Then we got to this little flat clearing, which upon leaving had filled up with a bunch of ninos playing futbol and preparing to bash open a piñata. Anyway, our kids lead us to the cave, which seemed fairly diminutive at first. Since this is Honduras, it was of course surrounded by a ton of garbage and a horse or two (everywhere you look here, there are stray horses). I had brought my headlamp, so I ducked in behind the bravest Honduran children you’ve ever seen. The entrance was small and cramped, I had to walk while squatting basically—but after the small tunnel we came into a big open room with high ceilings. It was warm and muggy inside, with tons of flying bugs. The floor had a sizable family of big, red cockroaches, but the best part was what was zooming all around us—little brown BATS (or murcielagos, in Spanish)!! They made the cutest bat noises (sounds a lot like, “eee, soy un murcielago! Eee! Eee! Somos murcielagos!”) and flew around all crazy-like. I had a linguistic adventure trying to explain the concept of echo-location and sonar to the children, and we stayed in there for about 20 minutes just admiring the bats. It was a little eerie being in total darkness except for my light, which was dimmed by the thick mist that hung in the air (which also totally fogged my stupid glasses, by the way). It was really awesome, my first time in a cave like that—but incredibly frustrating to see how much freaking GARBAGE people had thrown in there—burned plastic bottles, chip bags, even a rusty machete. The concept of tossing garbage in a garbage can isn’t a universally accepted notion here, and most people won’t think twice about chucking everything out the bus or car window.
Except for the rather blatant disregard for the environment, I’m still loving life here in Honduras. I do miss my old host family, but I also LOVE LOVE LOVE my new one. They’re just so chill. Dubal, the father, works in Tegus and comes home only on weekends, but he’s really cool. He used to be a Congressman, and seems to be heavily involved in the community—he even ran for mayor once! (If you know a child with a mayor obsession, don’t worry, there is literature available.) My mom, Dona Dulce, is just great. She’s very laid back, always smiling or chuckling, shuffling around the Old House kitchen or cuddling little baby John. We spent most of our free time in the restaurant, sitting in chairs behind the counter, watching telenovelas (soap operas) and sucking back sodas (holy moley do they drink a lot of pop here). We do all our eating there, which I absolutely delight in—I get scrumptious restaurant food three times a day! The only downfall is it’s scrumptious restaurant food, which means EVERYTHING needs to spend at least 10 minutes becoming delicious in several inches of oil before it’s served. I’m only here for five weeks though, so I’ve decided it’s not going to kill me and I might as well indulge. God, I love fried bananas.
I found an old junky bike in the back of the garage, covered in several inches of grime, with a chain practically rusted solid. I mentioned my interest in fixing it up, and Dona Dulce told me I could clean it up and she’d have it fixed for me! I gave it a bath the other day, while Alexa washed her brand-new shiny bike next to me. I came home from school the next day, and Dona Dulce handed my a bike registration card—she’d gone through the trouble of registering it with the police; apparently sometimes they stop people to see if they’ve got papers for their bikes. This sounds ridiculous to me, but at least I’m legal now. The chain was de-rusted and the rear wheel doesn’t rub too much on the frame anymore. The Peace Corps has a rule that if a Volunteer is caught riding without a helmet, it’s an automatic Administrative Separation, which is government slang for immediate sacking. Anyway, a fellow gringa found me a helmet in her family’s house, so now I’m cruising around Talanga in extreme style. The only problem is the same thing that happens to me in the states—as soon as I get on a bike, I lose any and all interest in ever walking again, and become quite irritated if I’m forced to ambulate.
I’m also loving spending time with my 26-year-old host sister, Dulce Carolina, who I alternately call Dulce, Carolina, or Caro. She’s got two kids, but seems more like a peer than anything else. She totes me around wherever she goes, whether it’s for a random Sunday-afternoon slice of cake with ice cream on top, out in the campo furtively picking wild mint with which to make mojitos, or over to the Cocodrilo for a licuado (smoothie). I’ve taken to hanging out there with her when it’s slow, chatting in the little kitchen and watching her or Yonari fry chicken wings. Dulce is just great because I feel like I can really talk to her like a friend. She’s sort of a tomboy, with a wicked sense of humor and likes a lot of the same things I do (such as hiking and biking). I can’t get over how great it is to have a Honduran friend my own age.
We just finished our first week of Field-Based Training, which I must admit was not very field-y. We just sat in a classroom all day long, with Spanish from 7:30-11:30, and Youth Development topics from 1-5:00pm. However, the stuff we’re receiving is all extremely important—we learned how to give a taller (workshop) on domestic violence prevention, and had one today on how to start maternal care groups. I think on Friday we’re going to finally start working in schools or other community resources. I had two interviews today, one which was an oral language exam to judge how my Spanish has (or has not) progressed. I entered at the upper-most level of Intermediate, and I’m hoping I’ll end up at the upper-levels of Advanced, but I don’t know. The more I study, the more I’m overwhelmed by how much I don’t know. The other interview I had was a Technical Interview, which deals with what I would or would not like to do in my two years here, and I want in a site. I stressed that I am willing to do anything, anywhere—but that I most love little children and I’d also love to be anywhere BUT the south. However, my project leaders were rather defensive regarding my negative generalizations about the south of Honduras (hot, flat, ugly), and some of their questions give me the suspicion that is precisely where they intend on sending me. I’d rather be out west, in the mountains, but I’m here to work, not relax, and que será, será, I guess.
I miss you guys a LOT. A lot a lot. I was looking at some pictures on my laptoppy and was overcome with how much I wish I could see everybody…and it’s only been a month. I don’t feel homesick, just peoplesick…send me letters!! Though I guess I should put my money where my mouth is and send YOU guys some letters too, instead of mass blog entries...oh heavens.
