and then the puppy ate the chick.

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