Scumbag 2, before we kil't him.
Obed looks so....excited!
a very deadly baby black coral snake, waiting to bite my ass in my latrine.
igor enjoys laying in the sand pile and scraping said sand into his crotch.
"it's true."
hell YES i scored the only dang goal during donkey polo
oh, serafin. my noble steed.
you can't really tell, but that kid is wearing GLOVES! cheater! thinking-ahead-cheater!
someday, after his immigration to the states, im gonna make igor his very own giant sand-box in the shade.Dos de mayo 2009
Hey, chochachos! Man I should come up with a new greeting, huh…that’s gettin’ pretty old, you know? Alright…from now on I shall be greeting this blog with a “Howdy, dudes,” or at least until that one gets boring, too. Case CLOSED. *gavel noise*
Howdy, dudes,
I want you all to know that me writing this blog right now is an intense bodily sacrifice, because my butt was destroyed (literally, it might fall off!) in a recent Donkey Polo competition in which we kicked some ass and lost profoundly to a Honduran team of dudes on donkeys, playin’ polo. Those have got to be the BONIEST critters in the whole entire dang animal kingdom. I’m going to suggest tiny saddles for next year. So anyway, that’s why sittin’ in this here wooden chair is so ouchy. But that’s why god invented hammocks…they cushion one’s pompis in a way grounded seats never will. Blessed are the hammocks. I suppose this machine IS a laptop, I could conceivably take it me on a journey to the hammock in the other (the only other) room. But it’s kind of heavy and extremely burny (this is the Chubby Chunk 2001 of dell, 6 years ago)..the old guy is finally dying a slow and painful death, and in doing so has made himself very fragile. My butt doesn’t hurt so bad that I can’t stay here and write a bit more.
So yeah, Donkey Polo was this past weekend in the little cobblestoney pueblo of Yuscuran, in the department of Danli (I think…or maybe it’s El Paraiso…anyway). It was beautiful, at least compared to certain parts of the south. Lots of pine trees, very hilly. Igor and I trekked up to Tegus Friday morning, and a certain somebody got his blood drawn, nuts inspected, ears washed, and endured an awful plastic stick up his poor little fluffy hiney. Once the vet was done, Igor and I hopped on a bus headed toward Yuscuran, plus several other gringos we’d hooked up with at the Secret Clubhouse aka the volunteer lounge at the PC office. Unlike previous encounters with city buses, in which a shake of my sassy gringa hair and a beaming smile of sassy gringa teeth was all the convincing necessary, the dudes on the bus were totally NOT interested in having Igor climb aboard. He’s not even that big! He only weighs 40 lbs, and that’s 40 pounds of LOVE. I had to plead and cajole the bus driver for like 30 seconds, walking alongside the moving bus and shouting into the folding door how “bien educado” (well behaved) and “super aseado” (super clean) little Igor is. They finally let us on, under the conditions that we “move immediately to the very last seat in this damn bus,” which we promptly did. It was weird, usually Igor is a hit on the buses, ‘cause he does cute things like stick his head out the window and guerilla-warfar-crawl on his elbows around under people’s seats, waggling his tail). But this bus was totally anti-dog…stupid city folk. The women were all fresa (prissy) about it, makin’ gross-out noises and dramatically yanking their elbows away from his wet, snuffling nose…the teenage girls in the typical navy-and-white school uniforms behind him would all scream hysterically if Igor turned his head toward them, and one lady kept yanking her kid’s feet away from Igor’s face, even though he was totally just sleeping on the floor. Needless to say I was relieved when we finally arrived and stepped down off the bus. The volunteer who lives here’s house was just 4 blocks down the hill, and the great gringo train chugga-chugged off for the first time in many that weekend. It was just a blasty-blast, a great big ol bunch of folks smushed into that tiny house, hangin’ out at nights on her concrete roof and spending the day hours hikin’ around the protected Park area, sleeping (Igor like to be the little spoon), eatin’, wandering around the pueblo, loitering by the central park, and engaging in general FunTimes. This weekend was also Yuscuran’s annual Mango Festival, so there were loads of people, dancing, and singing and selling tasty food and a jillion pounds of mangos. And, of course, there was the 13th Annual Donkey Polo Championship, which we lost for the 13th time in a row. It wasn’t fair, those Hondurans grabbed all the good donkeys first, and