Lisbeth, reading one of the new books my grandma sent me. i wish i could turn this photo normally!
the gang, reading the awesome childrens books that my awesome mimi sent
tina and her hubby Ruben on his 74th birthday
ruben, attacking the rabbit-coyote with youthful vigor
nelly and douglas on his second birthday
douglas attacking the rabbit-coyote with even more youthful vigor (thats right, we reuse pinatas in alubaren)
looking down into the valley of one of the aldeas where I work
spank that pinata, ruben!
the gang, reading the awesome childrens books that my awesome mimi sent
tina and her hubby Ruben on his 74th birthday
ruben, attacking the rabbit-coyote with youthful vigor
nelly and douglas on his second birthday
douglas attacking the rabbit-coyote with even more youthful vigor (thats right, we reuse pinatas in alubaren)
looking down into the valley of one of the aldeas where I work
spank that pinata, ruben!23 October 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Crap, crap, crapity crap. “Oh no Hayley whatever seems to be the matter” you say? WELL, IT AIN’T A GIANT MUDDY DEATH TRAP AROUND HERE AND THAT IS VERY WORRYING. In case you guys are too busy eating delicious toasty sandwiches and then driving to buy MORE sandwich fixins’ when they run out, or whatever it is you do in America, as I have now forgotten, it is OCTOBER, people. Moreover, it is nearly November. In Honduras, as with pretty much all tropical places (I assume), October is, as the kids say, “negative moist.” It is supposed to just rain and rain, with torrential monsoons of fat warm wet drops bombarding the Dickens outta everything. The rivers swell, the roads wash out, little pink wormies drown, and the cuffs of people’s pants take on a permanent brown tone. BUT that’s how it HAS to be, because from November to May, not a single drop falls (at least in the south of Honduras) and we depend on the chunkity-ass rivers to supply us with drinking, bathing, and irrigating water. But WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. It isn’t raining!! And it hasn’t rained since the second week of October! And when it WAS raining, it wasn’t all that much! Last year at this time, I was leaping into a swirling, churning river and squealing gleefully as the rapids shot me down stream. This year, I can walk across the same river and not even get my butt wet. The water flows lazily along, with bits of garbage floating along peacefully. Bob Ross would love to come here and get his paint on, I’m sure, but for Alubarén’s purposes, this is bad news. The corn crops are already stunted, and with no rain, the harvest is gonna be hells of meager. Same with the beans. And the squash. Everything is already drying out, beginning to take on the toasty, dusty film of summer. I was burning some used toilet paper in my yard the other day (just one of my many new hobbies) and the fire leapt to the grass and started spreading! And just a couple weeks ago, that same lawn was a thick squishy green delight of life. I never realized how much I love the rainy season until I noted its abrupt departure and the rapid encroachment of summer, shoving its dry, crackly body in front of the withering green of winter like a particularly arid bully in the school lunch line. Oh, but how summer loves those baked Tator Tots! This is gonna be a long-ass summer.
Summer seems to be moving onto the seen in other areas, too. Usually, the kids are in school until mid-November, at which point they are turned out to graze the crusty grass of Endless Summer, until it ends in February and the kids don their uniforms and head back for some learnin’. This year, however, the Ministry of Education decided that what with the political unrest, it would be prudent to release the kids a month early, in mid-October. The elections are scheduled for the very end of November, and the schools are used as community polling places. So obviously, we must have the schools barren for a good six weeks prior. You know, just in case. So the teachers were given orders to pass ALL their students, whether they should be passed or not, hastily administered some last-minute tests (though I can’t imagine why, if they were going to pass the entire class anyway) and swept the youngsters out the doors for a nice hearty summer break of nearly four months. One of my projects is called TEAM, and involves four hours of English class and creative teaching methodology for about 23 local teachers, who then replicate the classes in their own schools, thus giving the kids a good dose of basic English as well as dynamic, interactive learning that gets them off their feet and eschews rote-memorization for 50 pleasant minutes. Anyway, I had TEAM scheduled to go into November, including two observations per teacher out at village schools where they teach. When the Ministry announced they were chopping the school year down at the knee caps, I had to hurry the hell up and finish all my classes before the teachers took off for Tegucigalpa, where many of them reside when they’re not teaching in the country schools. As such, I was only able to observe each teacher once instead of twice, which was a shame because I always enjoy going out into the aldeas (villages). The people are always so friendly and happy to see one another, greeting their neighbors on the path like cherished family members. You feel like Alubarén has great poverty, but then you walk two hours out to some remote aldea, which is really just a cluster of houses, and suddenly Alubarén seems like a wealthy metropolis. The folks out in the aldeas are so poor, they don’t even have doors on their mud houses. Latrines are uncommon; most families just go out in the open air. The kids show up at school barefoot, the required white-and-blue uniforms are nonexistent. To get to many of the aldeas, the teachers in Alubarén walk 15 minutes to a bus pick-up spot, take the 6:15am bus that passes on its way to Tegus, ride it for 20 minutes, then get off and head their separate ways. One teacher I went with hikes for over an hour down a steep ravine into a valley so isolated I was shocked to find the number of houses that claim that little area as Los Amates, their home. Hiking back UP to the road after class was rather hellish, it was so steep and so hot. She told me she often goes on mule but that week the poor guy was occupied hauling sand for a construction project.