Well, it’s 9:50pm now, on this rainy Tuesday night, and it’s about time to crawl into my dollhouse and dream my tiny dollhouse dreams. Tomorrow I plan on lassoing a stray horse and taming it, hella Penny-and-Felicity style, so I’ll let you guys know how that progresses.
Paz,
Hayley
P.S. My new favorite Honduran joke: There are a lot of Mormon missionaries here in Honduras. A common slang term for testicles is “los Mormones.” Why? Because they always come in pairs, and one is always bigger than the other. They’re always sweaty, and they always knock at the door, but never enter inside the house. Oh, Honduras.
Hey, chochachos! Life continues here in my dollhouse in Talanga, quite delightfully I might add. Today after a language test, my teacher took me out back behind his house where his host family (yep, even the teachers get host families during Field-Based Training) showed us around. Their yard is medium sized but it’s basically a mini-finca! A cluster of sugar cane grows in the back, and he wielded the omnipresent machete and hacked me off a whole stalk to take home. You just chop the outer layers off and chew on the tough, fiber-y insides until all the sugar-water is gone, then spit it out. I like to think of this as tropical chaw, and made several jokes along those lines. Then he saw me eyeing the mango tree, and invited me to climb to the top and pick myself a mango, which I promptly did. The canopy was beautiful and I saw a lot of really amazing-looking bugs I’d never seen before. Once I descended, he asked if I would also like a coconut, and proceeded to jab at a big bunch of them high in a tree with a two-by-four until they fell down. Again, the machete was wielded and I soon had an entire coconut to drink and eat. AWESOME.
Last Saturday was my one-month-versary of being in Honduras, which we celebrated with a big lunch at the restaurant my family owns, called Old House. All the gringos here in Talanga came, followed by a sizable chunk of PAM and Municipal Development gringos. We shoved a bunch of tables together, and before Dona Dulce knew what hit her she had over 20 plates to make up. I served as a waitress of sorts, handing out glass bottles of Canada Dry, Coke, and Fresca and marching out into the din of English every 10 minutes to bellow OKAY SO WHO ORDERED THE CARNE ASADA?! RAISE YOUR HANDS AND KEEP THEM UP!! It was the waitressing experience I’ve always dreamed of. Afterwards we trooped over to the Cocodrilo, the outside patio bar my sister Dulce Carolina owns, and hung out in the sunshine for a couple hours. It was essentially a giant English-speaking gringo-fest of ridiculous proportions. Sunday was also super tranquilo and, like all satisfying closures to a busy week, involved a minor spelunking adventure.
THAT’S RIGHT DUDES I TOTALLY FOUND A CAVE. And if by “found” you mean “was lead to by a gaggle of Honduran children” and by “cave” you mean “yes, a cave” then…YES. I got up at like 8:30, and after a typical Honduran breakfast of refried beans, fried bananas, fried eggs, half an avocado and several tortillas, I slathered myself in sunscreen and set off for the Parque Central (most pueblos have a little central park) to hook up with the gringas and their Honduran child-friends (my child-friend was uninterested). We paraded through town (whenever more than one gringo is in transit, it’s essentially a parade, minus free tiny-frisbees and crappy hard candy being chucked at kid’s heads). We wound through the dirt streets until we got to the base of a small hill, called Cruzita, because it has a giant Cruz (cross) at the top of it. If there’s one thing Honduras loves, it’s Jesus. Anyway, we clamored up the hill, then down the other side, then up a mountain. The view was AWESOME, we saw the whole valley and all the tropical/piney glory that is Honduras. Then we got to this little flat clearing, which upon leaving had filled up with a bunch of ninos playing futbol and preparing to bash open a piñata. Anyway, our kids lead us to the cave, which seemed fairly diminutive at first. Since this is Honduras, it was of course surrounded by a ton of garbage and a horse or two (everywhere you look here, there are stray horses). I had brought my headlamp, so I ducked in behind the bravest Honduran children you’ve ever seen. The entrance was small and cramped, I had to walk while squatting basically—but after the small tunnel we came into a big open room with high ceilings. It was warm and muggy inside, with tons of flying bugs. The floor had a sizable family of big, red cockroaches, but the best part was what was zooming all around us—little brown BATS (or murcielagos, in Spanish)!! They made the cutest bat noises (sounds a lot like, “eee, soy un murcielago! Eee! Eee! Somos murcielagos!”) and flew around all crazy-like. I had a linguistic adventure trying to explain the concept of echo-location and sonar to the children, and we stayed in there for about 20 minutes just admiring the bats. It was a little eerie being in total darkness except for my light, which was dimmed by the thick mist that hung in the air (which also totally fogged my stupid glasses, by the way). It was really awesome, my first time in a cave like that—but incredibly frustrating to see how much freaking GARBAGE people had thrown in there—burned plastic bottles, chip bags, even a rusty machete. The concept of tossing garbage in a garbage can isn’t a universally accepted notion here, and most people won’t think twice about chucking everything out the bus or car window.
Except for the rather blatant disregard for the environment, I’m still loving life here in Honduras. I do miss my old host family, but I also LOVE LOVE LOVE my new one. They’re just so chill. Dubal, the father, works in Tegus and comes home only on weekends, but he’s really cool. He used to be a Congressman, and seems to be heavily involved in the community—he even ran for mayor once! (If you know a child with a mayor obsession, don’t worry, there is literature available.) My mom, Dona Dulce, is just great. She’s very laid back, always smiling or chuckling, shuffling around the Old House kitchen or cuddling little baby John. We spent most of our free time in the restaurant, sitting in chairs behind the counter, watching telenovelas (soap operas) and sucking back sodas (holy moley do they drink a lot of pop here). We do all our eating there, which I absolutely delight in—I get scrumptious restaurant food three times a day! The only downfall is it’s scrumptious restaurant food, which means EVERYTHING needs to spend at least 10 minutes becoming delicious in several inches of oil before it’s served. I’m only here for five weeks though, so I’ve decided it’s not going to kill me and I might as well indulge. God, I love fried bananas.
