My little preschoolers trying to dance during the Day Against Child Abuse. Please note the obvious struggle against the wind.
Carlita getting her 11am sugar fix, while being snuggled by her sugar-enabler, Mami Sandra. Note the squinchy anger-eyes.
Little Javier, whom you might remember from my first host family, can now toddle a few steps at a time. Here he eagerly approaches the Baby Chute.
Baby Javier loves him some Baby Chute.20 November 2008
Hey, chochachos! So, for the first time in my short Honduran history, I actually felt COLD this week. In Alubarén. Another cold front blew through, which they call a “norte,” again resulting in anyone under the age of 10 and over the age of 60 only daring to brave the elements if well-protected by any number of knit hats, sweaters, and long pants. During the day it was just warm and blustery, and at night it would cool down to where I would have to wear jeans and a sweatshirt, possibly the first time I’ve had to wear such an ensemble since my brief period in the piney mountains of Valle de Angeles. Too bad I forgot I was going to a tropical country when I packed—I literally have like four sweatshirts here, as well as several long-sleeved shirts…maybe I will sew them into drapes. Or cut them into strips and make a hammock. Speaking of hammocks, my neighbor’s sister, Chepa, bought a beautiful, huge handmade hammock because she “felt sorry” for the person selling it, and is now going to sell it to me (though I don’t feel sorry for anybody). It’s even got fringe!! I think you guys know how I feel about fringe. Or maybe you don’t. But I am FOR IT. In other news, this same lady (Chepa) is going to lend me a little wooden bed for my two years here, AND gave me several little cuttings so I can have plant-friends. And for those of you who lived with me in the Tit, I promise I won’t do what I did last year and let my little cuttings sit on the kitchen table and grow algae for like seven months before throwing them away on move-out day. I’m going to teach the plants English, and they shall be my friends.
So there is sort of a “Honduran Murphy’s Law” that I’ve come to accept, meaning that nothing here ever goes as planned and my own personal skills in dealing with disappointment and frustration have really had a chance to develop. So, still preparing for International Day Against Child Abuse on Wednesday, I showed up on Monday and asked how the drama practice had gone with the high school kids on Friday—I’d been unable to attend. Franco, the guy left in charge of this, who is also sort of my boss, just shrugged and smiled and said, “Yes, well, they didn’t show up.” I figured this might happen (see! I’m leaning!) so I had pestered the six students for their phone numbers ahead of time and left the list of names and numbers for Franco. I asked why he hadn’t called them when they failed to show, and he said “Yeah, no…we’re just not gonna do the drama.” So I stabbed him in the face. No actually, I called all the kids and asked why they hadn’t shown up, and each one said they had forgotten. So I told them we were gonna practice tomorrow, Tuessday, at 2:00pm, and could they come? They all promised they would, and in return I promised fresco (soda) and churros (chips). Tuesday at 2:00pm rolls around—no high schoolers. So I call them, and each one has an excuse…one was going to kill a pig, two had headaches, one didn’t answer, and the remaining two were busy but said they’d be right over. Only one came. So by now it’s like 3:00pm, and I’ve got myself one high schooler, and two neighborhood kids I’d hastily snagged in the interim, named Bella and Karen. We quickly wrote a skit, which involved an abusive mother, two little girls, and a caring teacher. After practicing a couple times, I dispatched the kids, agreeing to meet at the park the next morning at 9:00am for the beginning of the program.
