totally ate a chicken foot the other day

29 September 2008

Hey, chochachos! I’m currently sitting on my bed (a foam pad on a beautiful wooden frame with yellow waxy fibers criss-crossing…I’ve convinced myself it’s sinew, and I kind of like it), listening to some jams (senor bob dylan)…or rather, I’m trying to. My new home here in Alubarén has a tin roof, and since it’s raining like the dickens it’s loud as HELL. I really enjoy it, though. Since it’s hurricane season it basically just dumps warm rain for hours in the afternoon/nighttime every day. It’s annoying because since the streets are dirt with no drainage system, every slanted road becomes an ankle-deep rushing river, and every flat area an ever-widening lake. But it’s worth it because the rain cools everything down, and since I wear chacos everywhere anyway, the wet doesn’t really bother me. Suck it, rain!

So yeah, here I am, dudes…in my new community for the next two years. It’s weird, the last time I visited Alubarén, I knew I would be leaving in a couple days to return to my loving family in Santa Rita and my gringo friends and my non-responsibilities of going to class and playing games in the grass with my kiddies. But this time, when I was getting ready to move here knowing I wasn’t coming back, I didn’t feel so excited…I was almost dreading it, to be honest. And then I felt guilty, because they make it sound like we’re supposed to be tearing into our new communities with our arms all stretched above our heads like crazy marathon athletes, totally chugging diluted PowerAde and wearing nipple tape to avoid chafing during the long run…and when I thought about all the responsibilities I have, how much my community wants me to do, and how I don’t really feel ready to do any of it…I kind of just felt like going home to the states. With no sports drinks and certainly no nipple tape. I’ve just become so attached to the folks in Santa Rita, and I really love my Peace Corps friends, and I felt kind of depressed about leaving all them behind and stepping into a new place, with no anonymity and huge expectations. It’s kind of ridiculous, since this moment—actually moving into my community—is supposed to be the first glorious step in my two years of service, and I just straight up didn’t want to do it. Fortunately, though, I sucked it up and pretended that I was excited, and by the time I got to Alubarén and stepped out of my bus, I felt like I was at home. Still no nipple tape, but definitely excited and all the dread and sadness about leaving everyone else behind just kind of evaporated. I think one of the things I was most fretful about was leaving behind my whole support system, but I know I’ll make a new one here.

I stepped in the door yesterday, and the three-year-old looked up at me from her hiding place behind the couch and just glared. I think she hates me, actually. My host mom Sandra gave me a hug and immediately showed me the new door on the bathroom, which I was delighted to see (no more turbo poopin’). I hauled my bags into my room, which is painted bright pink and has pretty shell-colored tile floors. The house is small but pretty, and brand new—tile floors, smooth adobe walls, and shiny zinc roof. The little girl, Carlita, immediately followed me in (the drawback to having a sheet for a door is that you can’t lock people out) and began pawing through my stuff. I asked her not to, but she just looks at me and says icily, “Vayase, niña” (go away, girl). God, if you guys could see the way she looks at me…hopefully I can win her love, or these first couple months are gonna be hella awkward (what if she poisons me?!). Today, my first day of work in my community, was a little strange. I’ve never had a job without a boss before, so I didn’t really know what to do. I decided the night before that regular people probably get up at 7:00am every day, so today at precisely that hour I got up and made my bed (aka dragged my one ragged sheet up and fluffed my pillow…it’s too hot here to warrant more than a sheet on the bed). I took a nice cold shower and made breakfast (avocado mashed up with a little oil and salt and two small tomatoes all sliced up, on toasty corn tortillas), and then I read some community development literature until about 9:00am. Then I fetched my shade-machine (aka umbrella), took a deep breath, and left the house. I don’t know why it’s so scary to leave the house here…one I’m outside it’s fine, it’s just the actual leaving part that’s hard. I think it’s because doing regular stuff, like walking around, is kind of taxing…all the Spanish, all the staring, all the attention…it’s just so much easier to hide inside. But I’m getting over that.