I found an old junky bike in the back of the garage, covered in several inches of grime, with a chain practically rusted solid. I mentioned my interest in fixing it up, and Dona Dulce told me I could clean it up and she’d have it fixed for me! I gave it a bath the other day, while Alexa washed her brand-new shiny bike next to me. I came home from school the next day, and Dona Dulce handed my a bike registration card—she’d gone through the trouble of registering it with the police; apparently sometimes they stop people to see if they’ve got papers for their bikes. This sounds ridiculous to me, but at least I’m legal now. The chain was de-rusted and the rear wheel doesn’t rub too much on the frame anymore. The Peace Corps has a rule that if a Volunteer is caught riding without a helmet, it’s an automatic Administrative Separation, which is government slang for immediate sacking. Anyway, a fellow gringa found me a helmet in her family’s house, so now I’m cruising around Talanga in extreme style. The only problem is the same thing that happens to me in the states—as soon as I get on a bike, I lose any and all interest in ever walking again, and become quite irritated if I’m forced to ambulate.
I’m also loving spending time with my 26-year-old host sister, Dulce Carolina, who I alternately call Dulce, Carolina, or Caro. She’s got two kids, but seems more like a peer than anything else. She totes me around wherever she goes, whether it’s for a random Sunday-afternoon slice of cake with ice cream on top, out in the campo furtively picking wild mint with which to make mojitos, or over to the Cocodrilo for a licuado (smoothie). I’ve taken to hanging out there with her when it’s slow, chatting in the little kitchen and watching her or Yonari fry chicken wings. Dulce is just great because I feel like I can really talk to her like a friend. She’s sort of a tomboy, with a wicked sense of humor and likes a lot of the same things I do (such as hiking and biking). I can’t get over how great it is to have a Honduran friend my own age.
We just finished our first week of Field-Based Training, which I must admit was not very field-y. We just sat in a classroom all day long, with Spanish from 7:30-11:30, and Youth Development topics from 1-5:00pm. However, the stuff we’re receiving is all extremely important—we learned how to give a taller (workshop) on domestic violence prevention, and had one today on how to start maternal care groups. I think on Friday we’re going to finally start working in schools or other community resources. I had two interviews today, one which was an oral language exam to judge how my Spanish has (or has not) progressed. I entered at the upper-most level of Intermediate, and I’m hoping I’ll end up at the upper-levels of Advanced, but I don’t know. The more I study, the more I’m overwhelmed by how much I don’t know. The other interview I had was a Technical Interview, which deals with what I would or would not like to do in my two years here, and I want in a site. I stressed that I am willing to do anything, anywhere—but that I most love little children and I’d also love to be anywhere BUT the south. However, my project leaders were rather defensive regarding my negative generalizations about the south of Honduras (hot, flat, ugly), and some of their questions give me the suspicion that is precisely where they intend on sending me. I’d rather be out west, in the mountains, but I’m here to work, not relax, and que será, será, I guess.
I miss you guys a LOT. A lot a lot. I was looking at some pictures on my laptoppy and was overcome with how much I wish I could see everybody…and it’s only been a month. I don’t feel homesick, just peoplesick…send me letters!! Though I guess I should put my money where my mouth is and send YOU guys some letters too, instead of mass blog entries...oh heavens.
Well, it’s 9:50pm now, on this rainy Tuesday night, and it’s about time to crawl into my dollhouse and dream my tiny dollhouse dreams. Tomorrow I plan on lassoing a stray horse and taming it, hella Penny-and-Felicity style, so I’ll let you guys know how that progresses.
Paz,
Hayley
P.S. My new favorite Honduran joke: There are a lot of Mormon missionaries here in Honduras. A common slang term for testicles is “los Mormones.” Why? Because they always come in pairs, and one is always bigger than the other. They’re always sweaty, and they always knock at the door, but never enter inside the house. Oh, Honduras.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
sass in the main
1 August 2008
Hey, chochachos! DANG I’m tired. It’s like 10:45pm on Friday night, way past my bedtime….I’m only writing in my bloggeroonie right now because I am so filled with my EMOTIONS that I feel to not write would be a waste of sheer guts-power. And I can’t waste my guts! That ain’t sustainable!
Anyway, I’m just so happy with my host family/sad to be leaving them this Sunday. I just got home from a gringo’s birthday party (more on that later) and spend like 30 minutes lying on the bed in the other room, playing with the kids and chatting with Suyapa. Every day I feel more and more at home here and I’m so sad to be leaving. Suyapa always asks the girlies, “Do you want your sister to leave? Are you going to give her permission to leave us?” and they always shout, “NO!!!” On Sunday, I’ll be going to Talanga, a city north of Tegus, for about six weeks. There I’ll be doing my Field-Based Training (FBT), which departs from the sitting-in-criminally-uncomfortable-chairs-for-six-hours-a-day-and-listening-to-theories-behind-sustainable-development-work world and enters the world of hands-on-getting-dirty-in-the-field work. I’m very excited to finally begin working (we do mini-projects, sort of like micro-Peace-Corps), but I’ll be with a new host family and I’d just as soon stay with the one I love here. Plus, I love living here in the campo and Tolanga is more or less a city, though rather undeveloped I’m told. My new host family has a mom, a dad, a host sister of 26 years, and her six-month-old baby. They live in a house behind the restaurant they own, called “Old House” (in English!). It will be an interesting change not to have a house full of bellowing little girls, and I already miss them. There is something awesome about having a little welcome party come charging up the dirt hill every day after school that I will certainly miss. After my six weeks in Tolanga, I’ll return to Santa Rita for my last two weeks of training, and after that I’ll head out to my yet undetermined site for two years.