Meanwhile, the preschool teacher Karen and I were hastily preparing the little guys to dance (aka waggle their arms to and fro above their heads) to a song about smiling and love, and I was mentally practicing a speech in Spanish I was gonna give at the beginning of the program. We headed over at about 9:30 (“Honduran time”—nothing here starts on time, because the collective agreement is that things will begin an hour or so later than what is officially stated), but (Murphy’s Law) the wind was blowing so strong that we could barely get our stuff set up. The giant board with all the illustrations done by the school kids kept falling over, and we had to tie the giant mural to a tree. We set up our sad little card table with chairs for the “invitees,” which included the school principal, a police officer, and several priests. We set up our PA system, which didn’t work, so we resorted to a megaphone. The preschoolers shrieked and ran around on the play ground, and the chickens and dogs wandered around, and that was about it. No one was there. All this time I had asked how they were getting the word out, and they assured me invitations had been sent out. By about 10:15, our invitees were finally there, and about 15 mothers and their children were sitting on benches in the back of the park. I ran over and begged (literally) for them to come sit in front. They grudgingly did so, and with all the extra school kids scampering around, released from school, it looked like about 40 people were there. If that. I only counted four men, three of whom were the lame smelly dudes who always hang out in the park, and probably would have left if the scene hadn’t looked suspiciously like one that might involve free snacks later (it didn’t). Either way, we had to get moving, so Franco grabbed the megaphone and thanked the “crowd” for coming out for our first annual campaign against child abuse. Then he introduced our invitees, and then said something like, “And now our very special Peace Corps volunteer, Hayley the gringita, will say a few words.” I talked for about five minutes, basically arguing that children have the same rights as adults to live without violence and fear, and that as grown-ups it’s our responsibility to protect them. I talked about how most youth in Honduras have experienced violence in the home, usually from the parents, and how detrimental this is to them psychologically. Then I finally got to say my favorite line, which is “If we plant violence, we will harvest violence.” All in all it was a good speech, and when I was done Franco took the megaphone and said, “Such strong words from our gringita.” Thanks, Franco. Then one of the priests stood up to pray, at which point I snuck behind the tree to call my high school thespian, who was missing. After calling three times, she finally answered. I asked where she was, and was fed the typical Honduran “here comes an excuse” line, “Fijise que....” She said her head hurt too much to come. I argued with her, said it was her responsibility, and that without her we couldn’t do the drama, and she said maybe she could come. I pushed her—yes or no? And she finally said no, she wouldn’t be coming. I was pretty pissed, and went over to tell Bella and Karen we couldn’t do the skit. Alison, another school girl sitting nearby, overheard and marched over to me. “I can be an angry mom!” So the show went on, and it was damn cute. No thanks to stupid high school flakey kids. Then the preschoolers danced around, and it was adorable, and then the police offered talked about god knows what for almost 45 minutes (we lost about half our crowd at this point). All the while, the furious wind is still howling, blowing dust and garbage in everyone’s faces and making it impossible to hear. So my first attempt at a public event was mildly disastrous, but at least it wasn’t humiliating (I wore pants, so there was no skirt-blowing-up-everyone-seeing-gringa-undies situation). And I learned a lot (such as: youth cannot be trusted, invitations don’t work, give police officers strict time limits, wind is lame).
I played with Saul on Monday, and found out their going to bring Norlin back!! I guess I’ll have to wait and see if that’s actually true, but it’s the word on the street and I’m so excited. I also got a package from my parents and some letters. Yay! Tuesday, however, was a sad day for me…one of my best friends here, a really bright, outgoing, involved, and hilarious 16-year-old girl named Maria (fake name…just in case), got into some trouble, and her mom sent her to live with a cousin in San Pedro Sula. She and her boyfriend of four years decided to run away together, and snuck off to his house, which is across the river, in the middle of the night. She was gone several days and her mom didn’t know where she was for half the time. Maria and her boyfriend (who is 18) decided they wanted to be married, and slept together, which was her first time. When she returned home to a frantic mom, the whole thing had spun out of control into the scandal of the year. Her mom took her cell phone away, and is threatening to have the guy arrested—he’s got a really bad rep around town and is known for smoking and drinking. Worse still, Maria was acting under the information that you can’t get pregnant the first time, so she was totally unprotected—and is now sitting alone in some cousin’s house, on the other side of the country, with no phone, no friends, worrying about a potential pregnancy and feeling like shit. She called me the night before she left, and told me to meet her at her aunt’s house. I went over and her mom led me into the backyard. She grabbed me by the shoulders, sobbing, and begged me to “talk some sense” into her kid. She looked straight into Maria’s eyes, still crying, and said that she was a foolish girl who made the worst mistake of her life, and that she would never forgive herself for this, and that she should have followed God and had now just wasted so many years of schooling and money and was good for nothing. She said she had shamed the entire family and didn’t know what else to tell her, and left. So we sat down on the stoop, wrapped in sweatshirts, and I just listened to her silence for a long time. She asked me if it was true you could get pregnant the first time. I said yes. We talked for almost three hours, until nearly midnight…this whole thing is especially tragic because Maria is known around town as one of the most promising kids we’ve got—she’s so smart, comes from a great family, is really involved in the community and is just this loving spark of light. I think that is what makes part of this so hard…EVERYONE knows what happened, and the gossip in this place makes it unbearable. People talk about her like this angel, fallen from grace. She feels like she’s ruined her life. Furthermore, she loves this guy, and her family shuns him and is forcing her to dump him and move to the north coast. She kept saying she wishes she could wake up tomorrow and have this all be a bad dream. I’m worried because I feel like she’s going to get very depressed, all alone with her shame and self-deprecating worry. I tried not to give her too much advice, but I told her to think about what it would be like to marry this guy now, to close all the doors she’s got open in front of her, and I think she realized that it’s not too late to call the thing off and move on. She plans to come back to Alubarén in a couple months, and I got the phone number of her cousin so I can call her when she’s up there. I feel so terrible, though…it’s been a long time since I’ve sat with a friend on the worst day of her entire life. Like Maria, I wish it was all just a dream.
