Mariana making her mom a christmas card...we read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies.
Neil and Enner hard at work. Produce placement!!!
Makin´santa cards.
Posing with newborn ¨Hayley¨
Aida and her two kids...including little Geyli!
just in case you guys were wondering what it might look like if igor and kaiser drank at the same time.25 December 2009
Merry Christmas, chochachos! It’s about nine o’clock pm on Christmas—my second one in Honduras. Perhaps you guys think it’s sad to be alone on Christmas, typing on an dilapidated laptop, sipping a solitary mug of tea and listening to that one Charlie Brown Christmas song on repeat (you know, the one that’s all slow and goes do-do-doooo, do-dooooo….do-do-dooooo, do-doooooo…if you’ve seen Arrested Development or any Peanuts cartoons then we’re on the same page). But you guys are hellsa wrong cause this ain’t sad at ALL. That’s because today isn’t actually Christmas. Not in Honduras, anyway. Hondurans celebrate Navidad on the 24th, and today, the 25th, seems to be reserved for loafing off your tamale hangover, and, if you’re a man, drinking a butt-load of booze and shooting your gun off all freaking afternoon. Since I’m not a man, I abstained from gettin’ my slant on/shooting the air and instead spent the morning pouring concrete with my landlord Rony (who also refrained from boozing it up), fixing a 6-meter section of fence that wasn’t connected to the ground and had thus become an excellent escape port for Igor and his devious brother Kaiser. Afterwards, I made fresh lemon smoothies for Rony and the two dudes he brought with him to help with the fence. Then I ate a leftover tamale and spent about three hours washing clothes…then I cleaned the house…as well as other assorted proofs that I am a domesticated lady now. Whenever I remembered it was Christmas day, I would feel a little funny and sort of sad I wasn’t with my family, eating breakfast casserole and opening presents in our jammies. But, like I said, it doesn’t count as a lame way to spend the holiday because a) YESTERDAY was Honduran Christmas, and b) what better way to celebrate Jesus’ birthday than scrubbing out your undies in the beating tropical sun? I broke my own personal record and managed to consume EIGHT, count them EIGHT, hulking Honduran tamales yesterday. I know. I am an impressive person. Please, feel free to bask in my amazingness. Throw money and panties at my feet, if you feel the urge. I spent the morning eating tamales and drinking coffee with Nely and the kids, then wandered around the neighborhood, delivering little plates of bastard Rice Crispy Treats…and I say bastard because I used wonky Honduran marshmallows and, in lieu of rice crispies, had to use Frosted Flakes. They turned out very greasy (a little heavy handed with the margarine, I is) and barf colored (the marshmallows were all different colors, which did not result in rainbow magic but instead blended to a gross, zomie-esque gray) but they tasted okay and the neighbors were quite delighted. They have no idea…an American child would have refused to eat them, I reckon. Unless it was a really deprived American child whose parents don’t believe in refined sugar—they’ll take anything they can get.
At each house, I was given a tamale on a plate with a cup of soda or coffee (except for Nelo, my 50-something bachelor neighbor who spends his days leaning in his doorway and frequently dying his hair black…he certainly cannot make tamales). By two o’clock, I was bursting, but onward I marched, stoically packing in the slippery bundles without faltering. Then I headed up the road and did a big lap around town, stopping at a couple special friends’ homes, where I ate MORE tamales, as well as torrejas, which is a hella tasty French-toast-esque dessert typical of Christmastime. I got home by early evening, at which point I had to shower and get dressed up for Christmas church, which I’d been invited to by Nely and Glenda. Four hours later, after countless rounds of singing and clapping, sermons, and little dramatizations of the nativity by the kids, we were released around 11:00pm (I’m not gonna lie, this was super boring and I spent most of the time playing with a little plastic pony Douglas had). Then Nely, the kids and I went to Mirian and Rony’s house (my landlords and Nely’s half-sister), where we sat down to a midnight feast of apples, grapes, oranges, and of course tamales and coffee all around. I finally got home at about 1:00am, though it was hard to sleep due to all the children setting off firecrackers outside (which they do the entire month of December, and without cessation on Christmas day). My body was also struggling to adjust to the extreme gluttony I’d participated in…but one of the nice things about living alone is you can fart as much as you want and no one complains.