I spent the first chunk of the week (Sunday-Wednesday) in the dirty south of Honduras, in the port city of San Lorenzo. I say city because it’s got about 50,000 people, but it felt EXACTLY just like any other small-town Honduras. Dirt roads, hella dogs, ladies selling baleadas (Honduran street snack food—delicious chewy tortilla with a thin smear of refried beans and cheese inside), and a jillion kids running around. The only difference was the main streets were paved, they had things like a post office, several banks, restaurants, even a couple discos several bars. The town was very flat, which means bikes are the main form of transit—hooray! Critical Mass would be ridiculous here. It’s really common to see like three grown men riding one bike together—one pedaling, one on the handlebars and one on the frame. I even saw a man riding around with his tiny, tiny baby sitting on his lap. Crazy. It was indeed HOT AS THE DICKENS in this place—probably about 100 degrees in the heat of the day. Not as bad as Dixon, but the sun here is incredibly strong and it basically made me want to die. I was visiting a current volunteer (who’s about to Close of Service, or COS, which means her two years are up) named Lindsay. She was really chill and I loved getting to know her. We spent a good deal of time lying in hammocks, drinking water and trying not to melt. The volunteer visit was really, really fun, but it made me realize how much I’d prefer NOT to be placed in the south. I really hope they stick me somewhere north of Tegucigalpa.
Today was insanely exciting because they brought us MAIL! Some kids got like 500 letters, but I was so psyched ‘cause I got one from my good amigo David (hey man…thank you. Seriously. It made my day). I also got a package from my mom with some things I’d left in California, so all in all it was a good day. The only thing that sucks is I seem to have some kind of mild stomach thing. I’m not afflicted with the pringa-pie (splatter-food, if you recall…our euphemism for diarrhea), but I have terrible stomach gas-cramps that feel EXACTLY like those that accompany the splatter-foot…I don’t know what the deal is. I still have a normal appetite, but jeez. When the stomach cramps hit, I call it “riding the Pain Train,” and signal this to my friends by miming a conductor pulling the cord to honk his horn. I can usually catch Patrick’s eye during Spanish class and solemnly honk my horn twice, to which he will nod knowingly. I find this to be a much more tasteful and discreet way of informing my friends that I am currently experiencing gas. Soy una dama, people. (Dama = dame = LADY).
Tonight was Justin’s, a fellow gringo, birthday. It was at some random house—a friend of a friend, I guess?—but this nice gringo guy who knows him came and picked us all up and took us all home later. This house was beautiful, and they cooked us a delicious dinner, provided an awesome open bar, and an ice cream cake. I couldn’t eat any more food since I’d eaten at home, but I had some rum-and-cokes and danced salsa, punta, and reggaeton (which, for me, all involve pointing my fingers and waggling my butt around and/or churning the butter religiously). I couldn’t get over how nice it was for them to host all us gringos…people here are just SO DANG NICE. It was also really funny because, as someone pointed out, it was the first time I’ve been to a birthday party with an 8:30pm curfew since I was like 12. I texted my mom, “Can I please stay out till 9pm?” and she promptly texted me back, “Yes you may, but take care of yourself!” I for one rather enjoy having someone keep such tight rein on me…she texts me to check up on me like three times a day and it makes me feel cared for, which is kind of comforting in the semi-stressful environment that is Spanish 24/7. Even though I’m rarely alone, I sometimes feel kind of lonely and this makes me feel loved and that’s comforting. I’ve gotten really close to some of my gringo friends here, and am increasingly close to my family, but still…it’s hard being away from everyone I love, surrounding by only Spanish with the constant realization I’m here alone for two years. I love it here and I can’t wait to get to work, but I admit sometimes I wish the bus would just keep going until the States and I’d be home. However I know this will get a lot easier once I stop leaping around and get settled into my community.
All righty I’m gonna pass out…it’s 11pm now and that is most definitely time for me to the fall the heck asleep. For those of you who used the Tigo website to text me, THANKS!! That warmed my itty bitty heart. Too bad I can’t respond. I will try to squeeze some sweat or something into an envelope and send it to you ASAP.
To those of you who didn’t…raise your hand if you want tarantula balls in your mailbox!! The site is www.tigo.com.hn, but the instructions to text me are in Spanish, so you might have to find someone who speaks the language to help you out. My number is 9598-7436!! Seriously. Tarantula balls. No one wants that.
Buenas noches, amigos. I miss you and love you all! I hope everyone is so very happy.
Paz,
Hayley
p.s. I had a dream last night that our main man Obama won the election!! These malaria pills sure give me awesome dreams…
4 August 2008
Holy dang, it’s august. Am I the only one befuddled by that? I haven’t even been here a month yet (that will be on the 9th) but it feels like I’ve been here for years. Sort of. Some things I can’t get used to are:
-drinking things out of bags, not bottles
-tiny black ants/look just like harmless American ants = painful bitey kind.
-huge brown ants = non-bitey
-constant itching around my feet and ankles due to all my mosquito bites (oh hell what if I have scabies?! I just thought about that. Oh man. I might have scabies. I should look into that)
-the lawless insanity that is Honduran driving
-Honduran women storing their cell-phones in their cleavage, always.
-frogs that sound like laser guns (seriously this is awesome, I spent a lot of time pretending to fire laser guns in sync with their croaks and no, this joke does not get old)
-men shouting things at me/whistling/smooching at me on the street
-damn roosters
Some things I especially love about life in Honduras are:
-drinking things out of bags, not bottles
-the school kids who chase after me smiling and waving and saying “HELLOW! HELLOW!”