It’s almost Thanksgiving. I miss you, Mimi! When I come back we will eat cheese-stuffed olives with those little wooden sticks and drink Gnarly Head and eat turkey and it will be awesome.
Love,
Hayley
26 November 2008
Hey, chochachos! Dang but if it isn’t Thanksgiving eve once again. Tomorrow I plan on celebrating by finding a quiet place to shed my tears without alarming the locals, followed by a meager dinner of fried Spam (a huge thing here, unfortunately) and alarmingly sweet coffee. Then, dressed as a pilgrim, I shall go to the nearest water front (dirty river) and reenact the landing at Plymouth Rock. Then more Spam, which of course shall include more tears.
PSYYYYCCCHHHH!!! Man I totally had you guys. Suckers. Actually, I’m going to celebrate with some fellow gringos in the south, in San Marcos de Colon. I imagine no Spam will be involved, so it should be a pretty joyous occasion. Though it will be my first Thanksgiving away from family, and my first one in four years not spent with Mimi, which makes me very nostalgic. I wish Scientists would hurry the hell up with that teleportation technology; it would come in fairly handy in these have-your-pumpkin-pie-and-eat-it-too situations.
This Monday was Opening Day here in Alubarén…after weeks of collecting (far too many) children, assessing my gear (far too few gloves), monitoring the rain (not no more), and basically just getting the balls to get off my lazy butt and start, Las Panteras Rural Youth Baseball Team de Alubarén are now ready for action. And if by action you mean bickering for two hours under the hot sun, then yes. I started several weeks ago, with a formal meeting at the elementary school for all interested kids, between the ages of 9-13. Over 20 kids showed up at the meeting, and followed what could potentially be described as “aggressive” recruiting, I accidentally signed up like 40 freaking kids. Someone should have told me baseball teams only have like 9 kids on the field at a time...but it’s too late now. All I can do now is pray someone shanks someone else with a piece of broken glass so I can kick him off the team. Anyway, with my list in hand, one of my baseball kids Cristian and I walked to every single house last weekend (36, to be exact). I would knock and we’d be invited in, sat down, and more often than not given some coffee (I was a shaky, sweaty mess by the last house). I talked to the folks, explained who I was and why I’m not John, the gringo who started the team (usually followed by a series of questions such as, “Yes, but when is John coming back?”). Then I’d give my “we’re starting this Monday, come to the campo, wear tennis if you have them, please bring water, come at 3:00pm sharp, no, not 3:15, but 3:00” speech, and we’d be on our way to the next house and next cup of coffee. On Monday I stepped out of my house at 2:45 to find about eight kids waiting expectantly, most of whom did in fact have water with them. Miracles, people. We trooped over to the field, with little 7-year-old Anner clinging to my hand and rubbing his face up and down my furry arm, as he likes to do (he’s too young for the team, but his big brother Eliezer is playing and I just couldn’t say no to the kid). The campo is Alubarén’s soccer field, and by soccer field I mean huge, pot-holed dirt patch covered with a nice layer of dried cow poop. Horse poop, too. But it’s nice because I can use chunks of dried manure as bases, which is about as eco-friendly as you can get. These “Rural Youth Baseball” teams are a Peace Corps Honduras initiative, so they give us equipment that is donated from folks in the states. We hauled the bags of gear to one corner of Cow Poop Field and I let the kids go through the bags and explore the gear…11 rubber balls, 20-something leather balls, 14 gloves, three bats, five helmets, and some catchers gear. This would be almost plenty for a normal sized team, but 14 gloves don’t go very far with 36 ball-players, so after warming up (one lap running around the field following by stretching) I had to split them into little groups of three to play catch, sharing the one mitt among them (if this description is jerking any heart strings, feel free to find any old, small, little-kid gloves in your garage and send ‘em to us!). We practice every day, from 3-5pm, and while the sun is boil-y and the ground is poop-y, it’s a lot of fun. The boys fight a lot (usually over gloves), and the four girls are won’t stop sassing each other, but they’re a good group of kids. And little Anner spends most of his time drinking water and playing in the dirt.