This past week was a good one. I met with my pregnant women’s club, and we talked about how to be a good parent, which was fun…it’s hard to delve too deep in 45 minutes, but we talked about behavior management and communication and self-esteem in the child, among other topics, and the ladies participated fairly well, which is always delightful (sometimes they just sit in silence and don’t say a damn word, which is uncomfortable). As I was leaving the health center and walking down the road, Aida, of the women who used to be in the club, approached me with her four-week-old baby girl. We chatted a bit and I ooh-ed and aah-ed her squirmy little squinchy-eyed bundle of joy, and asked her what the baby’s name was. Aida smiled and said, “I named her after you.” She spells it differently (“Geyli,” since the ‘g’ can make the ‘h’ sound in Spanish), but still…I feel so SPECIAL. Fortunately, I had my camera with me, so I took a couple pics of mom and baby (as well as little Geyli’s big brother), and then Aida took one of Big Hayley and Little Geyli together. They live out in one of the aldeas of Alubarén, but we made plans that I’ll go visit them in January so I can meet Aida’s spouse and the rest of her family.
Together with our mediocre librarian, I have opened the library and finally begun my summer reading project. My “Club de Lectores,” or Reader’s Club, is basically a glorified story-hour, but the kids seem to love it and it’s going really well. On Monday mornings, the little guys (four to eight) come from 10-11:30am, and on Wednesday the bigger kids (nine and up) come. For the first half hour, the kids are free to sit and look at the 12-15 books I’ve selected and placed on the tables (I don’t let them browse the book shelves themselves because they just yank out books, look at them for two seconds, and pull out another…plus, this way, I can pick the best books for their ages). It’s awesome, because thanks to Johana, the volunteer who started the library 10 years ago and has continued to send books, the selection for children is pretty good. After half an hour, the kids scootch their chairs in a semi-circle and I read them a story I’ve picked out for the day. Then, using the art supplies donated over the past year by folks back in the states, we do a related art project. The first day, the little kids and I read “Silvester and the Magic Pebble” (in Spanish, obviously). Then they each got a sheet of paper and drew a picture of what they would do if they had a magic pebble. Many of the kids were too young/behind to write their own names, so afterwards we practiced that. On Wednesday, I read the bigger kids “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day” and then the kids had to write a short story about someone having a terrible day and the things that go wrong, complete with illustrations. The next week the little guys read “Lily and Her Purple Plastic Purse,” and then glued cut-outs of Lily and her purse that I’d made previously out of construction paper. For the big kids, I read the first several chapters of “James and the Giant Peach,” and then they drew pictures of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. This week, for Christmas, I read each class “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “If You Take a Mouse to the Movies,” and then they made little Santa cards for their moms. Seriously fun stuff. I’ve also been pilfering the young-adult section, taking home “Little House on the Prairie” and “Island of the Blue Dolphins,” which are the perfect level for my Spanish. I hope the Ingalls make it through the long Dakota winter!!! Shut up I ain’t nerdy, YOU’RE nerdy. Aren’t you late for your nerd meeting? Nerd.
Found another coral snake in my latrine—my neighbor Dario killed it with a machete. Poor little guy…I feel bad for hiring out his murder but I don’t want to get bitten and totally die. So, I win. In other garden news, my basil patch is growing tremendously well…I have about 20 plants, all over are over a foot tall now. I made my first batch of pesto the other day, to celebrate the best holiday ever, which is December 19th, a festival invented over four years ago by myself and one Matt McCorkle, in which one must eat pesto and watch the 1972 Jamaican classic “The Harder They Come”…I had my dad bring me my copy of the movie when they came to visit. David came over and we ate hella tasty pesto (thanks to the UC Davis olive oil my mom brought me and the parmesan cheese I found in Tegus) and watched the flick. It might seem boastful to say my holiday is the best in the world, but I’ve got the celestial proof if ya’ll don’t believe me. David and I had clamored up the hills behind my house to enjoy the late-afternoon sunshine and kick-off the holiday by watching the sunset. Remember, this is the middle of December—well into our dry season. No more rain, not since the first of November. More over, we had a nasty drought during the wet season. So anyway, David and I are sittin’ up on the hill, looking at the gray clouds in the distance, and commenting on how much we missed the rain. We glance up, and David spies…A RAINBOW. Just smearing its beautiful, wondrous self across that hot Honduran sky. About ten minutes later, upon further contemplation of the sky, I see that our rainbow has become a DOUBLE RAINBOW. Dudes, I AIN’T EVEN KIDDING. We freaked out and I practically peed myself. A double rainbow! During the dry season! Craziness. Then, suddenly, we looked up and noticed a THIRD rainbow stretching across the sky, wider and brighter than out first two. That’s right, people. THREE FREAKING RAINBOWS. Then, the most magical thing of all happened. It began to rain. And not just sprinkle-sprankles. It poured, it dumped, and David and I gleefully slipped and slid our way down the mountain back to my house. When we arrived, we were totally soaked, and it was absolutely amazing. People were talking about the miracle rainstorm for days afterwards, but it wasn’t a miracle…it was just Somebody upstairs sayin’ “Hayley, I dig what you’re doin’.” I feel like God sent me a December 19th holiday card or something.