I walked down the pebbly dirt road, saying “Buenos!” or “Adios!” to everyone I passed (they said “adios” here when passing each other, sort of like a “see ya” thing...and you always greet everybody, even the old dude on the other side of the street who probably can’t hear you anyway). Two seconds later I arrived at the office of my counterpart Fondo Cristiano, but the director Franco wasn’t there. I went into the back where they have a little classroom where the preschool classes are taught, and sat down at the table with all the children and their teacher, Carin. Rural preschools are one of the Fondo’s initiatives that I’ll be working with, so it was cool to see how a class works. The class was kind of barren and dirty, with a couple handmade posters on the walls and some falling-apart labels regarding which corner was for art (no art supplies, though) and which was for motor skills (nada). The Fondo has a curriculum that the preschool teachers must follow which is very similar to preschools in the US, regarding the daily organization and management of the class, as well as the different themes and topics covered, but it seems to me that only some aspects of the curriculum are followed…however, I can’t really made an accurate judgment from one day in one class, so who knows. The teacher had given each child a piece of paper with several squiggly lines, a duck, a bug, and star drawn on it (she had drawn them all by hand), and the kids were to color them in. On the table were about 9 chewed up colored pencils, and the children seemed to be pretty competent sharers. They were all between 4-5 years old, wearing the quintessential Latin American school uniform of a white colored shirt and blue slacks or pleated skirt. The kids were either barefoot or wearing flip-flops, and most of them were rather smudgy-looking. We colored together for a bit, and then I got them up and we stood in a circle. I tried to teach them this simple rhythm game, where I clap a rhythm and they repeat it, but they couldn’t get the concept of waiting until I was done clapping to begin…and most of them would just shriek and clap hysterically while jumping up and down. So it only kind of worked, but that’s all right. Clapping isn’t a real skill, anyway. After that, I spent about half an hour talking to one of the ladies who works in the main office of Fondo, and then I meandered down the main road looking for the post office. A little old man who was sitting on his porch called me over and introduced himself, though it was really hard to understand him ‘cause he didn’t have any teeth. He asked me where I was going and I told him, and he immediately stood up, offered his elbow, and proceeded to escort me like a sweaty pink princess to the post office. His name is Guillermo, and he’s my new friend. The post office turned out to be a ridiculously empty room—it has a small desk, a radio, and two plastic chairs. I asked if the office was functioning, and Wilma, the lady who works there, looked at me like I was crazy and said of course it was. She said if anyone wants to send me a letter or a package, just write my name (or “La Gringa,”) followed by:

Alubarén, F.M.
11310
Honduras

And it will get to me. Personally, I am delighted to be living somewhere where someone can just send a letter addressed to “the gringa,” followed by the town, and I’ll get it…it just makes me feel really badass. Anyway, Wilma and I sat down and she fixed me a bowl of popcorn and a glass of frosty coke and we chatted for almost two hours. She’s awesome. One of her little boys, Hency, will be on my baseball team, and I spent a while watching him push his little brother and sister around in the wheelbarrow, a pastime that I too am quite fond of (thanks, dad!).

After the post office, I walked down to the pulperias and bought two potatoes, three avocados, a pound of tomatoes, a sweet green pepper, two ugly-ass carrots, six eggs, a head of garlic, an onion, and four green bananas. I’m to cook for myself in my home, which I like. I spent the time between buying my food and eating it by sitting in a rocking chair on the porch with my host mom, drinking sugary coffee and watched the crazy rain. Tonight I made tajaditas, which are basically thinly sliced green bananas fried in oil…I know I said I was trying to get away from all the fried stuff, but it’s so delicious. Then I stir-fried all my veggies and heated up some tortillas and ate a delicious gringa meal! I was going to learn to make my own tortillas, but a woman down the path sells delicious little corn ones for dirt cheap, and I’d just as soon eat her delicious ones…plus I’m lazy.

My last days in Santa Rita were extremely pleasant, but it was so sad to leave. I spent as much time as possible with my family, including one epic hike in which I hauled little Javier in my arms up and down the mountains for four hours. The gringos threw our families a good-bye/thank-you party, packed up our belongings, pretended we didn’t have terrible seniorities when it came to those last few days of classes, and booked it outta there. The Swearing In ceremony was really nice—we had it at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and I wore my orange-apple dress. After we swore in, they took us the American ambassador’s home, and we played in his pool and basketball courts, despite the pouring rain. I also explored some of his amazing trees in his beautiful jungle-garden, and that was extremely excellent.

Anyway, ya’ll won’t be hearing from me as often anymore, due to my great distance from any internet connection…but I’ll still write frequently and just upload ‘em all at once. Please send me letters—and now that I’m actually near a post office for once, I will start sending letters out to you all as well.