In other exciting news, I received my bike today from the Peace Corps office! It’s a sweet green mountain bike! HOW DID THEY KNOW I LOVE GREEN. IT IS A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE. I still haven’t picked a name for him yet, but I’m thinking of wheeling him into my room together to snuggle in bed with me. We’re going to be excellent friends, I think.
Everyone in Fondo Cristiano is scrambling to prepare for Dia Mundial de VIH/SIDA, or World AIDS Day, which is December 1. However, since our internal elections are on the 30th, we’ve moved World AIDS Day to December 2…don’t tell anyone. We’re going to do the same type of thing, with little skits, some speakers, a health talk (given by me, since our nurses and doctor will be out of town), and other stuff, including a march around the town with a little marching band. Should be interested…I’ll let you guys know if more than chickens and dogs show up this time.
Finally, in very sad news, of one my favorite fellow Peace Corps volunteers and close friend was recently Administratively Separated, which is PC Office lingo for kicked out. He went to the Honduras-Mexico fútbol game in San Pedro Sula, which is against the rules (we’re not supposed to leave our sites for the first three months unless necessary). One of the PC staff saw him on TV, and that was that. I feel terrible because he loved his community and his work, and was so gung-ho about being a volunteer…not to mention we’re only one month away from being able to see games without punishment. I don’t have much else to say except it really sucks and I wish this wasn’t happening to him. I’ll miss you, buddy.
Paz,
Hayley
Hey, chochachos! So, for the first time in my short Honduran history, I actually felt COLD this week. In Alubarén. Another cold front blew through, which they call a “norte,” again resulting in anyone under the age of 10 and over the age of 60 only daring to brave the elements if well-protected by any number of knit hats, sweaters, and long pants. During the day it was just warm and blustery, and at night it would cool down to where I would have to wear jeans and a sweatshirt, possibly the first time I’ve had to wear such an ensemble since my brief period in the piney mountains of Valle de Angeles. Too bad I forgot I was going to a tropical country when I packed—I literally have like four sweatshirts here, as well as several long-sleeved shirts…maybe I will sew them into drapes. Or cut them into strips and make a hammock. Speaking of hammocks, my neighbor’s sister, Chepa, bought a beautiful, huge handmade hammock because she “felt sorry” for the person selling it, and is now going to sell it to me (though I don’t feel sorry for anybody). It’s even got fringe!! I think you guys know how I feel about fringe. Or maybe you don’t. But I am FOR IT. In other news, this same lady (Chepa) is going to lend me a little wooden bed for my two years here, AND gave me several little cuttings so I can have plant-friends. And for those of you who lived with me in the Tit, I promise I won’t do what I did last year and let my little cuttings sit on the kitchen table and grow algae for like seven months before throwing them away on move-out day. I’m going to teach the plants English, and they shall be my friends.