So needless to say, I’ve been hells of busy trying to suddenly wrap up all of my school-related projects before the kids scatter and the teachers leave. I’m also about to begin baseball again, which I’m looking forward too, though I have enjoyed my several months of free afternoons. I’ve also been happily celebrating many birthdays, including little Douglas turning two and his grandpa Ruben turning 74. Both birthdays were celebrated across the street at their house, with cake, a piñata, and tasty food. Douglas was very serious about beating (well, gently tapping) his piñata, but managed to do such a delicate job in removing the candy that the rabbit/coyote/whatever thing was salvaged for Don Ruben’s birthday two weeks later. Douglas’ birthday was lots of fun, but Ruben’s was very special. As I’ve mentioned, he has pretty bad Parkinson’s, and so for this birthday family and friends turned up from all over the place to celebrate another year. They clapped and strummed guitars and sang church songs, prayed, and gave little speeches (I actually gave one too, and nearly began to cry, which was awkward). Then they passed out the ubiquitous plastic plates of rice-and-chicken-with-three-tortillas and little cups of coke. Then frosting was smeared on the old man’s face, as tradition mandates, we sang three different Happy Birthday songs (one of which I directed in English), ate cake, had more soda, and the party dissipated. Same format as every party in this one-trick-pony-town, which I enjoy. Ruben, in his quiet, wavery voice, gave a little speech from his plastic lawn about the incredible love he has in his heart for the people in his life, and for life itself. A retired pastor in the Evangelical church, his outlook on life is so upbeat and optimistic you feel like a better person just listening to him. He is perhaps of the most adored members of the community.
I’m gettin’ seven kinds of psyched because in exactly one week, I leave for the Mayan Ruins of Copan to celebrate the best holiday ever, aka HALLOWEEN. Every year there is a giant Halloween party in the little town of Copan Ruinas, which boasts the actual ruins outside of town. All the volunteers in Honduras that can go, do, as well as any other ex-pats or folks who celebrate the holiday (Halloween is generally not celebrated in Latin America). I freakin’ LOVE costume parties, and the fact that this one is a huge crazy fun-fest in an awesome location with like 500 people makes me want to sweat candy corn outta my eyes. I actually have two costumes picked out, one for Friday night, and one for the actual Halloween party on Saturday. Friday night, I shall stand around havin’ a great ol time as a bag of dog food. Igor blows through 50 pound sack of “Dogui” kibble in no time, so I have a quite a stack of empty bags. I’m just gonna cut leg and arm holes and stuff it with newspaper. For Saturday night, I’m following my heart as a lover of “pun” costumes and shall make my debut as “the Peace Corpse.” GET IT?! Cause, you know, dumb people might pronounce “corps” as “corpse”…. AND it works in Spanish, because we’re known as “El Cuerpo de Paz,” which means “the Body of Peace.” I found a sweet orange tie-dyed tank top with a giant white peace sign on the front, and shall wear that with many other stereotypical hippie paraphernalia whilst smearing my face with corpse-like face paint and fake blood. Basically, I win.
My buddies Noel, Alison and Douglas just barged into my house asking permission to collect the many windfall cherries that are strewn about my yard, so I’d better wrap this up. If you give a kid permission to pick cherries, chances are, he’s gonna want a plastic bag to go with it…and a glass of juice. And if you give him juice, chances are he’s gonna pee on the floor and then you’ll have to splash some water on it and make a promise to mop later, which you inevitably will not.