By the way, it’s my understanding that the Wildcats are 5-0 at the moment—and even all the way down here, I think I can smell a 2009 Pasadena Rose Bowl victory. GO ‘CATS! BEAT THE CHILDREN!!

Love, Hayley

5 October 2008
Hey, chochachos! Dang so I just looked at a bunch of pictures from America Times, back when I lived in America Land and hung out with America Friends and did America Things…and now I’m listening to one of my favorite bathroom mixes (Scott Sode knows what I’m talking about) and I’m just hells of nostalgic for all you guys and stuff. I looked at some pictures from some party we threw last fall quarter in the Tit and it just made me miss America College Times…then I recalled how we used to throw big bags of water off the balcony, and I drew a mental parallel to my current use of bags of water, which is drinking—that’s how they sell water here, in little ½ liter bags…or more like baglettes. You nibble a hole in a corner and suckle away…and if I were to try to throw these Honduran bags of water off a balcony, it probably wouldn’t even explode. Things sure are different here. Or at least, my options for harassing pedestrians from multiple-story altitudes are severely limited.

So, today is my one-week-versary of being in-site…hooty-hoo! I celebrated by cooking dinner for my host family, and by celebrated I mean they informed me they’d decided I would be cooking tonight. I laughed, and they were like “No, really…go for it!” Then there was this five-minute tango of awkwardness as I tried to decipher if they were kidding or not (they weren’t). Sandra, my host mom, told me to “just make us eggs and tomatoes and potatoes,” so I did just that, all mixed together in a frying pan. They seemed to like it, but they also dumped an entire can of jalapenos on top, so I’m not sure how to interpret that. Whatever, it’s just nice to be able to finally cook…we’ve been out of electricity for the past six days, and when all you have is rice, beans, and eggs, that makes eating rather challenging (lots of avocado and tomato, this past week). The lack of electricity normally wouldn’t be an issue but since this house is pretty nice it only has an electric stove, no outdoor wood-burning oven—so we were basically screwed (I also ate a lot of fried chicken from one of the little eateries here. Jesus Cristo I am so sick of fried chicken). Anyway, six days, many avocados and several bucket-baths later, we are now with electricity again, so everything is awesome.

My first week in-site was a little weird. I don’t feel like I’m at home here…I feel like I’m trespassing in someone else’s home, specifically John, the gringo who I am replacing. He is very, very adored by this community, and whoever I might talk to can only gush about what a wonderful, chill volunteer he was. It’s so awesome that they love him so much, and I almost feel like my presence here is just a reminder to them that he’s gone and isn’t coming back (well, I’m sure he will someday). I know that will fade after a while, but I almost feel guilty…I know it’s not that they don’t want me, but I feel like I’m intruding in someone’s home and trying to make their family love me. This week was strange in other ways, too…I feel this pressure to justify my presence here, and it’s very strange to wake up in the morning with no boss and no plans. Because the teachers were striking this week (they do this all the freaking time), there was no school, so I spent most of my time hanging out at the Christian Children’s Fund office (Fondo Cristiano). Obviously I have no projects or work yet, my job right now is just to get to know people. You’d think that’d be a piece of cake, but it’s kind of hard emotionally. I feel very lonely because no one knows me. I don’t really have any friends, which is to expected since I’ve only been here a week. Don’t get me wrong, everyone here is SO FRIENDLY and so loving…but nobody knows me. I know the loneliness will pass, though, so I’m not too worried. It’s so easy to just hide on the porch and read books in English, but I’m trying to force myself to get out and meet people, even though it’s hard. I made a personal rule that I will stop in and sit on the porch/go into the house with at least three new families a day, and it’s been going okay. Everyone seems delighted to meet me, but it’s hard because I can never remember anyone’s names, and several times I’ve enthusiastically introduced myself to someone only to have them inform me that we’ve already met (this keeps freaking happening!). I’m honestly worried I’ll never learn everyone’s names…and then they’re all the aldeas (villages) outside of Alubarén! I never though “meeting people” as a daily task would be so stressful.

