today i sweated so much i got a rash

30 August 2008

Hey, chochachos! It’s a hot ‘n rainy Saturday night, and I just went a little wild and ate a pupusa off the street (delicious hot and melty cheese tortilla thing). Then I went inside and drank some water. OUT OF CONTROOOOOL!!!!

If I’m having a tame night, it’s because Honduras has been so wacky in the past couple days. Yesterday my mom Dulce announced we were going to a wedding in Tegus, so I promptly borrowed a dress from a gringa friend and washed my hair. The wedding was to begin at 8:00pm (who gets married at 8pm on a Friday night is what I want to know), but due to some transit issues we didn’t get on the road until 8:30, which meant we rolled into the wedding at about 9:30pm. This seemed entirely unimportant, however. The reception was really fun…in a Honduran wedding sort of way I guess. I expected everyone to be dancing around like crazy, since that is my stereotype of latinos at parties, but it was totally High School Dance style—DJs on stage with a small disco ball, projecting florescent rainbows onto a virtually empty dance floor while everyone sat around, not wanting to be the first one on the floor. My sisters didn’t come, but a host cousin (also named Dulce, obviously) came and was extremely interested in dancing, basically all the time. Now, I like dancing. I do. But I define dancing rather broadly, as “wiggling to the music” or “bobbing to and fro,” and occasionally I will incorporate specific dance steps (such as churning the butter). My cousin Dulce, like all Hondurans, is blessed with liquid hips and an innate skill for deciphering all the subtle differences between the music styles and the accompanying dance moves. So we enter into this awkward music scene, and of course everyone and their mother is staring at me, because I am the tall white-haired freakazoid striding through the middle of the room. Of course, Dulce wants to dance and immediately drags me to the middle of the EMPTY dance floor, which has suddenly been transformed into the Hilariously Awkward Gringa Show, starring Hayley. The night progressed in pretty much the same way, but eventually more people joined the dance floor and it wasn’t so bad. Still, every time I stole a glance at my comfortably seated parents, they were doubled over with laughter. At one point, following the theme of high school dance, a woman approached me and whispered, “Do you see that handsome young man over there?” while pointing to a chubby dude who looked about 20, dancing around with a lady. I nodded, and she continued, “Well, he wants to dance with you.” I kind of expected her to hand me a note, all folded complicatedly with that little fold sticking out, hella middle-school style. I gave her a noncommittal “bueno…” and she took me by the hand and led me over to him, said “There you go, here’s the blondie!”, at which point he ditched the girl he was with and immediately began grooving in front of me. This was maybe the most awkward moment in my life, especially since the chick he ditched just stood there and watched, like a foot away. To make matters worse, Mr. Fat ‘n Sweaty seemed to be really into dancing with his eyes shut, which made me unsure of where exactly I was supposed to be looking. Anyway, this painfully awkward exchange went on for about three minutes, until the song finally freaking ended and I awkwardly offered him a handshake and ran away. Jesus.

Anyway, we didn’t eat until almost midnight and I danced until about 2:00am. I woke up this morning at about 7:30am, because I was promised an adventure. I thought it was a family reunion, but everyone stayed home except Dubal, Dona Dulce and I, so I’m not sure what you call it. It was cool though, the first time I’ve hung out with just my parents, and it was really lovely. Dulce and I kept lamenting on how soon I’ll have to head back to Valle de Angeles and how much we’ve grown to love one another. I feel like a part of this family and it breaks my heart that I have to leave ANOTHER family. They’re just so loving…anyway, we drove for like two hours through the beautiful, piney mountains until we got to corn country. We wound through corn fields until we finally happened upon a clearing, where we parked the truck and were met by their friends. They had build this sweet little gazebo out in the middle of rows of corn, with a smattering of mango and papaya trees. The gazebo had a little wood-burning grill and a delightful ratio of people-to-hammock, and we spent the day chewing on carne asada and various corn products (tamales, a thick ‘n hot corn drink that tasted like a tamale, and fried corn patties that also tasted like tamales) while lounging in the shade. I feel very strongly about hammocks and delicious corn products, so this was basically an excellent day for me.