Only 27 more days until parental units Andy and Wendy fly down to Honduras for nine days of Adventures!! They’re gonna spend two days in the tourist gem that is Alubarén, and then we’re heading north to the Pico Bonito National Park, where I intend on tricking my mom into going white-water rafting in the rain forest, which sounds too bitchin’ to pass up. Then we’re headed to the sexy Bay Islands to snorkel until a sea turtle eats a stray appendage and/or the backs of knees become too sunburned. Then we’re heading off to Copan to scope out the ruins (I’m gonna bring my dog-food costume just in case). Then they head home, filled with tender memories of the best nine days ever spent with their precious first-born child. And to that I say, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!
Love,
Hayley
Hey, chochachos!
Crap, crap, crapity crap. “Oh no Hayley whatever seems to be the matter” you say? WELL, IT AIN’T A GIANT MUDDY DEATH TRAP AROUND HERE AND THAT IS VERY WORRYING. In case you guys are too busy eating delicious toasty sandwiches and then driving to buy MORE sandwich fixins’ when they run out, or whatever it is you do in America, as I have now forgotten, it is OCTOBER, people. Moreover, it is nearly November. In Honduras, as with pretty much all tropical places (I assume), October is, as the kids say, “negative moist.” It is supposed to just rain and rain, with torrential monsoons of fat warm wet drops bombarding the Dickens outta everything. The rivers swell, the roads wash out, little pink wormies drown, and the cuffs of people’s pants take on a permanent brown tone. BUT that’s how it HAS to be, because from November to May, not a single drop falls (at least in the south of Honduras) and we depend on the chunkity-ass rivers to supply us with drinking, bathing, and irrigating water. But WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE. It isn’t raining!! And it hasn’t rained since the second week of October! And when it WAS raining, it wasn’t all that much! Last year at this time, I was leaping into a swirling, churning river and squealing gleefully as the rapids shot me down stream. This year, I can walk across the same river and not even get my butt wet. The water flows lazily along, with bits of garbage floating along peacefully. Bob Ross would love to come here and get his paint on, I’m sure, but for Alubarén’s purposes, this is bad news. The corn crops are already stunted, and with no rain, the harvest is gonna be hells of meager. Same with the beans. And the squash. Everything is already drying out, beginning to take on the toasty, dusty film of summer. I was burning some used toilet paper in my yard the other day (just one of my many new hobbies) and the fire leapt to the grass and started spreading! And just a couple weeks ago, that same lawn was a thick squishy green delight of life. I never realized how much I love the rainy season until I noted its abrupt departure and the rapid encroachment of summer, shoving its dry, crackly body in front of the withering green of winter like a particularly arid bully in the school lunch line. Oh, but how summer loves those baked Tator Tots! This is gonna be a long-ass summer.
Summer seems to be moving onto the seen in other areas, too. Usually, the kids are in school until mid-November, at which point they are turned out to graze the crusty grass of Endless Summer, until it ends in February and the kids don their uniforms and head back for some learnin’. This year, however, the Ministry of Education decided that what with the political unrest, it would be prudent to release the kids a month early, in mid-October. The elections are scheduled for the very end of November, and the schools are used as community polling places. So obviously, we must have the schools barren for a good six weeks prior. You know, just in case. So the teachers were given orders to pass ALL their students, whether they should be passed or not, hastily administered some last-minute tests (though I can’t imagine why, if they were going to pass the entire class anyway) and swept the youngsters out the doors for a nice hearty summer break of nearly four months. One of my projects is called TEAM, and involves four hours of English class and creative teaching methodology for about 23 local teachers, who then replicate the classes in their own schools, thus giving the kids a good dose of basic English as well as dynamic, interactive learning that gets them off their feet and eschews rote-memorization for 50 pleasant minutes. Anyway, I had TEAM scheduled to go into November, including two observations per teacher out at village schools where they teach. When the Ministry announced they were chopping the school year down at the knee caps, I had to hurry the hell up and finish all my classes before the teachers took off for Tegucigalpa, where many of them reside when they’re not teaching in the country schools. As such, I was only able to observe each teacher once instead of twice, which was a shame because I always enjoy going out into the aldeas (villages). The people are always so friendly and happy to see one another, greeting their neighbors on the path like cherished family members. You feel like Alubarén has great poverty, but then you walk two hours out to some remote aldea, which is really just a cluster of houses, and suddenly Alubarén seems like a wealthy metropolis. The folks out in the aldeas are so poor, they don’t even have doors on their mud houses. Latrines are uncommon; most families just go out in the open air. The kids show up at school barefoot, the required white-and-blue uniforms are nonexistent. To get to many of the aldeas, the teachers in Alubarén walk 15 minutes to a bus pick-up spot, take the 6:15am bus that passes on its way to Tegus, ride it for 20 minutes, then get off and head their separate ways. One teacher I went with hikes for over an hour down a steep ravine into a valley so isolated I was shocked to find the number of houses that claim that little area as Los Amates, their home. Hiking back UP to the road after class was rather hellish, it was so steep and so hot. She told me she often goes on mule but that week the poor guy was occupied hauling sand for a construction project.
