love fungus

look guys, pictures! here are ana and i, the MCs for cultural day. yes, that is my natural hair color, thank you for asking.
here i am with all my little friends from one of the village schools.
here is a shot of Talanga, where i´ve been living for the past month or so.
here are derek and i, in the middle of a hike through the hot n moist selva.
hooray for pictures!!

6 September 2008
Hey, chochachos! Today I sweated so much, I got diaper rash. What’s new with you guys? Not diaper rash? That’s a shame. It’s really taking me back to my childhood. I might go steal that cream that they always rub on baby John’s butt… maybe I’ll just relish in this trip down memory lane.

Anyway, it was mega-hot today. Now it’s raining, of course, since this is the wet season in Honduras, and it rains every dang day. I don’t mind the rain, since it usually cools things down, but it sucks because the electricity always goes out when it thunders. So far it’s been on without issue for about three hours, so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll stay. Though it doesn’t suck too hard when it goes out, because then I get to walk around with a upside-down teacup with a candle stuck to it, and I like to pretend it’s the times of Horse and Wig, when teabags cost a penny and cholera was a serious concern for everyone.

This is my last Saturday here in Tang-Town, and that fills me with cholera (the metaphorical kind). I leave on Tuesday! I just really wish I didn’t have to leave my host family here…I love Dona Dulce so much, and my sister Dulce, too…and baby John…and Alexa…and Dubal…and all their crazy friends that are always around. Especially in the past couple weeks, I’ve felt just like a member of the family and I can feel my heart growing, like a fungus of love (love-fungi grow really well here, due to the heat and humidity). Today I was sitting on the couch in the restaurant with Dona Dulce, and she turned to me and said something like, “It’s amazing how the heart can grow to love someone so much in such a short period of time,” and squeezed my arm. Then we both sat there trying not to cry and she changed to subject to gringo gossip. Dubal, my dad, keeps walking around grinning and chuckling his high-pitched “hee hee!” which is cute coming from a man of his girth, and muttering, “They gave us the craziest gringa they had!” I don’t know why exactly he thinks I’m so crazy (I have the suspicion it has something to do with my dancing, which they now call “Hacer la mantequilla”), but he seems to delight in it. They showed up the Cultural Day the gringos hosted, which was basically a smorgasbord of Honduran and American food and a series of performances by us and local Hondurans, and just stared at me. Ana, another gringa, and I were the MCs of the event, and were decked out in traditional folkloric dresses, complete with fake black braids that hang down the left shoulder. As you can imagine I looked extremely ridiculous and I don’t think any of the Hondurans knew what to make of it. I looked GOOD. Anyway, each family had to bring a dish, and mine showed up with a chocolate cake that said “Bueno, Hayley, ya la tengo en mi corazon,” which means, “Well, Hayley, now I have you in my heart.” It was deliciously sentimental. They also had a wrapped present for me, which I thought was great. It was a coffee percolator! One of the awesome silvery ones that make like 5 cups of coffee. It’s awesome and it’s exactly what I needed. Anyway, the general mood around the house is sadness that I’m leaving, and a distinct attempt to enjoy every waking moment. Today (Saturday) Honduras played Canada in the rounds for the world cup in 2010, so I painted my arms blue and white and climbed into bed with Dona Dulce to watch the game. She gave me an (enormous) Honduras soccer jersey, and we laid there, sucking on sodas and watching what was a surprising and glorious triumph over Canada. Suck it, Canada!

Today I walked over to see the giant Ceiba tree we have in town, with Patrick, Gabe, and Dora. This tree is ENORMOUS, you’d need at least 10 people holding hands to wrap around its base. It’s got huge buttress roots, and enormous braches that extend out across the dusty square for about 50 feet. Little kids were kicking around a soccer ball barefoot, chickens peckin’ about, old ladies shuffling around with buckets of something balanced on their heads, old men sitting on their porches with their cowboy hats on, hells of dogs trotting around, the air all hot and heavy with the pending rain…it was such a typical Honduran scene that I admit I got a little emotional and my eyeballs almost started to sweat. But they have little two-by-fours wedged into the roots like benches, so Patrick and I perched on them and took several high school senior portrait-esque photos.

The week passed so quickly. Last Sunday I went to Monte Redondo with Ana, where some of the other volunteers are in training, and she and I went on an adventure with Derek and Justin, and some of Derek’s host brothers. We got a ride in the back of the pick-up truck to this little aldea called Rio Hondo, and hiked along the river till we got to this awesome area where we could leap off rocks into the deep waters. We ate fried chicken and drank soda and floated around in the sunshine. We couldn’t get a jalon (ride) back, though, so we hiked for almost two hours through the jungle to Monte Redondo. The kid in the front had to hack through the growth with his machete! It was totally badass, with the warm rain falling on my adventure hat…so much fun. Then I went to Derek’s house and had crab soup (no fur this time).