Because I am the luckiest lady in the world, I am leaving tomorrow for Nicaragua, to celebrate the New Year with my Peace Corps posse. Hell yes and hot damn I am ready for some volcanoes and lakes and swishy-swashy-warm pacific ocean….so you see, even though I am spending Christmas without my family and presents and stockings and pies, my life really isn’t all too rough down here.
Looooooooooove
Hayley
Merry Christmas, chochachos! It’s about nine o’clock pm on Christmas—my second one in Honduras. Perhaps you guys think it’s sad to be alone on Christmas, typing on an dilapidated laptop, sipping a solitary mug of tea and listening to that one Charlie Brown Christmas song on repeat (you know, the one that’s all slow and goes do-do-doooo, do-dooooo….do-do-dooooo, do-doooooo…if you’ve seen Arrested Development or any Peanuts cartoons then we’re on the same page). But you guys are hellsa wrong cause this ain’t sad at ALL. That’s because today isn’t actually Christmas. Not in Honduras, anyway. Hondurans celebrate Navidad on the 24th, and today, the 25th, seems to be reserved for loafing off your tamale hangover, and, if you’re a man, drinking a butt-load of booze and shooting your gun off all freaking afternoon. Since I’m not a man, I abstained from gettin’ my slant on/shooting the air and instead spent the morning pouring concrete with my landlord Rony (who also refrained from boozing it up), fixing a 6-meter section of fence that wasn’t connected to the ground and had thus become an excellent escape port for Igor and his devious brother Kaiser. Afterwards, I made fresh lemon smoothies for Rony and the two dudes he brought with him to help with the fence. Then I ate a leftover tamale and spent about three hours washing clothes…then I cleaned the house…as well as other assorted proofs that I am a domesticated lady now. Whenever I remembered it was Christmas day, I would feel a little funny and sort of sad I wasn’t with my family, eating breakfast casserole and opening presents in our jammies. But, like I said, it doesn’t count as a lame way to spend the holiday because a) YESTERDAY was Honduran Christmas, and b) what better way to celebrate Jesus’ birthday than scrubbing out your undies in the beating tropical sun? I broke my own personal record and managed to consume EIGHT, count them EIGHT, hulking Honduran tamales yesterday. I know. I am an impressive person. Please, feel free to bask in my amazingness. Throw money and panties at my feet, if you feel the urge. I spent the morning eating tamales and drinking coffee with Nely and the kids, then wandered around the neighborhood, delivering little plates of bastard Rice Crispy Treats…and I say bastard because I used wonky Honduran marshmallows and, in lieu of rice crispies, had to use Frosted Flakes. They turned out very greasy (a little heavy handed with the margarine, I is) and barf colored (the marshmallows were all different colors, which did not result in rainbow magic but instead blended to a gross, zomie-esque gray) but they tasted okay and the neighbors were quite delighted. They have no idea…an American child would have refused to eat them, I reckon. Unless it was a really deprived American child whose parents don’t believe in refined sugar—they’ll take anything they can get.
At each house, I was given a tamale on a plate with a cup of soda or coffee (except for Nelo, my 50-something bachelor neighbor who spends his days leaning in his doorway and frequently dying his hair black…he certainly cannot make tamales). By two o’clock, I was bursting, but onward I marched, stoically packing in the slippery bundles without faltering. Then I headed up the road and did a big lap around town, stopping at a couple special friends’ homes, where I ate MORE tamales, as well as torrejas, which is a hella tasty French-toast-esque dessert typical of Christmastime. I got home by early evening, at which point I had to shower and get dressed up for Christmas church, which I’d been invited to by Nely and Glenda. Four hours later, after countless rounds of singing and clapping, sermons, and little dramatizations of the nativity by the kids, we were released around 11:00pm (I’m not gonna lie, this was super boring and I spent most of the time playing with a little plastic pony Douglas had). Then Nely, the kids and I went to Mirian and Rony’s house (my landlords and Nely’s half-sister), where we sat down to a midnight feast of apples, grapes, oranges, and of course tamales and coffee all around. I finally got home at about 1:00am, though it was hard to sleep due to all the children setting off firecrackers outside (which they do the entire month of December, and without cessation on Christmas day). My body was also struggling to adjust to the extreme gluttony I’d participated in…but one of the nice things about living alone is you can fart as much as you want and no one complains.