-the food (seriously, I love beans/rice/tortillas/eggs, I don’t know what everyone is always bitching about. The food here is delicious).
-how freakin’ AMABLE (friendly) people here are
-the tranquility of living in the campo (countryside)
-the intense green everywhere I look.
-the chickens
-my host families
That’s right, I said families. I got two now, dudes! I’m currently in Talanga, sitting in the dark living room of my new house on this balmy Monday night. It’s like 9:40, and I hope to get my sweaty butt in bed within the next 20 minutes. We’ll see if that happens. More about my family in a minute.
Day before yesterday (Saturday) was basically my most urban Honduran adventure to date. I traveled into Tegus with Suyapa, my host mom, and the three little kids. To get out of the countryside, we take a mototaxi, an insane contraption that’s basically a motorcycle-tricycle with a seat on the back and a little nylon roof. They’re actually really fun to take out in the country, but I don’t ride on them too often on the main road because if we were to get in an accident, whatever hit us (assuming it’s bigger than a cat) would totally whomp us flat. So we took the Mototaxi to the calle principal, and then hopped on a Rapidito, a little bus that takes us more or less directly to Tegus. The seats were almost full, so I sat in the back with both girls on my lap. I actually really like traveling with them, because I feel like having two little brown girlies in my arms/lap/hands makes me seem like less of a gringa, and thus less conspicuous. Maybe people assume their mother is a Honduran albino? Anyway, we wound our way through Tegus for almost 30 minutes, and eventually got off and arrived at Suyapa’s sisters’ apartment. She has a million sisters, it seems (I can’t figure out how many exactly) and these four live together in a nice little apartment. It’s in a hilly, dirt-road barrio, but it has a gorgeous view of the city. The sisters are YOUNG (18, 20, 22, 25, or something) are all either studying or working in the city. They were all super friendly and really funny, just like Suyapa. We ordered Pizza Hut delivery (OH MY GOD it was heavenly) and hung around. Then three of them took the girls with them to church and Suyapa, a sister and I went on a mission to get baby Javier’s hair cut—Suyapa wanted it buzzed, but didn’t have the buzzer thing to do so at home. We took a colectivo taxi to the centro (central area with a little park) and found a haircuttery place for guys only. I was sad to see Javier’s furriness drop away (his hair feels like a terrier puppy’s fur) but he looks pretty baller with a buzzed head. He was very polite during his haircut, but kept trying to crane his head back to watch the buzzer, which resulted in the man having to palm his head like a basketball.
My good gringo buddy Derek was also in Tegus with his family at this time, so I hooked up with them for the rest of the evening (they came and fetched me in their mini-van). His parents and host cousin took us to see Batman: The Dark Knight, which was AWESOME. The joker (el Guason, in Spanish) definitely stole the show, and if you haven’t seen the movie, go see it. Anyway, the theatre was in a huge fancy mall, and it looked just like any mall you’d find in the states. To get there, we passed a hundred crappy American food chains (TGI Fridays, Applebees, other such fineries) as well as the most incredible KFC I’ve ever seen (picture an enormous two-story plexiglass bucket of chicken that serves as a giant play-place for children. Know what’s NOT outlawed in Honduras? That’s right. BALL PITS.). It was weird seeing this side of Tegus, especially compared to campo from which I was coming. Anyway, after the movie, Derek’s parents were like “Now who wants to go have some fun, eh??” and took us to a Cuban restaurant for dancing…but it was all high-heels-swishy-dresses-stampy-tango-dancing, so we went to a local disco instead. They bought us (me, Derek, his 22-year-old host cousin) some beers and we watched the dancing for a while. Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me the apparently lack of joints Hondurans have in their hips. They’re like sexy snakes, wiggling all over the place. After a while Derek’s folks got up to dance, and shook it with the best of them on the dance floor for quite a while. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do at this point (group dancing does not seem to be a thing here, and we were an odd number), but the three of us went onto the floor and I danced around with Derek for a bit, while the host cousin disappeared. Derek very patiently attempted to teach me some basic dance steps to the rhythmic brain-tease that is latino music. Fortunately, the steps were similar enough to the drumline’s “Hey Baby” dance that I was able to not make a huge ass of myself (thank god for NUMB). Then I danced for a bit with the host cousin (I think his name was Wilmar?), which was not ‘real dancing’ but much more my style, which is facing whoever you’re dancing with and doing exaggerated, ridiculous things with my face and hands in an attempt to use humor to mask the fact I can’t dance. Wilmar seemed to think this was hilarious and did a pretty good job of miming me (though I must say he can’t do the sprinkler as well as I can, and don’t even get me STARTING on his butter-churning). I got a lot of stares (everywhere I go, people stare) but I tried to just ignore it. I had an awesome time, actually…it was really fun, and my first time in a Honduran disco. When the place closed down around 2am, we left for home (Derek’s dad had been drinking cokes all night, don’t worry). On the way, his dad leaned back and was like, “Now, who wants chicken??” We stopped at a 24-hour roadside chicken stand, and I sound found myself eating a delicious baked chicken breast and some tortillas at 2:30am It was awesome because I don’t think I would have wanted to do all this alone (Tegus is scary at night, sometimes) and here we have a really chill, fun host family who can escort us along to all the fun places. It was like a super play-date for grown-ups and their gringos. I snuck into the house at about 3am (don’t worry, I’d been in text-communication with Suyapa all night so she knew what was up) and woke up the next morning to many sly grins and “Well, well, well, look who finally showed up??” The first thing the girls said to me was, “Why didn’t you come home after the movie last night?” Seriously, you can’t sneak anything by these wise little eyeballs.
