right now!

29 March 2009
Hey, chochachos! WHOOPS HELLS OF DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE I LAST WROTE ANYTHING ON THIS THING. And I’ve been near the internet a whole lot in the past couple weeks, too…but I just didn’t have time to write anything beforehand. Sorry, man. Now then, first thing first:
IGOR’S WEINER IS JUST FINE, THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR GREAT AND PROFOUND CONCERN. I took him to the vet and they did some blood work AND stuck that little poo-stick up his butthole, so he was totally pissed at me afterwards and gave me the silent treatment for several hours. It turns out he has a blood parasite (doesn’t that sound INSANE?!), so they put him on some strong antibiotics, as well as some pink pepperminty goo I squirt into his mouth, which allegedly is protecting his stomach from the strong-ness of the pills. He seems to be fine now (All Quiet on the Wiener Front, hahahaha) so that’s awesome. Though my neighbors all think I’m insane for giving PILLS to a DOG (though not nearly as insane as they think I am for my planned castration of poor Igor, which they find unfair and cruel). And I arrived home yesterday to find that Kaiser, Igor’s brother and our neighbor, was quite sick himself and hadn’t eaten in three or four days…he looked like some kind of terrible beige-colored skeleton-dog and was refusing everything I shoved in front of him, from baloney to scrambled eggs to dog food to milk. It was crazy how much he had physically deteriorated in the week I was away from home. His eyes were sort of half-shut, his nose was dry, he wasn’t walking or playing, and he totally looked like he was about to die. He wouldn’t even drink water. I had some of those needle-less syringes that I use to squirt aforementioned pink goo into Igor’s mouth, so I bought a bag of milk and force fed the whole thing to Kaiser over the course of 24 hours. I totally felt like those vets on Animal Planet now, all speakin’ with an affected British accent and wearing scrubs with dog bones and paw prints on them….Kaiser woke up this morning (sometimes he and Igor have slumber parties under my bed and stay up all night giggling and chewing on opposite ends of the same sock) and ate half a scrambled egg on his own, and this evening he ate a cup of dog food, too. He spent about an hour running around with Igor and is now asleep under my bed (again), so it looks like we’re in the clear...hooray, man. I have no idea what he was sick with, though according to Tina (his owner, my neighbor, Igor’s aunt and pet-sitter), he stopped eating shortly after he was vaccinated against rabies from a traveling medical brigade that passed through, so maybe it had something to do with that. Either way, Kaiser is doing much better and so is Igor.

Igor, actually, is doing better than good…he’s AWESOME. He’s growing like a small horse, despite the “trashy garbage dog food” I feed him, as the vet calls it. They always sneer down at me when I admit I feed him the cheapest dog food on the market, then whip out honest-to-god pamphlets about Pedigree and Science Diet, both of which are sold in Tegucigalpa for millions of dollars. Or whatever, I don’t know how much but it’s a freaking lot more than “Dogui” which is what Igor happily eats. I tried explaining to the vet that that’s all they sell in my town, and I don’t want to haul huge sacks of Science Diet Pro-Plan for Adolescent Dogs or whatever the hell all the way to my pueblo, but I’m not kidding anybody—Igor eats the bargain-bin stuff cause I’m cheap as hell. Sorry, little man. But I supplement his diet with raw chicken and scrambled eggs and such, so he doesn’t get all lame inside. Not that Igor could ever be lame…he’s so perfect. I really lucked out because I’ve begun to realize he is the CHILLEST puppy in the world. He travels with me on long, hot bus rides, all the way to the south or through the city or wherever, only to arrive to a strange new house or apartment or wherever we’re crashing for the night, and he never freaks out. He sits up on my lap and contemplates the lowly, ambulating street dogs as we cruise along on the bus, or settles down under my feet to sleep (though sometimes I forget about him and he army-crawls underneath all the seats, only to emerge between a startled lady’s legs at the other end of the bus). Once at my friends’ house (we’ve done this three times now, with three different friends), he finds a nice hunk of floor to lay on and just sits back and watches the action…none of this insane HOLY-GOD-IM-A-PUPPY-SO-IM-GONNA-RUN-AROUND-NON-STOP-AND-GO-CRAZY bullshit. No way. Igor is all like “whatever man the floor is nice” and just hangs out. He does have his crazy playful moments, but they’re just that—moments. ALSO he never pees inside, ever. And will tell the hostess her salsa is delicious when actually it’s a little heavy on the mango.