all the gringos (the other team) were left with the stationary, ornery ones. Unfair advantage, I say! But I did manage to steal a certain donkey “Serafin,” who was, according to the word on the street, “bueno.” In this situation, the word on the street was the group of four 4th grade kids who I met on the sidewalk and befriended over the course of 15 minutes. I then paid them a grand total of seven lollipops (bonbones) to hold Igor’s leash and keep up with the pack of donkeys, so he could see me and thus not freak the heck out (poor dude gets nervous when we’re out of the countryside, and doesn’t tolerate being separated from me). Those kids did a terrific job, scrambling after the pack of 40 donkeys walking, trotting and running (what they do is too jarring to be called a canter, if you ask me) around the central park, Igor nearly ripping their arms out of their sockets as he strained to run after me, while a dude shouted to the public about the impending game. We then “paraded” over to the old high school concrete soccer court, where we would be playing the game. We had three subbing periods, and lost like 30-1, but it was still a hilarious blast. Some people fell off! That “1” point we had, by the way, was scored by yours truly, aboard the good-ship Serafin. Ahem. NO BIG DEAL. After Peace Corps I may consider a career as a professional polo rider-person…what are they called? Polo players? That sounds right. Im’a become a Professional Polo Player. A PPP.
Getting’ home from Yuscuran proved somewhat more challenging at first, as the only bus that would have taken me to Tegus in time to catch the bus to my pueblo refused to let me and my dog aboard…caninists. I almost cried for a second, then I realized “wait a minute, you can just get a sweet jalon dude,” and promptly lifted my chin and sauntered over to the nearest corner. A truck passed. I waved at em and jerked my head but they waggled their fingers at me to say “no we’re not going far,” and so I waited for the next. Drank some juice out of a bag. Igor peed. Another truck drove by, a shiny red double-cabin pick-up with a nice plastic lined bed, totally empty. Jalon jackpot. I waved at em…they pulled right over and rolled down their windows and smiled at me. Some young couple, obviously from Tegus, driving home from visiting the Mango Festival. I asked em where they were headed and they told me Tegucigalpa, at which point I totally turned on my smiley-gringa faucet full-blast and exclaimed, “Oh, WOW! Could you maybe give me a lift there?” They offered me a seat in the cabin but I gestured to my dog and said it’d be better if I rode in the truck bed (which I totally prefer). They said of course, I said you have saved my life, thank god, may little tiny god bless your souls, and then lifted Igor into the truck paila and then launched myself in as well. Just as they started to pull away, another dude from my Peace Corps group can running down the hill, screaming “WAIT! WAIT!” in English. I slapped the side of the car a couple times to signify “hey stop for a sec” and shouted that he better ask them first before he just jumps in. He ran around, gringo-charmed them, and then jumped in the bed with me and Igor. The three of us then sailed to Tegus in style, the sun warming our faces (which were lathered with sunscreen), the wind in our hair, the sky in our eyes and the trees in our noses (too much?). It took about an hour, exactly half the time it took to travel the same distance on bus (we actually passed the bus that had shunned me and I totally stuck my tongue out as rudely as possible). Then Igor and I took a cab to the market where my bus was waiting, and caught the 11:30am bus (last one of the day to my pueblo), arriving to the street where the buses are parked with enough time to peruse the market, buying random things (two spoons, a mug, a good kitchen knife, and two forks) as well as tasty things (cheese, big mangos, fresh, juicy pineapple slices). By 3:30pm that day we were home...after huggin’ the neighborhood posse I immediately stretched out in my hammock, while Igor dug and scratched about in the mud and wet sand until a nice and damp cool layin’ patch was created. He then flopped down in said patch and scooped wet sand onto his tummy and legs, as he loves to do.
CRAP I just burned my beans! I started cookin’ em late today, like 6:00pm, and whilst I was waiting for them to cook I was fed other beans, by Tina, plus four tortillas and some avocado. So I’m not even hungry any more, and I figured I’d get some writing done while they finished…and dangnabbit they got all death-burny on me. Now my house smells like a butt. Sorry, Igor.