Anyway, that was Saturday and now it’s Monday and I’m in Talanga. It was quite sad leaving my host family (Suyapa and the girls all cried) and at first, I was sort of angry that I had to leave in the first place. However, I really do like Talanga—it’s a big town but, of course, with its dirt roads and pigs all over the place, it feels small. I’m living with an awesome host family in a big house behind the restaurant they own, which serves a lot of meat and potatoes. The mom is Dulce and the dad is Dubal. She runs the restaurant and Dubal works in Tegus, coming home only on weekends. They have a 30-something-year-old son, Cristian, who also lives and works in Tegus, and a 26-year-old daughter, also named Dulce. She has a 7-year-old daughter, Alexa, and a 7-month-old son, John. Both her kids were born in the states, where their father lives and works (in Florida). He hopes to come to Honduras in a couple years, they said. Alexa is essentially fluent in English, and reeealllllyyyy wants to practice with me, so we only speak in English. She’s the only one, though, so I still speak in Spanish with the rest of the family. The house is a LOT bigger than the little brick house I had in Santa Rita, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. They have a lot of property and like four cars…seems the restaurant does pretty well for itself. There is also a bar next door, El Cocodrilo, which is owned by the daughter Dulce. It’s really nice, with an outdoor patio, and I hung out with her behind the counter last night. The whole family is really sweet and friendly, and I especially love Dulce. She and I have a lot in common and it’s awesome to finally have a real Honduran friend my own age. I was so sad to leave my Santa Rita family, but I can tell I’m going to be really happy here.
Anyway, it’s 10:20 and I absolutely need to go to bed, which is a dollhouse. Literally. My room used to be little Alexa’s room (she’s shackin’ up with grandma currently), and the room is a literal museum of stuffed animals, Barbies, and toys. She also has Backstreet Boys stickers on the closet circa 1998. Hot stuff. Anyway, the bed is a giant dollhouse with the bed built into it, so when I’m sleeping my head is literally inside this house. It’s kind of weird but I secretly love it and pretend I’m a giant who is saving up her money for a bigger house but in the meantime has to make due with a human-sized house. This is the game I mentally play when I crawl into bed.
Paz,
Hayley
p.s. my stomach is better! Yay!
Hey, chochachos! DANG I’m tired. It’s like 10:45pm on Friday night, way past my bedtime….I’m only writing in my bloggeroonie right now because I am so filled with my EMOTIONS that I feel to not write would be a waste of sheer guts-power. And I can’t waste my guts! That ain’t sustainable!
Anyway, I’m just so happy with my host family/sad to be leaving them this Sunday. I just got home from a gringo’s birthday party (more on that later) and spend like 30 minutes lying on the bed in the other room, playing with the kids and chatting with Suyapa. Every day I feel more and more at home here and I’m so sad to be leaving. Suyapa always asks the girlies, “Do you want your sister to leave? Are you going to give her permission to leave us?” and they always shout, “NO!!!” On Sunday, I’ll be going to Talanga, a city north of Tegus, for about six weeks. There I’ll be doing my Field-Based Training (FBT), which departs from the sitting-in-criminally-uncomfortable-chairs-for-six-hours-a-day-and-listening-to-theories-behind-sustainable-development-work world and enters the world of hands-on-getting-dirty-in-the-field work. I’m very excited to finally begin working (we do mini-projects, sort of like micro-Peace-Corps), but I’ll be with a new host family and I’d just as soon stay with the one I love here. Plus, I love living here in the campo and Tolanga is more or less a city, though rather undeveloped I’m told. My new host family has a mom, a dad, a host sister of 26 years, and her six-month-old baby. They live in a house behind the restaurant they own, called “Old House” (in English!). It will be an interesting change not to have a house full of bellowing little girls, and I already miss them. There is something awesome about having a little welcome party come charging up the dirt hill every day after school that I will certainly miss. After my six weeks in Tolanga, I’ll return to Santa Rita for my last two weeks of training, and after that I’ll head out to my yet undetermined site for two years.
I spent the first chunk of the week (Sunday-Wednesday) in the dirty south of Honduras, in the port city of San Lorenzo. I say city because it’s got about 50,000 people, but it felt EXACTLY just like any other small-town Honduras. Dirt roads, hella dogs, ladies selling baleadas (Honduran street snack food—delicious chewy tortilla with a thin smear of refried beans and cheese inside), and a jillion kids running around. The only difference was the main streets were paved, they had things like a post office, several banks, restaurants, even a couple discos several bars. The town was very flat, which means bikes are the main form of transit—hooray! Critical Mass would be ridiculous here. It’s really common to see like three grown men riding one bike together—one pedaling, one on the handlebars and one on the frame. I even saw a man riding around with his tiny, tiny baby sitting on his lap. Crazy. It was indeed HOT AS THE DICKENS in this place—probably about 100 degrees in the heat of the day. Not as bad as Dixon, but the sun here is incredibly strong and it basically made me want to die. I was visiting a current volunteer (who’s about to Close of Service, or COS, which means her two years are up) named Lindsay. She was really chill and I loved getting to know her. We spent a good deal of time lying in hammocks, drinking water and trying not to melt. The volunteer visit was really, really fun, but it made me realize how much I’d prefer NOT to be placed in the south. I really hope they stick me somewhere north of Tegucigalpa.
Today was insanely exciting because they brought us MAIL! Some kids got like 500 letters, but I was so psyched ‘cause I got one from my good amigo David (hey man…thank you. Seriously. It made my day). I also got a package from my mom with some things I’d left in California, so all in all it was a good day. The only thing that sucks is I seem to have some kind of mild stomach thing. I’m not afflicted with the pringa-pie (splatter-food, if you recall…our euphemism for diarrhea), but I have terrible stomach gas-cramps that feel EXACTLY like those that accompany the splatter-foot…I don’t know what the deal is. I still have a normal appetite, but jeez. When the stomach cramps hit, I call it “riding the Pain Train,” and signal this to my friends by miming a conductor pulling the cord to honk his horn. I can usually catch Patrick’s eye during Spanish class and solemnly honk my horn twice, to which he will nod knowingly. I find this to be a much more tasteful and discreet way of informing my friends that I am currently experiencing gas. Soy una dama, people. (Dama = dame = LADY).