All right enough crazy-dog-lady rants. Other things that are new with me….I celebrated my 23rd birthday on March 9th, which was rather uneventful and relaxed, pretty much like any other day…except word spread pretty quick so I received many hugs and ‘congratulations!’ from my townfolks. My neighbors Tina and Nely and the kids had planned to make fried chicken and such and eat it with me, but Alex missed the bus coming into the pueblo from Tegus, and he had all the ingredients, so we had to postpone til the next day (it was delicious and we made chocolate-banana smoothies instead of cake, which are AWESOME). On my actual birthday evening, about 10 Evangelical missionaries from North Carolina showed up, as they do every year, so I ended up celebrating my birthday by eating real SANDWICHES, which is my favorite food, with real Southern Baptists, which is not my favorite food (good news for them, that would suck to come down here expecting to evangelize people and instead get eaten by a Peace Corps volunteer). They built Alubarén’s Evangelical church, and come back about once to year, to venture out into the surrounding villages and save people’s souls from eternal damnation. I am very good friends with the pastor of the church here (his kids play on my baseball team), and he asked me a couple days in advance if I could help the gringos with the translating, since none of them speak Spanish and their usual translators couldn’t make it, or something along those lines. I’m still not sure why exactly I said yes, since translating for missionaries teeters very precariously on the edge of actually evangelizing people myself, which is counter to my purpose here in Honduras, both officially and personally. I thought it would be fun to translate (it wasn’t, really) and that it would be fun to hang out with other Americans for a week (it was). But my own moral code is very much against taking advantage of people living in poverty and wiping out their own culture and replacing it with my own, so it was a very uncomfortable week and to be honest, I regret doing it. I spent most of the week helping the gringas play with the local kids, while the gringos helped built a church. Playing with the kids is great, in and of itself, but when it came time to translate Bible stories and prayers, I felt awful. A voice kept screaming in my head “WHAT THE HELL HAYLEY YOU’RE NOT IN HONDURAS TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT JESUS CHRIST” but I had made a promise to the pastor and I didn’t want to wreck my relationship with him. The missionaries were extremely nice, and it was clear they were down here because they want to help…but it’s just so conflicting for me as a sustainable development worker. They roll out in their personal bus to the poorest villages, chucking candy and toys at kids out of the back of the moving truck, and hand out jewelry, food, clothes, Beanie Babies, and more toys to the locals that immediately gather around them. I know it feels good to give to the poor, but it just makes it harder for me when they’re gone (all the time, people come up at me and ask me what I’ve got for them). It also breeds dependence and reinforces this mental hierarchy they’ve got that gringos are better than brown people, and they we’re all rich and will come down and hand things out to them. It’s true that a free bag of rice or a new shirt are amazing gifts that they treasure, but handing out little sacks of goodies once in a while doesn’t do any good in the long run, and is actually detrimental. I understand why they do it (it feels so good to see a kid smile because of something you did), but that’s exactly it—it’s a selfless act that is selfish at the same time. Anyway, I hope none of my new missionary friends in North Carolina read this, because I never told them how I felt about their decision to come to Honduras (I’m a wuss and ever since I stupidly brought up Obama on the first day I realized avoiding confrontation was the easiest route) and they probably have no idea how uncomfortable I was or how negatively I feel about missionary work in general. If you ARE reading this, dudes, no hard feelings—you were all really nice and I liked getting to know you. And you guys had the BEST snack table in the whole pueblo, hands down.

In other news, I just spent a whole week in Valle de Angeles (pine-fresh mountain town where I spent much of my training time, living with Suyapa and the kiddies) for a training on a youth program I am going to be implementing in the high school. It’s called Youth to Youth, and it’s a rather intensive “welcome to the workforce” workshop that lasts for months, facilitating that necessary WHO-AM-IIIIIIIIII?! moment where the kids can search inside their innermost soul and decide which of the six sectors in the economic market they wish to pursue. It’s funny, because I remember being 16 and none of my career goals I had at the moment (journalist, whale-trainer at Sea World (yes I know most girls let go of this after 6th grade)) panned out—and all those aptitude tests are sort of bullshit, anyway. But it’s a good program because after the initial WHO-AM-IIIII?! period it instructs the kiddies on how to build a resume, search for and apply for a job, how to not botch an interview, etc., which are all good solid skills they definitely need if they want to find a job and will not learn out here in the campo. I decided to just angrily leap over the whole teacher mess, and brought my rad 19-year-old coworker from the NGO where I work. Her job is working with the youth in Alubarén, so it’s perfect. And she’s a cutie who knows how to work the ubiquitous Honduran woman outfit (extremely tight and tapered jeans, polyester tank top so tight that the fat squeezes out at the armpit holes and in the obligatory 1-2 inch gap between the pants and the hem of the shirt; perfectly color-coordinated button earrings; high heels), so I know the guys will show up. The training in Valle was really fun, actually, and lots of my fellow gringo friends were their, with their own counterparts in tow. The place had cable TV and a pool and hot showers, and served sandwiches several times during the week, so I was basically in heaven. And I came two days early to visit with Suyapa and the kids, which was also awesome—we took all the neighborhood kids on a big picnic adventure in the woods and I spent about six hours sliding down pine-needley hills on my butt, hurling pinecones down the mountain, deliberately smearing sap on my fingers, and all sorts of other pine-fresh-mountain activities that living in the dust bowl of the south so cruelly deprives me of.