So there is sort of a “Honduran Murphy’s Law” that I’ve come to accept, meaning that nothing here ever goes as planned and my own personal skills in dealing with disappointment and frustration have really had a chance to develop. So, still preparing for International Day Against Child Abuse on Wednesday, I showed up on Monday and asked how the drama practice had gone with the high school kids on Friday—I’d been unable to attend. Franco, the guy left in charge of this, who is also sort of my boss, just shrugged and smiled and said, “Yes, well, they didn’t show up.” I figured this might happen (see! I’m leaning!) so I had pestered the six students for their phone numbers ahead of time and left the list of names and numbers for Franco. I asked why he hadn’t called them when they failed to show, and he said “Yeah, no…we’re just not gonna do the drama.” So I stabbed him in the face. No actually, I called all the kids and asked why they hadn’t shown up, and each one said they had forgotten. So I told them we were gonna practice tomorrow, Tuessday, at 2:00pm, and could they come? They all promised they would, and in return I promised fresco (soda) and churros (chips). Tuesday at 2:00pm rolls around—no high schoolers. So I call them, and each one has an excuse…one was going to kill a pig, two had headaches, one didn’t answer, and the remaining two were busy but said they’d be right over. Only one came. So by now it’s like 3:00pm, and I’ve got myself one high schooler, and two neighborhood kids I’d hastily snagged in the interim, named Bella and Karen. We quickly wrote a skit, which involved an abusive mother, two little girls, and a caring teacher. After practicing a couple times, I dispatched the kids, agreeing to meet at the park the next morning at 9:00am for the beginning of the program.
Meanwhile, the preschool teacher Karen and I were hastily preparing the little guys to dance (aka waggle their arms to and fro above their heads) to a song about smiling and love, and I was mentally practicing a speech in Spanish I was gonna give at the beginning of the program. We headed over at about 9:30 (“Honduran time”—nothing here starts on time, because the collective agreement is that things will begin an hour or so later than what is officially stated), but (Murphy’s Law) the wind was blowing so strong that we could barely get our stuff set up. The giant board with all the illustrations done by the school kids kept falling over, and we had to tie the giant mural to a tree. We set up our sad little card table with chairs for the “invitees,” which included the school principal, a police officer, and several priests. We set up our PA system, which didn’t work, so we resorted to a megaphone. The preschoolers shrieked and ran around on the play ground, and the chickens and dogs wandered around, and that was about it. No one was there. All this time I had asked how they were getting the word out, and they assured me invitations had been sent out. By about 10:15, our invitees were finally there, and about 15 mothers and their children were sitting on benches in the back of the park. I ran over and begged (literally) for them to come sit in front. They grudgingly did so, and with all the extra school kids scampering around, released from school, it looked like about 40 people were there. If that. I only counted four men, three of whom were the lame smelly dudes who always hang out in the park, and probably would have left if the scene hadn’t looked suspiciously like one that might involve free snacks later (it didn’t). Either way, we had to get moving, so Franco grabbed the megaphone and thanked the “crowd” for coming out for our first annual campaign against child abuse. Then he introduced our invitees, and then said something like, “And now our very special Peace Corps volunteer, Hayley the gringita, will say a few words.” I talked for about five minutes, basically arguing that children have the same rights as adults to live without violence and fear, and that as grown-ups it’s our responsibility to protect them. I talked about how most youth in Honduras have experienced violence in the home, usually from the parents, and how detrimental this is to them psychologically. Then I finally got to say my favorite line, which is “If we plant violence, we will harvest violence.” All in all it was a good speech, and when I was done Franco took the megaphone and said, “Such strong words from our gringita.” Thanks, Franco. Then one of the priests stood up to pray, at which point I snuck behind the tree to call my high school thespian, who was missing. After calling three times, she finally answered. I asked where she was, and was fed the typical Honduran “here comes an excuse” line, “Fijise que....” She said her head hurt too much to come. I argued with her, said it was her responsibility, and that without her we couldn’t do the drama, and she said maybe she could come. I pushed her—yes or no? And she finally said no, she wouldn’t be coming. I was pretty pissed, and went over to tell Bella and Karen we couldn’t do the skit. Alison, another school girl sitting nearby, overheard and marched over to me. “I can be an angry mom!” So the show went on, and it was damn cute. No thanks to stupid high school flakey kids. Then the preschoolers danced around, and it was adorable, and then the police offered talked about god knows what for almost 45 minutes (we lost about half our crowd at this point). All the while, the furious wind is still howling, blowing dust and garbage in everyone’s faces and making it impossible to hear. So my first attempt at a public event was mildly disastrous, but at least it wasn’t humiliating (I wore pants, so there was no skirt-blowing-up-everyone-seeing-gringa-undies situation). And I learned a lot (such as: youth cannot be trusted, invitations don’t work, give police officers strict time limits, wind is lame).