Tonight was Justin’s, a fellow gringo, birthday. It was at some random house—a friend of a friend, I guess?—but this nice gringo guy who knows him came and picked us all up and took us all home later. This house was beautiful, and they cooked us a delicious dinner, provided an awesome open bar, and an ice cream cake. I couldn’t eat any more food since I’d eaten at home, but I had some rum-and-cokes and danced salsa, punta, and reggaeton (which, for me, all involve pointing my fingers and waggling my butt around and/or churning the butter religiously). I couldn’t get over how nice it was for them to host all us gringos…people here are just SO DANG NICE. It was also really funny because, as someone pointed out, it was the first time I’ve been to a birthday party with an 8:30pm curfew since I was like 12. I texted my mom, “Can I please stay out till 9pm?” and she promptly texted me back, “Yes you may, but take care of yourself!” I for one rather enjoy having someone keep such tight rein on me…she texts me to check up on me like three times a day and it makes me feel cared for, which is kind of comforting in the semi-stressful environment that is Spanish 24/7. Even though I’m rarely alone, I sometimes feel kind of lonely and this makes me feel loved and that’s comforting. I’ve gotten really close to some of my gringo friends here, and am increasingly close to my family, but still…it’s hard being away from everyone I love, surrounding by only Spanish with the constant realization I’m here alone for two years. I love it here and I can’t wait to get to work, but I admit sometimes I wish the bus would just keep going until the States and I’d be home. However I know this will get a lot easier once I stop leaping around and get settled into my community.
All righty I’m gonna pass out…it’s 11pm now and that is most definitely time for me to the fall the heck asleep. For those of you who used the Tigo website to text me, THANKS!! That warmed my itty bitty heart. Too bad I can’t respond. I will try to squeeze some sweat or something into an envelope and send it to you ASAP.
To those of you who didn’t…raise your hand if you want tarantula balls in your mailbox!! The site is www.tigo.com.hn, but the instructions to text me are in Spanish, so you might have to find someone who speaks the language to help you out. My number is 9598-7436!! Seriously. Tarantula balls. No one wants that.
Buenas noches, amigos. I miss you and love you all! I hope everyone is so very happy.
Paz,
Hayley
p.s. I had a dream last night that our main man Obama won the election!! These malaria pills sure give me awesome dreams…
4 August 2008
Holy dang, it’s august. Am I the only one befuddled by that? I haven’t even been here a month yet (that will be on the 9th) but it feels like I’ve been here for years. Sort of. Some things I can’t get used to are:
-drinking things out of bags, not bottles
-tiny black ants/look just like harmless American ants = painful bitey kind.
-huge brown ants = non-bitey
-constant itching around my feet and ankles due to all my mosquito bites (oh hell what if I have scabies?! I just thought about that. Oh man. I might have scabies. I should look into that)
-the lawless insanity that is Honduran driving
-Honduran women storing their cell-phones in their cleavage, always.
-frogs that sound like laser guns (seriously this is awesome, I spent a lot of time pretending to fire laser guns in sync with their croaks and no, this joke does not get old)
-men shouting things at me/whistling/smooching at me on the street
-damn roosters
Some things I especially love about life in Honduras are:
-drinking things out of bags, not bottles
-the school kids who chase after me smiling and waving and saying “HELLOW! HELLOW!”
-the food (seriously, I love beans/rice/tortillas/eggs, I don’t know what everyone is always bitching about. The food here is delicious).
-how freakin’ AMABLE (friendly) people here are
-the tranquility of living in the campo (countryside)
-the intense green everywhere I look.
-the chickens
-my host families
That’s right, I said families. I got two now, dudes! I’m currently in Talanga, sitting in the dark living room of my new house on this balmy Monday night. It’s like 9:40, and I hope to get my sweaty butt in bed within the next 20 minutes. We’ll see if that happens. More about my family in a minute.
Day before yesterday (Saturday) was basically my most urban Honduran adventure to date. I traveled into Tegus with Suyapa, my host mom, and the three little kids. To get out of the countryside, we take a mototaxi, an insane contraption that’s basically a motorcycle-tricycle with a seat on the back and a little nylon roof. They’re actually really fun to take out in the country, but I don’t ride on them too often on the main road because if we were to get in an accident, whatever hit us (assuming it’s bigger than a cat) would totally whomp us flat. So we took the Mototaxi to the calle principal, and then hopped on a Rapidito, a little bus that takes us more or less directly to Tegus. The seats were almost full, so I sat in the back with both girls on my lap. I actually really like traveling with them, because I feel like having two little brown girlies in my arms/lap/hands makes me seem like less of a gringa, and thus less conspicuous. Maybe people assume their mother is a Honduran albino? Anyway, we wound our way through Tegus for almost 30 minutes, and eventually got off and arrived at Suyapa’s sisters’ apartment. She has a million sisters, it seems (I can’t figure out how many exactly) and these four live together in a nice little apartment. It’s in a hilly, dirt-road barrio, but it has a gorgeous view of the city. The sisters are YOUNG (18, 20, 22, 25, or something) are all either studying or working in the city. They were all super friendly and really funny, just like Suyapa. We ordered Pizza Hut delivery (OH MY GOD it was heavenly) and hung around. Then three of them took the girls with them to church and Suyapa, a sister and I went on a mission to get baby Javier’s hair cut—Suyapa wanted it buzzed, but didn’t have the buzzer thing to do so at home. We took a colectivo taxi to the centro (central area with a little park) and found a haircuttery place for guys only. I was sad to see Javier’s furriness drop away (his hair feels like a terrier puppy’s fur) but he looks pretty baller with a buzzed head. He was very polite during his haircut, but kept trying to crane his head back to watch the buzzer, which resulted in the man having to palm his head like a basketball.