However, one thing that does rock is my new coworkers at Fondo Cristiano. The office is two 20-year-olds named Heydi and Helen, one 22-year-old named Edgar, a 24-year-old named Erica, and our “boss,” a laid-back 40-something dude named Franco. They’re all really funny and seem genuinely cool, and I feel so thankful to have them…I think they will become some very good friends here. On Friday (Oct. 3), Heydi and I walked to the nearest town, called Reitoca, to run an errand. It took us a good hour to get there, but it was a beautiful walk, through the hot jungley mountains, with little waterfalls splashing down the sides of the mountains and green, flowering trees everywhere (the trees all seem to be flowering right now, which is delightful). Reitoca is a lot like Alubarén, except slightly more developed and a little bigger. They have a Peace Corps volunteer, too, a Business Project guy named David. He got to his site about five months ago, and it was awesome meeting a new gringo who I can hang out with if I need to speak some English and bitch about the heat. Speaking of heat, it’s actually not that bad right now—turns out it rains every SINGLE day in October here, at about 2:00pm on the dot. It might be sunny and hot all morning, but as soon as afternoon hits, the crazy purple clouds roll in from nowhere, the wind picks up, and the skies just dump sheets of water for a couple hours. Then it’s pretty cool for the rest of the day, which is several kinds of fantastic. The electrical storms here are so intense and awesome. Actually, it’s been raining so much here that there are crazy floods all around Honduras, and the many rivers that carve around the mountains here swelled so much that we were literally stranded—the buses can’t go down or come up here when the rivers get too deep. Still, though, I’m trying to appreciate it because come January, all the rain is going to cease and it’s gonna get hot as nuts here, with the harsh sun all the dang time with no relief.

Spending the week at Fondo was interesting. One of their initiatives is rural preschools, which they (rather confusingly) call “kinders.” One of my main roles here, it seems, is going to be working with the preschool teachers regarding methodology and classroom management. I’ve sat in on several mornings at the preschool here, and it’s a lot of random chaos, with some coloring in between. I’m not sure how exactly I’m going to approach this rather vague task of “making better” these preschools, so if anyone has any cool pre-K resources they want to send me, go for it! (Remember, my address is just Hayley Kercher, Alubarén F.M., 11310, Honduras). I also got to sit on a meeting with the Madre Guias, or the Guide Mothers…that’s another initiative of Fondo in which moms are training in early stimulation, basic nutrition and hygiene, and other topics appropriate for young children, and then they go into the rural villages and work with the moms there. It’s a really sweet program and they (the Madre Guias) do it all as volunteers! The meeting was awesome because I got to meet like 70 new women and many of their children. Then I sat in on a meeting of the mothers of the preschoolers in Alubarén, which was much smaller. I actually got to talk a bit—they were talking about homework, and I suggested that they give their kiddies some “creative” tasks, like “draw an imaginary animal!” Really basic stuff, but the kids here are NOT encouraged to think creatively, so it’s surprising how challenging stuff like this is for them.

This weekend was pretty chill. Today I grabbed some kids and, collecting more and more along the way, we trooped up the hill to the little concrete basketball court that they play fútbol on. We played for about an hour and a half, until the afternoon rain came and we had to run home.

Oh damnit…se fue la luz. If there was one sentence to sum up my Honduras experience so far, that would be it….se fue la luz means “the light’s gone away!” and this loss of electricity basically happens with a greater frequency than I wash my hair (which I do all the time). Anyway, I’d better go before my laptop explodes.

Paz, Hayley

13 October 2008
Hey, chochachos! After being without electricity for the past week, we’re now back in business juice-wise. And I’m only a little bit sick of avocados and bananas. Actually, it works out because all the neighbors know we only have an electric stove, so often I’ll be walking down the road and someone will call out and offer me beans or cheese and tortillas. Or coffee. Or coke. Delicious…I have to say I am developing quite a amorous relationship with coca-cola…I know it’s terrible for me, but it’s so cold and tasty. I think it has something to do with the extreme carbonated beverage restrictions I endured as a child…