After the workshop, I went to Tegus for the night instead of going home so I could visit with my “crazy Honduran hippie dude friends” who I met through a strange chain of connections and rather adore. They live in a house that is about as tree-house-esque as it could be without actually being IN a dang tree, which is AWESOME. So we spent the evening chilling and listening to sweet music and eating delicious chicken and such. Then we went to see a PLAY (whaaaat, fine arts in Honduras??), which was part of some sort of theatre festival being put on by their university. To be honest, the play was terrible and boring and I actually fell ASLEEP for part of it, but I think that speaks more to my newfound old-lady-hood than the script. I also think I was totally crashing a date, but I’m pretty much used to being awkward so I just tried not to notice the making out. Then we went home and I slept on the floor in a borrowed sleeping bag, with visions of seeing Igor after 8 long days of separation dancing in my head.

I’d better get going…it’s nearly ten o’clock and that makes me want to crawl under my mosquito net and sweat myself to sleep.
Love,
Hayley
p.s. Dude, twice this week I have awakened to discover several turds in my latrine. Turds I did not leave there the night before. What the HELL people. Someone is totally hopping my fence in the dark of the night to drop a deuce in my own personal wooden pooping room, OR there is some kind of asshole ghost who isn’t considerate enough to dump the requisite bowl of water in the toilet afterwards. But we know that can’t be it, cause ghosts don’t poo, and I also noticed lots of excessively wadded-up paper in my little soiled-paper-bag I got hanging off the door, and I myself am a folder, not a wadder. So tonight I’m gonna sleep next the latrine, hidden amongst my oregano and tomato plants, and when the mystery pooper arrives I’m gonna throw water on him and yell cusses real loud in English.

April 4 2009
Hey, chochachos! Man, my cursor isn’t blinking. Is that a sign of computer death? QUICK SOMEONE GO CHECK ON WEBMD.COM RIGHT NOW COOL THANKS LET ME KNOW

Anyway. So today was the “big day” aka “the day Las Panteras de Alubarén play against Los Rayos de Reitoca” aka our first baseball game, which EVERYONE (me, my kids, Reitoica, David, the President of the United States Mister Barack Obama) (really, he sent me a e-mail about it) assumed we would totally take home bundled up in a neat little package, stowed in our well-seasoned athletic pockets. However, we did not mop the proverbial dirt lot with Reitoca…to the contrary, they beat us 9-2, which was astounding to all and almost too much for my poor Panteras to bear. I think David must be the world’s best baseball coach (though I am thinking of reporting him to the Peace Corps for giving his kids steroids, which I think is pret-tay obvious). They’d only been practicing three weeks! We’ve been at it basically daily since November! The only calls for a strong, guttural WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. Anyway. I guess time does not necessarily trump “real baseball skill and knowledge on the part of the coach.” Fortunately, it was just a “partido de amistad” aka a scrimmage that doesn’t mean anything, which I reminded my baseball kids basically nonstop. I tried to go the goofy route and did a lot of hysterical pretend-crying fits after we lost, which as those of you who know me will concur, is my go-to move for making upset children laugh. Laugh they did, but it was obvious they were really disappointed/pissed…the game was so freaking intense. I had the hugest butterflies in my stomach and felt quite sad when we lost…I didn’t realize I cared so much. But I think it was mostly due to mistakes we made (for example, I put all my 7-8 year olds batting, fielding, and pitching first, so that they’d get the experience since they won’t be playing in the real championship, which was a huge mistake…I guess I shoulda opened the game with the big kids and closed with the little guys…Reitoca got ahead and we never caught up). Plus they were several rules I didn’t know about (god-damn in-field fly rule BULLSHIT), and my pitchers aren’t all that super terrific amazing. PLUS it was hot as freaking NUTS and there was no shade and despite hats, sunglasses, and extreme re-layering of SPF 50 sunscreen, we all (well, mostly me, since they’re brown) got wicked sunburns.

But all is well….we dried our tears and my whole team and I retreated to my house to lounge on the warm tile floors, stand in front of the fan, listen to the Beatles (sorry no reggaeton) and drown our sorrows in six liters (literally) of ice-cold Coca-Cola and 42 (literally) little bags of churros, which are chips…among the 20 of us. Despite the disappointing lose, the two hours we spent together were lovely and I for one was filled with a genuine love of life once the loss was put in perspective. As I told them, in life you have to learn to win and you have to learn to lose, and this was a perfect lesson in disappointment. Then the kids enthusiastically completed two one-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzles (thanks, Whitney!), which was astonishing. We chilled and chatted (at one point I got very coach-y and made them go around the room and say one thing they liked about the game (our two runs) and one thing they would like to improve on personally. But mostly I just laid in the hammock and drank Coke and watched the kids do puzzles. We’re taking next week off (Semana Santa, chochachos!) and then we got five days to practice for the Regional Championship, which is April 18th.