My good gringo buddy Derek was also in Tegus with his family at this time, so I hooked up with them for the rest of the evening (they came and fetched me in their mini-van). His parents and host cousin took us to see Batman: The Dark Knight, which was AWESOME. The joker (el Guason, in Spanish) definitely stole the show, and if you haven’t seen the movie, go see it. Anyway, the theatre was in a huge fancy mall, and it looked just like any mall you’d find in the states. To get there, we passed a hundred crappy American food chains (TGI Fridays, Applebees, other such fineries) as well as the most incredible KFC I’ve ever seen (picture an enormous two-story plexiglass bucket of chicken that serves as a giant play-place for children. Know what’s NOT outlawed in Honduras? That’s right. BALL PITS.). It was weird seeing this side of Tegus, especially compared to campo from which I was coming. Anyway, after the movie, Derek’s parents were like “Now who wants to go have some fun, eh??” and took us to a Cuban restaurant for dancing…but it was all high-heels-swishy-dresses-stampy-tango-dancing, so we went to a local disco instead. They bought us (me, Derek, his 22-year-old host cousin) some beers and we watched the dancing for a while. Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me the apparently lack of joints Hondurans have in their hips. They’re like sexy snakes, wiggling all over the place. After a while Derek’s folks got up to dance, and shook it with the best of them on the dance floor for quite a while. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do at this point (group dancing does not seem to be a thing here, and we were an odd number), but the three of us went onto the floor and I danced around with Derek for a bit, while the host cousin disappeared. Derek very patiently attempted to teach me some basic dance steps to the rhythmic brain-tease that is latino music. Fortunately, the steps were similar enough to the drumline’s “Hey Baby” dance that I was able to not make a huge ass of myself (thank god for NUMB). Then I danced for a bit with the host cousin (I think his name was Wilmar?), which was not ‘real dancing’ but much more my style, which is facing whoever you’re dancing with and doing exaggerated, ridiculous things with my face and hands in an attempt to use humor to mask the fact I can’t dance. Wilmar seemed to think this was hilarious and did a pretty good job of miming me (though I must say he can’t do the sprinkler as well as I can, and don’t even get me STARTING on his butter-churning). I got a lot of stares (everywhere I go, people stare) but I tried to just ignore it. I had an awesome time, actually…it was really fun, and my first time in a Honduran disco. When the place closed down around 2am, we left for home (Derek’s dad had been drinking cokes all night, don’t worry). On the way, his dad leaned back and was like, “Now, who wants chicken??” We stopped at a 24-hour roadside chicken stand, and I sound found myself eating a delicious baked chicken breast and some tortillas at 2:30am It was awesome because I don’t think I would have wanted to do all this alone (Tegus is scary at night, sometimes) and here we have a really chill, fun host family who can escort us along to all the fun places. It was like a super play-date for grown-ups and their gringos. I snuck into the house at about 3am (don’t worry, I’d been in text-communication with Suyapa all night so she knew what was up) and woke up the next morning to many sly grins and “Well, well, well, look who finally showed up??” The first thing the girls said to me was, “Why didn’t you come home after the movie last night?” Seriously, you can’t sneak anything by these wise little eyeballs.
Anyway, that was Saturday and now it’s Monday and I’m in Talanga. It was quite sad leaving my host family (Suyapa and the girls all cried) and at first, I was sort of angry that I had to leave in the first place. However, I really do like Talanga—it’s a big town but, of course, with its dirt roads and pigs all over the place, it feels small. I’m living with an awesome host family in a big house behind the restaurant they own, which serves a lot of meat and potatoes. The mom is Dulce and the dad is Dubal. She runs the restaurant and Dubal works in Tegus, coming home only on weekends. They have a 30-something-year-old son, Cristian, who also lives and works in Tegus, and a 26-year-old daughter, also named Dulce. She has a 7-year-old daughter, Alexa, and a 7-month-old son, John. Both her kids were born in the states, where their father lives and works (in Florida). He hopes to come to Honduras in a couple years, they said. Alexa is essentially fluent in English, and reeealllllyyyy wants to practice with me, so we only speak in English. She’s the only one, though, so I still speak in Spanish with the rest of the family. The house is a LOT bigger than the little brick house I had in Santa Rita, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. They have a lot of property and like four cars…seems the restaurant does pretty well for itself. There is also a bar next door, El Cocodrilo, which is owned by the daughter Dulce. It’s really nice, with an outdoor patio, and I hung out with her behind the counter last night. The whole family is really sweet and friendly, and I especially love Dulce. She and I have a lot in common and it’s awesome to finally have a real Honduran friend my own age. I was so sad to leave my Santa Rita family, but I can tell I’m going to be really happy here.
Anyway, it’s 10:20 and I absolutely need to go to bed, which is a dollhouse. Literally. My room used to be little Alexa’s room (she’s shackin’ up with grandma currently), and the room is a literal museum of stuffed animals, Barbies, and toys. She also has Backstreet Boys stickers on the closet circa 1998. Hot stuff. Anyway, the bed is a giant dollhouse with the bed built into it, so when I’m sleeping my head is literally inside this house. It’s kind of weird but I secretly love it and pretend I’m a giant who is saving up her money for a bigger house but in the meantime has to make due with a human-sized house. This is the game I mentally play when I crawl into bed.
Paz,
Hayley
p.s. my stomach is better! Yay!
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