This week was my last one at the schools, so we had two despedidas (good-bye parties) and it was sad but fun. At my little one-room school house, Ana and I brought a piñata, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and some other treats for the kids. But when we showed up they had prepared for us a 45-minute dance show, featuring reggaeton, punta, and traditional vaquero dance. I took some videos and I wish to god I could show them to you guys…my favorite is this mortified-looking little 8-year-old boy who somehow got roped into doing this dance with about 7 other girls, and they’re all shaking their imaginary bosoms all over the place and he’s trying to do the same, while his friends are shrieking with laughter on the sidelines…it’s just priceless. The games afterward were more or less successful (some of the 6th graders cried when the little kids got to go first for pin-the-tail, and a kid nearly got his face smashed in by an over-zealous piñata-batter, at which point I screamed “STOP!” in English….it was kind of a disaster, actually). Piñatas here are crazy!!! The blindfolded kid just keeps whinging away while everyone else madly scrambles for the candy that may or may not be falling, the gringas shouting in panicked English while the teacher leans against the wall examining her nails…holy moley. Last time I do that. But I’ll miss those little guys…they gave me and Ana each a going-away present, which was some awesome bling. If anyone needs huge plastic diamond earrings and a matching bracelet, just let me know, I might let you borrow mine. The despedida at the other school was also interesting…on our second to last day we decided to do an American-style “Field Day” with relay-races, three-legged races, and Capture the Flag. It was only mildly disastrous, so I guess I ought to be proud. It took us about 45 minutes to organize teams with a mixture of each age group, because the kids kept running off to be with their friends. Once we finally had six teams that had a couple big kids on each team, we tried to do some basic relay races, like “Over-Under” with a ball. That went okay. Then we attempted this great game I read about, called three-legged soccer. It’s exactly what it sounds like. So after we spent like 20 minutes trying to explain the concept and demonstrating and tying 25 pairs of kids today with twine, we realized we had no soccer ball. I figured we could just do a race, but the crappy twine was cutting into the poor kids’ legs and they all had expressions of extreme pain on their faces, so we just ran around and cut all of them free. Again, I wish I could share the video Ana has of a bunch of kids hobbling around, screaming in pain. Twine sucks. Finally, we rallied the troops together and I explained the concept of “Robar the Bandera,” or Capture the Flag. We sent two gringas to each team, and the game began. For about 20 minutes, the kids just faced off awkwardly at the middle line, darting across for two seconds before turning on heel and dashing back into the safety on their own side. I spent most of the time in jail, except for one incident when I had to go explain to my team that burying the flag in the grass so no one knew where it was is actually cheating. It was a hot and rather stressful morning, but it was great anyway. We walked home and got a beer on the way to celebrate, at which point we realized that four gringas drinking a beer at 11:00am was extremely scandalous.

We capped off the week with a sweet workshop on how to give workshops on HIV/AIDS. After a day of learning and prep, they sent us off in groups of threes to give the charlas (workshops/talks) to groups of ninth graders. It was wonderful. The material was excellent; the Peace Corps really emphasizes interactive learning and creative, engaging activities that encourage learning through fun—not such a novel concept in the states, but nothing short of a revolution here. We started with a pre-test; it was incredible how ignorant these kids were—most though HIV could be transmitted through mosquito bites or kissing. And as the charla progressed, I realized they were lacking a lot of really basic biology—a lot of them didn’t understand about eggs and sperm, or didn’t realize women urinate and give birth from two different places, etc. But we passed around a box for them to fill with anonymous questions, and that was great—my lifelong dream of getting to answer the questions “What is masturbation?” or “How does anal sex work?” in Spanish to a bunch of adolescents has finally come true. However, the climax (no pun intended) of this sex-ed/HIV workshop was definitely when we passed out a banana and two condoms to each pair of kids and took them through the steps (there are about 10, by the way) of how to correctly use a condom. I wish I had pictures, guys.

Bedtime…tomorrow is our despedida for the host families. We’re hosting it in the library, and we’re making dessert and coffee. I’m in charge of games!! SCORE. And Monday we find out for sure where our sites will be…and on Tuesday, we depart for Zarabanda once again. We’ll stay with our original host families for a night, then head to our sites for a four-day visit. Then we’ll come back and finish up training. On the 26th of September, we’re officially sworn-in as volunteers, and the very next day, we all take off into the wild green yonder to our respective sites…I can’t believe training is nearly over.

Happy (early) Anniversary, Mom and Dad! I am sending you sweaty e-kisses as we speak.
Love,
Hayley