I played with Saul on Monday, and found out their going to bring Norlin back!! I guess I’ll have to wait and see if that’s actually true, but it’s the word on the street and I’m so excited. I also got a package from my parents and some letters. Yay! Tuesday, however, was a sad day for me…one of my best friends here, a really bright, outgoing, involved, and hilarious 16-year-old girl named Maria (fake name…just in case), got into some trouble, and her mom sent her to live with a cousin in San Pedro Sula. She and her boyfriend of four years decided to run away together, and snuck off to his house, which is across the river, in the middle of the night. She was gone several days and her mom didn’t know where she was for half the time. Maria and her boyfriend (who is 18) decided they wanted to be married, and slept together, which was her first time. When she returned home to a frantic mom, the whole thing had spun out of control into the scandal of the year. Her mom took her cell phone away, and is threatening to have the guy arrested—he’s got a really bad rep around town and is known for smoking and drinking. Worse still, Maria was acting under the information that you can’t get pregnant the first time, so she was totally unprotected—and is now sitting alone in some cousin’s house, on the other side of the country, with no phone, no friends, worrying about a potential pregnancy and feeling like shit. She called me the night before she left, and told me to meet her at her aunt’s house. I went over and her mom led me into the backyard. She grabbed me by the shoulders, sobbing, and begged me to “talk some sense” into her kid. She looked straight into Maria’s eyes, still crying, and said that she was a foolish girl who made the worst mistake of her life, and that she would never forgive herself for this, and that she should have followed God and had now just wasted so many years of schooling and money and was good for nothing. She said she had shamed the entire family and didn’t know what else to tell her, and left. So we sat down on the stoop, wrapped in sweatshirts, and I just listened to her silence for a long time. She asked me if it was true you could get pregnant the first time. I said yes. We talked for almost three hours, until nearly midnight…this whole thing is especially tragic because Maria is known around town as one of the most promising kids we’ve got—she’s so smart, comes from a great family, is really involved in the community and is just this loving spark of light. I think that is what makes part of this so hard…EVERYONE knows what happened, and the gossip in this place makes it unbearable. People talk about her like this angel, fallen from grace. She feels like she’s ruined her life. Furthermore, she loves this guy, and her family shuns him and is forcing her to dump him and move to the north coast. She kept saying she wishes she could wake up tomorrow and have this all be a bad dream. I’m worried because I feel like she’s going to get very depressed, all alone with her shame and self-deprecating worry. I tried not to give her too much advice, but I told her to think about what it would be like to marry this guy now, to close all the doors she’s got open in front of her, and I think she realized that it’s not too late to call the thing off and move on. She plans to come back to Alubarén in a couple months, and I got the phone number of her cousin so I can call her when she’s up there. I feel so terrible, though…it’s been a long time since I’ve sat with a friend on the worst day of her entire life. Like Maria, I wish it was all just a dream.
It’s almost Thanksgiving. I miss you, Mimi! When I come back we will eat cheese-stuffed olives with those little wooden sticks and drink Gnarly Head and eat turkey and it will be awesome.
Love,
Hayley
26 November 2008
Hey, chochachos! Dang but if it isn’t Thanksgiving eve once again. Tomorrow I plan on celebrating by finding a quiet place to shed my tears without alarming the locals, followed by a meager dinner of fried Spam (a huge thing here, unfortunately) and alarmingly sweet coffee. Then, dressed as a pilgrim, I shall go to the nearest water front (dirty river) and reenact the landing at Plymouth Rock. Then more Spam, which of course shall include more tears.
PSYYYYCCCHHHH!!! Man I totally had you guys. Suckers. Actually, I’m going to celebrate with some fellow gringos in the south, in San Marcos de Colon. I imagine no Spam will be involved, so it should be a pretty joyous occasion. Though it will be my first Thanksgiving away from family, and my first one in four years not spent with Mimi, which makes me very nostalgic. I wish Scientists would hurry the hell up with that teleportation technology; it would come in fairly handy in these have-your-pumpkin-pie-and-eat-it-too situations.