So needless to say, I’ve been hells of busy trying to suddenly wrap up all of my school-related projects before the kids scatter and the teachers leave. I’m also about to begin baseball again, which I’m looking forward too, though I have enjoyed my several months of free afternoons. I’ve also been happily celebrating many birthdays, including little Douglas turning two and his grandpa Ruben turning 74. Both birthdays were celebrated across the street at their house, with cake, a piñata, and tasty food. Douglas was very serious about beating (well, gently tapping) his piñata, but managed to do such a delicate job in removing the candy that the rabbit/coyote/whatever thing was salvaged for Don Ruben’s birthday two weeks later. Douglas’ birthday was lots of fun, but Ruben’s was very special. As I’ve mentioned, he has pretty bad Parkinson’s, and so for this birthday family and friends turned up from all over the place to celebrate another year. They clapped and strummed guitars and sang church songs, prayed, and gave little speeches (I actually gave one too, and nearly began to cry, which was awkward). Then they passed out the ubiquitous plastic plates of rice-and-chicken-with-three-tortillas and little cups of coke. Then frosting was smeared on the old man’s face, as tradition mandates, we sang three different Happy Birthday songs (one of which I directed in English), ate cake, had more soda, and the party dissipated. Same format as every party in this one-trick-pony-town, which I enjoy. Ruben, in his quiet, wavery voice, gave a little speech from his plastic lawn about the incredible love he has in his heart for the people in his life, and for life itself. A retired pastor in the Evangelical church, his outlook on life is so upbeat and optimistic you feel like a better person just listening to him. He is perhaps of the most adored members of the community.
I’m gettin’ seven kinds of psyched because in exactly one week, I leave for the Mayan Ruins of Copan to celebrate the best holiday ever, aka HALLOWEEN. Every year there is a giant Halloween party in the little town of Copan Ruinas, which boasts the actual ruins outside of town. All the volunteers in Honduras that can go, do, as well as any other ex-pats or folks who celebrate the holiday (Halloween is generally not celebrated in Latin America). I freakin’ LOVE costume parties, and the fact that this one is a huge crazy fun-fest in an awesome location with like 500 people makes me want to sweat candy corn outta my eyes. I actually have two costumes picked out, one for Friday night, and one for the actual Halloween party on Saturday. Friday night, I shall stand around havin’ a great ol time as a bag of dog food. Igor blows through 50 pound sack of “Dogui” kibble in no time, so I have a quite a stack of empty bags. I’m just gonna cut leg and arm holes and stuff it with newspaper. For Saturday night, I’m following my heart as a lover of “pun” costumes and shall make my debut as “the Peace Corpse.” GET IT?! Cause, you know, dumb people might pronounce “corps” as “corpse”…. AND it works in Spanish, because we’re known as “El Cuerpo de Paz,” which means “the Body of Peace.” I found a sweet orange tie-dyed tank top with a giant white peace sign on the front, and shall wear that with many other stereotypical hippie paraphernalia whilst smearing my face with corpse-like face paint and fake blood. Basically, I win.
My buddies Noel, Alison and Douglas just barged into my house asking permission to collect the many windfall cherries that are strewn about my yard, so I’d better wrap this up. If you give a kid permission to pick cherries, chances are, he’s gonna want a plastic bag to go with it…and a glass of juice. And if you give him juice, chances are he’s gonna pee on the floor and then you’ll have to splash some water on it and make a promise to mop later, which you inevitably will not.
Only 27 more days until parental units Andy and Wendy fly down to Honduras for nine days of Adventures!! They’re gonna spend two days in the tourist gem that is Alubarén, and then we’re heading north to the Pico Bonito National Park, where I intend on tricking my mom into going white-water rafting in the rain forest, which sounds too bitchin’ to pass up. Then we’re headed to the sexy Bay Islands to snorkel until a sea turtle eats a stray appendage and/or the backs of knees become too sunburned. Then we’re heading off to Copan to scope out the ruins (I’m gonna bring my dog-food costume just in case). Then they head home, filled with tender memories of the best nine days ever spent with their precious first-born child. And to that I say, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!
Love,
Hayley
1 comment:
I think "first-born" is taking some journalistic freedoms.
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