I’ve been sleeping alone in the house for the past week or so. Last week, the little old lady who lived behind us died, after which point my host mom Sandra refused to sleep in the house because she was afraid the ghost would bother her. So she, Carlita, and Walmar have all been sleeping in the little bedroom with grandma up the road. They think I’m crazy for politely declining to squeeze myself into that bed with them and opting to sleep in our apparently haunted house. I’ve been sleeping with a machete under my pillow, though, just in case, so if Senora Marijita wafts into my room with malicious intentions I’m all taken care of. The process following a death here is rather intense, actually. The day after she passed away, we went to pay our respects, after stopping at the pulperias to buy a bag of coffee to bring to the family. Just like the other funeral I went to several weeks ago, when we arrived at the house there were just a ton of people standing around, not really talking. Some folks were wearing black, but most were just dressed normally. I followed Sandra into the house, and found a little bed with a tall candle burning on top of each post. In the bed was the woman, laid down with her hands folded on her chest, a lacey, gossamer sheet pulled over her body, and toilet paper stuffed up her nose. At the foot of the bed was about six 3-liter coke bottles, cut in half and filled with beautiful flowers from people’s gardens. As always when I enter a Honduran home, someone immediately leapt up and offered me a plastic chair to sit in, which I proceeded to do in an awkward silence for about 15 minutes, until Sandra gave me usually “Well, let’s go!” and stood to leave. For the next two days, people were milling around in their backyard (aka right outside my window), chatting, laughing, and chanting/singing. I hung around and chatted with the kids through the barbed-wire fence for a couple hours, and we took turns taking pictures. I lent them my camera at their request, and they immediately dashed off into the house. They came back out 10 minutes later and proudly showed my all the extremely-up-close photos they’d taken of the body. They seemed so pleased with their work I just thanked them, but deleted them as soon as I got into my room…I don’t want to give the little-old-lady ghost a reason to harass me.

This past week was great because I got to go on several excursions with one of my friends with Fondo Cristiano, Edgar. He took me to a couple different aldeas (villages), which involved crossing several rivers, hiking up boiling dirt roads, ducking through corn fields, and navigating creeks and muddy paths through the jungley forest. That was the first time I’d ever hiked under the canopy, and it was breathtaking. It was very humid, but I’m willing to sweat to see such amazing stuff. At one point we arrived to a little shallow pool with two waterfalls and several creeks feeding into it, framed by huge trees with their thick vines hanging down, ferns growing everywhere and all the rocks covered in dark green moss. I literally had to sit myself down to enjoy it (and to wash the freaking bitey ants off my ankles. Seriously, little black bitey ants, I hate to hell).

I’m enjoying myself more, now. I’ve taken the kids to go play several times (including a particularly intense game of steal-the-bacon which definitely involved blood-shed and angry words…god these kids play rough), and I’ve made more neighbor-friends, so now wherever I walk there is a usually a child who knows me and shouts “HOLA HEELY!” Or if they, they urgently announce to whoever is nearby, “Here comes the little gringa!” and wave at me. I feel a lot less lonely…the only thing is now all the kids want to play with me nonstop, and know where I live, and I can’t bear to say no to them when they ask to play, so I’ve essentially forfeited my free time. At least I feel like I’m doing someone productive, though.

I’ve made friends with a woman named Lourdes, who is admirably going to high school every day despite the fact she’s in her late 30s and the mother of two. Her older son is a 10-year-old boy named Norlin, who has Down’s Syndrome. She also has a four-year-old named Saul. I met her a while ago at a birthday party (when I first visited Alubarén), and she told me she wanted help with Norlin. The school’s won’t take him, but he’s VERY high-functioning…I can basically talk to him like he’s any other 10-year-old. Anyway, I walked up to their little house today and brought some watercolors, markers, and colored pencils, and did some art with the boys. It was great…Norlin painted all the colors on his paper, and then painstakingly covered it all up with black paint. Little Saul just scribbled on like 15 different sheets with markers. Neither of them know their colors, how to count, or other basic preschool stuff, which obviously isn’t their fault since neither has been to school. Their dad sat with us while we painted, and he told me they have never tried to teach the boys anything like that, because “Norlin can’t learn, and Saul’s too little.” I told him that Norlin can certainly learn, and showed him how to make everything a mini lesson…constantly ask the boys questions, point out the colors, ask them to count, and he (the dad) seemed genuinely excited to start this new angle. By the time I left, Norlin could pretty much identify the color pink without issue! I said I would come work with them and do art stuff every Monday, and they were thrilled. Then we had lunch, which was chicken-foot soup. I’m not kidding. The soup tasted delicious but the chicken foot was the weirdest thing I’ve ever put my mouth on…very rubbery, with bumpy skin and skinny little toes with bones that break apart in your mouth. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t really ever want to eat the feet of any animal again (though I did mentally make a lot of foot-in-mouth puns).

I’m going to try to get to the internet this week…there is some internet in a town called Sabanagrande, which I can get to and return from in the same day. However, the main highway between Tegus and the south (which I would travel on) is closed for the next two days, because a “really big rock” fell from the mountains and is blocking all passage. Oh, Honduras.

Paz,
Hayley