Anyway. Dang. But today was awesome, anyway…after the boys left, I took a shower, ate some mangos, and went to hang out with Nely, Tina, Ruben, and the kiddies. We decided it was silly that there was a river nearby with mango-rich trees that we weren’t taking advantage of, so we headed out into the sunburned hills and clamored across dry river beds and squeezed through boulders that, despite being in the shade, were almost hot to the touch. Finally we arrived at the mango-shaded pond and everyone flung themselves in almost frantically. After we cooled down everyone, including little 20-month-old Douglas, collected ripe soft mangos, freshly fallen to the ground, and we all laid in the sweaty shade and gorged, with occasional re-dipping in the pond when one began to dry off. Then we hiked back and here I am, eating pasta I made with my very own homegrown oregano, as well as a bunch of delicious vegetation ingredients brought from the local veggie stand. And a whole stick of margarine. I’m typing and listening to awesome jams and enjoying the discomfort of the heat (better than being cold, that’s what I always say….it may suck but at least I can walk around in board shorts and a tee shirt and a ponytail and that’s it; I freaking hate being cold…). But I think now that it’s nearly five o’clock I’m gonna go outside and enjoy afternoon-becoming-dusk, which is the most delightful part of the day here.
……….two hours later.
Man, I just got back from like two hours out back in my garden. It was so lovely out where I can’t even describe it…though I’m going to, right now, just because I want to. If that sort of thing bores you maybe you want to scroll back up and look at some pictures or something. Get a soda. Read a magazine. Make me a sandwich.

First I dumped about half my pila on all my plants in my wild and somewhat scrubby garden I’ve got going on (a real delight, being able to water plants these days). I got my melon patch, my tomato, my oregano, all the fruit trees, all the grasses and shrubs, as well as the rough, rooty ground cover that manages to grow back where I water a lot. Then I dragged out two plastic chairs, one for my butt and one for my feets, kicked off my chacos, and had me a nice sit. It was sort of like that Creedence song “doo, doo, dooooo, lookin’ out my back door,” ‘cept it wasn’t a door, which is even better (doorways are so restricting, you know?). Igor and Kaiser came out and scratched up and then flopped down in the fresh med underneath my little lime tree, and we just laid back and listened. Sometimes I can’t even handle how much I love this place, even though it’s hot as balls and dry and stuff, not to mention mondo poor…I just love Alubarén so much. We chilled out in the warm evening air, finally relieved of the burning sun which had ducked behind the ridge of the green mountain bowl in which we live. I laid back and just existed. Listened to the cicada chorus…low ones, high pitched whiny ones, chirpy ones, deep droney ones…layered upon the cicadas were all the birds crying out and singing, coming out of hiding to taking advantage of the bugs, which were plentiful. We watched dragonflies and gnats and mosquitoes and bees cruise along, and if I relaxed my eyes and adjusted my perception enough to see the farthest possible point, I counted up to nine sopilotes (immense beautiful black buzzards) drifting and swirling way up in the blue sky, so distant they were just specks in the distance. The garden was making the nice settling noise that freshly watered dirt does, and I could hear the cows belching and groaning all over the place as the wrinkled farmer dudes, machetes swinging, walked them back to their homes after a day of grazing up in the hills. Like always, I could hear children everywhere…little girls squealing, babies crying, three teenage boys earnestly chatting about something as they passed by, and some lone toddler off somewhere calling out “mamaaaaaaaa” over and over again. I could hear my neighbor splashing bowls of water on herself out in the backyard, who was also listening to some Mexican ranchera on her radio. As the afternoon faded into a bluer evening, and little details like flower petals and ants on a tree branch and bright green seedlings spouting in my compost head dissolved, I rolled my head back and watch the moon for a while, a nice bright pearl color. It’s almost full, and as one my baseball boys commented the other day, it looks like someone was out with their eraser and soppily removed part of the moon’s edge. I found the first star, and made the obligatory wish, out loud in English. I know it doesn’t count if you say it aloud, but since no one can understand me here, I figure it’s the same as saying it in my head.

Sometimes I don’t think I ever want to live anywhere but here, in my little two-room tin-roof house, out here in the campo with my dog and the cows and my plants, playing with children all day and relaxing all evening. If only all you guys weren’t way over there…come on dudes come down and live here with me so I never have to leave! Please!

I’m sick of sitting in front of this computer. Plus I ate literally about 10 orange mangos today so I need to go be horizontal…a job made easy by my hammock.

I love you guys. Hooray!
Love,
Hayley