Oh dudes, don’t worry, that earthquake didn’t hurt me none. I recall waking up at like 2am or so when it hit, and thought to myself: “Oh, an earthquake. That’s normal.” and promptly fell back asleep. When I awoke the next morning, I remembered what had happened but decided it must have been a dream. It wasn’t until I heard two ladies chattin’ about it in the street did I realize that it actually did happen. So yeah, no big deal here in the south…but our brothers up in the north of Honduras had it much worse, many people died and even more people lost their homes. I’m not sure on how many exactly.
A Haiku:
Small snake, why you here?
All up in my latrine-face.
We machete’d you.
Yes, that’s right, I was totally sittin’ on my toilet-seat-less toilet bowl in my little wooden latrine, havin’ me a delightful morning pee, minding my own business, when I noticed a strange loopy shape in the space between the concrete wall and the wooden doorjam. I got out and peered in from the other side, then poked a stick. When the loopy thing sloooowly began to slither out toward me, I realized it was a little snakey dude! At first I was delighted, as I rather like snakes, and he was so little and cute. I decided to fetch my neighbor Obed to assess the situation. Obed marched over and coaxed the little critter out of his hiding hole.
“Hayley, that’s a black coral snake,” he said.
“Soooo? You mean an itty-bitty coral-woral? With his widdle tonguey and teeny-weeny stripeys?” I said.
Then Obed informed me that coral snakes will kill you if they bite you, and that the littlest ones are the most dangerous and deadly. He then CAPTURED it in his bare freaking hands, totally Crocodile Hunter style, and posed casually while I took many pictures. Then he told me we had to kill it, because of all the kids always running around…it was too dangerous to let go. I had some moral difficulties with this, because Honduras is big enough for me AND my cutie-wutsie snakey-wakey…but he told me to fetch the machete, so I did as I was told. Definitely didn’t want any dead neighborhood kids haunting my soul forever after. Poor little Scumbag 2 (as I named him) was wasted with a few quick hacks to the neck. I’m sorry it had to end this way, Scumbag 2.
I wish I had more Swedish Fish.
Love,
Hayley
Hey, chochachos! Man I should come up with a new greeting, huh…that’s gettin’ pretty old, you know? Alright…from now on I shall be greeting this blog with a “Howdy, dudes,” or at least until that one gets boring, too. Case CLOSED. *gavel noise*
Howdy, dudes,
I want you all to know that me writing this blog right now is an intense bodily sacrifice, because my butt was destroyed (literally, it might fall off!) in a recent Donkey Polo competition in which we kicked some ass and lost profoundly to a Honduran team of dudes on donkeys, playin’ polo. Those have got to be the BONIEST critters in the whole entire dang animal kingdom. I’m going to suggest tiny saddles for next year. So anyway, that’s why sittin’ in this here wooden chair is so ouchy. But that’s why god invented hammocks…they cushion one’s pompis in a way grounded seats never will. Blessed are the hammocks. I suppose this machine IS a laptop, I could conceivably take it me on a journey to the hammock in the other (the only other) room. But it’s kind of heavy and extremely burny (this is the Chubby Chunk 2001 of dell, 6 years ago)..the old guy is finally dying a slow and painful death, and in doing so has made himself very fragile. My butt doesn’t hurt so bad that I can’t stay here and write a bit more.