Aside from weddings and corn parties, this week has been pretty intense. I get up every day, take my cold shower, eat an enormous breakfast, and hop on the bus to get to my village school, Buena Vista. Sara and I do a project with the kids (so far we’ve done creative writing projects, nutrition, and self-esteem) and then we play some games with the kids until it’s time to go home for lunch. After lunch, Ana and I head to another village school, Jose Trinidad Cabanas, where we do similar projects in the little one-room school. Then I head home, do my prep for the next day, and go to bed (though not before eating my weight in delicious fried foods). Sometimes I have Spanish class, and sometimes instead of Spanish class our project leaders randomly take us to a gorgeous pool two hours away for a day of hippie games and frosty lemonades in the pool (seriously, this happened on Thursday—they called it a “personal health day” and it was extremely awesome). OH THAT REMINDS ME I HAVE REALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!!!! Dudes!! How could I forget!! I THINK I KNOW WHERE MY SITE IS!!

Finding out where your site is (where you’ll be placed for your two years of service) is a very lengthy and secretive process here in Youth Development. We have three “interviews,” in which we give our input on what we want to do, what our skills are, and any requests regarding location and/or site characteristics. During our final interview, which I had on Tuesday, our project leaders Rolando and Sandra tell us they’ve picked out a site for us, and give us certain characteristics about it, without telling us where it is. Why it’s so secretive, I don’t know—I just know they don’t officially announce our sites until Sept. 8, which is in 8 days from now. However, they told me enough about my site that I think I’ve got it figured out, and I’m so psyched. They said my site is VERY small and extremely rural. They said it’s on top of a mountain—but when I shrieked with joy they quickly informed me it’s an “ugly mountain, not green and pretty like in the states.” So if anyone wants to visit me on top of Ugly Mountain, just let me know. They said it has a river (yay fishing!) and that they saw a fox and a snake when they were last there (it was unclear in my interview whether the fox and snake were actually hanging out together, but that’s the impression that I got). They said it’s hot as the dickens, and extremely impoverished—one of the poorest areas in its department (there are 18 departments in Honduras, sort of like states). They said I will get a baseball team, and that the volunteer leaving the town is VERY enthusiastic about his baseball players. They said I will be the very first Youth Development volunteer the pueblo will have seen, which means it will be more challenging because I’ll have to train my counterparts on how to work with me. Counterparts are community organizations that I have been paired with for work—and I have three at the moment. One is an NGO that works with mothers and children, one is a primary school that is interested in starting a preschool, and one is a health center. They said it’s very rural, and that I’ll have electricity but no internet or anything. Based on all these clues, I made some phone calls to current volunteers and have deduced I am going to Alubaren, a small town of less than 1,000 in the very south of the Francisco Morazon department, which is the department where I currently live. Alubaren is so far south, though, it’s practically in the southern department of Choluteca. I know I originally said I was anti-south, due to the nasty heat, but I am so thrilled about my counterparts and the tiny, rural aspect that I don’t care. They said I’ll be working in nearby villages, and that to get around the mountainous area I’ll probably have to get a horse! CHILDHOOD DREAMS COMING TRUE: 1. I’m soooo excited to be working with a preschool and a health center….oh heavens. I can’t wait until I find out for sure that it’s Alubaren, but I’m willing to bet several lempiras on it.

Puppy update: little Osita seems to have decided my room is the coolest place in the world to hang out, and shows me her affection by leaving little gifts all over the floor while I’m at school. Many a laugh was had at my expense when I, rather flustered with my discovery, tried to explain to my host mom that the puppy had left “mountains of poo” and “wide lakes of pee-pee” on my floor. I guess I should learn how to say “piles” and “puddles.” Either way, she is remarkably still alive and has an extremely well-functioning digestive system.

Time for bed, dudes. By the way, I managed to watch Obama’s speech at the DNC the other night (struggling between listening to the faint English in the backyard and the booming Spanish dubbing), and I was so overwhelmed with pride in the new direction my country is headed that my eyeballs sweated a little. Dona Dulce and I had a long talk about him and she’s thrilled, too. GANA OBAMA!!

Paz,

Hayley