This Monday was Opening Day here in Alubarén…after weeks of collecting (far too many) children, assessing my gear (far too few gloves), monitoring the rain (not no more), and basically just getting the balls to get off my lazy butt and start, Las Panteras Rural Youth Baseball Team de Alubarén are now ready for action. And if by action you mean bickering for two hours under the hot sun, then yes. I started several weeks ago, with a formal meeting at the elementary school for all interested kids, between the ages of 9-13. Over 20 kids showed up at the meeting, and followed what could potentially be described as “aggressive” recruiting, I accidentally signed up like 40 freaking kids. Someone should have told me baseball teams only have like 9 kids on the field at a time...but it’s too late now. All I can do now is pray someone shanks someone else with a piece of broken glass so I can kick him off the team. Anyway, with my list in hand, one of my baseball kids Cristian and I walked to every single house last weekend (36, to be exact). I would knock and we’d be invited in, sat down, and more often than not given some coffee (I was a shaky, sweaty mess by the last house). I talked to the folks, explained who I was and why I’m not John, the gringo who started the team (usually followed by a series of questions such as, “Yes, but when is John coming back?”). Then I’d give my “we’re starting this Monday, come to the campo, wear tennis if you have them, please bring water, come at 3:00pm sharp, no, not 3:15, but 3:00” speech, and we’d be on our way to the next house and next cup of coffee. On Monday I stepped out of my house at 2:45 to find about eight kids waiting expectantly, most of whom did in fact have water with them. Miracles, people. We trooped over to the field, with little 7-year-old Anner clinging to my hand and rubbing his face up and down my furry arm, as he likes to do (he’s too young for the team, but his big brother Eliezer is playing and I just couldn’t say no to the kid). The campo is Alubarén’s soccer field, and by soccer field I mean huge, pot-holed dirt patch covered with a nice layer of dried cow poop. Horse poop, too. But it’s nice because I can use chunks of dried manure as bases, which is about as eco-friendly as you can get. These “Rural Youth Baseball” teams are a Peace Corps Honduras initiative, so they give us equipment that is donated from folks in the states. We hauled the bags of gear to one corner of Cow Poop Field and I let the kids go through the bags and explore the gear…11 rubber balls, 20-something leather balls, 14 gloves, three bats, five helmets, and some catchers gear. This would be almost plenty for a normal sized team, but 14 gloves don’t go very far with 36 ball-players, so after warming up (one lap running around the field following by stretching) I had to split them into little groups of three to play catch, sharing the one mitt among them (if this description is jerking any heart strings, feel free to find any old, small, little-kid gloves in your garage and send ‘em to us!). We practice every day, from 3-5pm, and while the sun is boil-y and the ground is poop-y, it’s a lot of fun. The boys fight a lot (usually over gloves), and the four girls are won’t stop sassing each other, but they’re a good group of kids. And little Anner spends most of his time drinking water and playing in the dirt.
In other exciting news, I received my bike today from the Peace Corps office! It’s a sweet green mountain bike! HOW DID THEY KNOW I LOVE GREEN. IT IS A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE. I still haven’t picked a name for him yet, but I’m thinking of wheeling him into my room together to snuggle in bed with me. We’re going to be excellent friends, I think.
Everyone in Fondo Cristiano is scrambling to prepare for Dia Mundial de VIH/SIDA, or World AIDS Day, which is December 1. However, since our internal elections are on the 30th, we’ve moved World AIDS Day to December 2…don’t tell anyone. We’re going to do the same type of thing, with little skits, some speakers, a health talk (given by me, since our nurses and doctor will be out of town), and other stuff, including a march around the town with a little marching band. Should be interested…I’ll let you guys know if more than chickens and dogs show up this time.
Finally, in very sad news, of one my favorite fellow Peace Corps volunteers and close friend was recently Administratively Separated, which is PC Office lingo for kicked out. He went to the Honduras-Mexico fútbol game in San Pedro Sula, which is against the rules (we’re not supposed to leave our sites for the first three months unless necessary). One of the PC staff saw him on TV, and that was that. I feel terrible because he loved his community and his work, and was so gung-ho about being a volunteer…not to mention we’re only one month away from being able to see games without punishment. I don’t have much else to say except it really sucks and I wish this wasn’t happening to him. I’ll miss you, buddy.
Paz,
Hayley
2 comments:
Hayley, you're my hero. Seriously, you just rock. :-)
Proud of you, Blondie, and again, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
Holler. Hope you're enjoying your music... and your new bed! I don't think there's anything regrettable about buying a nice bed. You're earning good nights of sleep.
Does anyone in Honduras think you're a prophet? ...I'm serious.
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