So yeah, Donkey Polo was this past weekend in the little cobblestoney pueblo of Yuscuran, in the department of Danli (I think…or maybe it’s El Paraiso…anyway). It was beautiful, at least compared to certain parts of the south. Lots of pine trees, very hilly. Igor and I trekked up to Tegus Friday morning, and a certain somebody got his blood drawn, nuts inspected, ears washed, and endured an awful plastic stick up his poor little fluffy hiney. Once the vet was done, Igor and I hopped on a bus headed toward Yuscuran, plus several other gringos we’d hooked up with at the Secret Clubhouse aka the volunteer lounge at the PC office. Unlike previous encounters with city buses, in which a shake of my sassy gringa hair and a beaming smile of sassy gringa teeth was all the convincing necessary, the dudes on the bus were totally NOT interested in having Igor climb aboard. He’s not even that big! He only weighs 40 lbs, and that’s 40 pounds of LOVE. I had to plead and cajole the bus driver for like 30 seconds, walking alongside the moving bus and shouting into the folding door how “bien educado” (well behaved) and “super aseado” (super clean) little Igor is. They finally let us on, under the conditions that we “move immediately to the very last seat in this damn bus,” which we promptly did. It was weird, usually Igor is a hit on the buses, ‘cause he does cute things like stick his head out the window and guerilla-warfar-crawl on his elbows around under people’s seats, waggling his tail). But this bus was totally anti-dog…stupid city folk. The women were all fresa (prissy) about it, makin’ gross-out noises and dramatically yanking their elbows away from his wet, snuffling nose…the teenage girls in the typical navy-and-white school uniforms behind him would all scream hysterically if Igor turned his head toward them, and one lady kept yanking her kid’s feet away from Igor’s face, even though he was totally just sleeping on the floor. Needless to say I was relieved when we finally arrived and stepped down off the bus. The volunteer who lives here’s house was just 4 blocks down the hill, and the great gringo train chugga-chugged off for the first time in many that weekend. It was just a blasty-blast, a great big ol bunch of folks smushed into that tiny house, hangin’ out at nights on her concrete roof and spending the day hours hikin’ around the protected Park area, sleeping (Igor like to be the little spoon), eatin’, wandering around the pueblo, loitering by the central park, and engaging in general FunTimes. This weekend was also Yuscuran’s annual Mango Festival, so there were loads of people, dancing, and singing and selling tasty food and a jillion pounds of mangos. And, of course, there was the 13th Annual Donkey Polo Championship, which we lost for the 13th time in a row. It wasn’t fair, those Hondurans grabbed all the good donkeys first, and all the gringos (the other team) were left with the stationary, ornery ones. Unfair advantage, I say! But I did manage to steal a certain donkey “Serafin,” who was, according to the word on the street, “bueno.” In this situation, the word on the street was the group of four 4th grade kids who I met on the sidewalk and befriended over the course of 15 minutes. I then paid them a grand total of seven lollipops (bonbones) to hold Igor’s leash and keep up with the pack of donkeys, so he could see me and thus not freak the heck out (poor dude gets nervous when we’re out of the countryside, and doesn’t tolerate being separated from me). Those kids did a terrific job, scrambling after the pack of 40 donkeys walking, trotting and running (what they do is too jarring to be called a canter, if you ask me) around the central park, Igor nearly ripping their arms out of their sockets as he strained to run after me, while a dude shouted to the public about the impending game. We then “paraded” over to the old high school concrete soccer court, where we would be playing the game. We had three subbing periods, and lost like 30-1, but it was still a hilarious blast. Some people fell off! That “1” point we had, by the way, was scored by yours truly, aboard the good-ship Serafin. Ahem. NO BIG DEAL. After Peace Corps I may consider a career as a professional polo rider-person…what are they called? Polo players? That sounds right. Im’a become a Professional Polo Player. A PPP.
Getting’ home from Yuscuran proved somewhat more challenging at first, as the only bus that would have taken me to Tegus in time to catch the bus to my pueblo refused to let me and my dog aboard…caninists. I almost cried for a second, then I realized “wait a minute, you can just get a sweet jalon dude,” and promptly lifted my chin and sauntered over to the nearest corner. A truck passed. I waved at em and jerked my head but they waggled their fingers at me to say “no we’re not going far,” and so I waited for the next. Drank some juice out of a bag. Igor peed. Another truck drove by, a shiny red double-cabin pick-up with a nice plastic lined bed, totally empty. Jalon jackpot. I waved at em…they pulled right over and rolled down their windows and smiled at me. Some young couple, obviously from Tegus, driving home from visiting the Mango Festival. I asked em where they were headed and they told me Tegucigalpa, at which point I totally turned on my smiley-gringa faucet full-blast and exclaimed, “Oh, WOW! Could you maybe give me a lift there?” They offered me a seat in the cabin but I gestured to my dog and said it’d be better if I rode in the truck bed (which I totally prefer). They said of course, I said you have saved my life, thank god, may little tiny god bless your souls, and then lifted Igor into the truck paila and then launched myself in as well. Just as they started to pull away, another dude from my Peace Corps group can running down the hill, screaming “WAIT! WAIT!” in English. I slapped the side of the car a couple times to signify “hey stop for a sec” and shouted that he better ask them first before he just jumps in. He ran around, gringo-charmed them, and then jumped in the bed with me and Igor. The three of us then sailed to Tegus in style, the sun warming our faces (which were lathered with sunscreen), the wind in our hair, the sky in our eyes and the trees in our noses (too much?). It took about an hour, exactly half the time it took to travel the same distance on bus (we actually passed the bus that had shunned me and I totally stuck my tongue out as rudely as possible). Then Igor and I took a cab to the market where my bus was waiting, and caught the 11:30am bus (last one of the day to my pueblo), arriving to the street where the buses are parked with enough time to peruse the market, buying random things (two spoons, a mug, a good kitchen knife, and two forks) as well as tasty things (cheese, big mangos, fresh, juicy pineapple slices). By 3:30pm that day we were home...after huggin’ the neighborhood posse I immediately stretched out in my hammock, while Igor dug and scratched about in the mud and wet sand until a nice and damp cool layin’ patch was created. He then flopped down in said patch and scooped wet sand onto his tummy and legs, as he loves to do.
CRAP I just burned my beans! I started cookin’ em late today, like 6:00pm, and whilst I was waiting for them to cook I was fed other beans, by Tina, plus four tortillas and some avocado. So I’m not even hungry any more, and I figured I’d get some writing done while they finished…and dangnabbit they got all death-burny on me. Now my house smells like a butt. Sorry, Igor.
Oh dudes, don’t worry, that earthquake didn’t hurt me none. I recall waking up at like 2am or so when it hit, and thought to myself: “Oh, an earthquake. That’s normal.” and promptly fell back asleep. When I awoke the next morning, I remembered what had happened but decided it must have been a dream. It wasn’t until I heard two ladies chattin’ about it in the street did I realize that it actually did happen. So yeah, no big deal here in the south…but our brothers up in the north of Honduras had it much worse, many people died and even more people lost their homes. I’m not sure on how many exactly.
A Haiku:
Small snake, why you here?
All up in my latrine-face.
We machete’d you.
Yes, that’s right, I was totally sittin’ on my toilet-seat-less toilet bowl in my little wooden latrine, havin’ me a delightful morning pee, minding my own business, when I noticed a strange loopy shape in the space between the concrete wall and the wooden doorjam. I got out and peered in from the other side, then poked a stick. When the loopy thing sloooowly began to slither out toward me, I realized it was a little snakey dude! At first I was delighted, as I rather like snakes, and he was so little and cute. I decided to fetch my neighbor Obed to assess the situation. Obed marched over and coaxed the little critter out of his hiding hole.
“Hayley, that’s a black coral snake,” he said.
“Soooo? You mean an itty-bitty coral-woral? With his widdle tonguey and teeny-weeny stripeys?” I said.
Then Obed informed me that coral snakes will kill you if they bite you, and that the littlest ones are the most dangerous and deadly. He then CAPTURED it in his bare freaking hands, totally Crocodile Hunter style, and posed casually while I took many pictures. Then he told me we had to kill it, because of all the kids always running around…it was too dangerous to let go. I had some moral difficulties with this, because Honduras is big enough for me AND my cutie-wutsie snakey-wakey…but he told me to fetch the machete, so I did as I was told. Definitely didn’t want any dead neighborhood kids haunting my soul forever after. Poor little Scumbag 2 (as I named him) was wasted with a few quick hacks to the neck. I’m sorry it had to end this way, Scumbag 2.
I wish I had more Swedish Fish.
Love,
Hayley
1 comment:
i will never stop laughing at your haiku.
-Pam
ps, I'm hella Swedish. Just learned that yesterday. I thought i was welsh...
Post a Comment