This past week was a good one. I met with my pregnant women’s club, and we talked about how to be a good parent, which was fun…it’s hard to delve too deep in 45 minutes, but we talked about behavior management and communication and self-esteem in the child, among other topics, and the ladies participated fairly well, which is always delightful (sometimes they just sit in silence and don’t say a damn word, which is uncomfortable). As I was leaving the health center and walking down the road, Aida, of the women who used to be in the club, approached me with her four-week-old baby girl. We chatted a bit and I ooh-ed and aah-ed her squirmy little squinchy-eyed bundle of joy, and asked her what the baby’s name was. Aida smiled and said, “I named her after you.” She spells it differently (“Geyli,” since the ‘g’ can make the ‘h’ sound in Spanish), but still…I feel so SPECIAL. Fortunately, I had my camera with me, so I took a couple pics of mom and baby (as well as little Geyli’s big brother), and then Aida took one of Big Hayley and Little Geyli together. They live out in one of the aldeas of Alubarén, but we made plans that I’ll go visit them in January so I can meet Aida’s spouse and the rest of her family.
Together with our mediocre librarian, I have opened the library and finally begun my summer reading project. My “Club de Lectores,” or Reader’s Club, is basically a glorified story-hour, but the kids seem to love it and it’s going really well. On Monday mornings, the little guys (four to eight) come from 10-11:30am, and on Wednesday the bigger kids (nine and up) come. For the first half hour, the kids are free to sit and look at the 12-15 books I’ve selected and placed on the tables (I don’t let them browse the book shelves themselves because they just yank out books, look at them for two seconds, and pull out another…plus, this way, I can pick the best books for their ages). It’s awesome, because thanks to Johana, the volunteer who started the library 10 years ago and has continued to send books, the selection for children is pretty good. After half an hour, the kids scootch their chairs in a semi-circle and I read them a story I’ve picked out for the day. Then, using the art supplies donated over the past year by folks back in the states, we do a related art project. The first day, the little kids and I read “Silvester and the Magic Pebble” (in Spanish, obviously). Then they each got a sheet of paper and drew a picture of what they would do if they had a magic pebble. Many of the kids were too young/behind to write their own names, so afterwards we practiced that. On Wednesday, I read the bigger kids “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day” and then the kids had to write a short story about someone having a terrible day and the things that go wrong, complete with illustrations. The next week the little guys read “Lily and Her Purple Plastic Purse,” and then glued cut-outs of Lily and her purse that I’d made previously out of construction paper. For the big kids, I read the first several chapters of “James and the Giant Peach,” and then they drew pictures of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. This week, for Christmas, I read each class “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “If You Take a Mouse to the Movies,” and then they made little Santa cards for their moms. Seriously fun stuff. I’ve also been pilfering the young-adult section, taking home “Little House on the Prairie” and “Island of the Blue Dolphins,” which are the perfect level for my Spanish. I hope the Ingalls make it through the long Dakota winter!!! Shut up I ain’t nerdy, YOU’RE nerdy. Aren’t you late for your nerd meeting? Nerd.
Found another coral snake in my latrine—my neighbor Dario killed it with a machete. Poor little guy…I feel bad for hiring out his murder but I don’t want to get bitten and totally die. So, I win. In other garden news, my basil patch is growing tremendously well…I have about 20 plants, all over are over a foot tall now. I made my first batch of pesto the other day, to celebrate the best holiday ever, which is December 19th, a festival invented over four years ago by myself and one Matt McCorkle, in which one must eat pesto and watch the 1972 Jamaican classic “The Harder They Come”…I had my dad bring me my copy of the movie when they came to visit. David came over and we ate hella tasty pesto (thanks to the UC Davis olive oil my mom brought me and the parmesan cheese I found in Tegus) and watched the flick. It might seem boastful to say my holiday is the best in the world, but I’ve got the celestial proof if ya’ll don’t believe me. David and I had clamored up the hills behind my house to enjoy the late-afternoon sunshine and kick-off the holiday by watching the sunset. Remember, this is the middle of December—well into our dry season. No more rain, not since the first of November. More over, we had a nasty drought during the wet season. So anyway, David and I are sittin’ up on the hill, looking at the gray clouds in the distance, and commenting on how much we missed the rain. We glance up, and David spies…A RAINBOW. Just smearing its beautiful, wondrous self across that hot Honduran sky. About ten minutes later, upon further contemplation of the sky, I see that our rainbow has become a DOUBLE RAINBOW. Dudes, I AIN’T EVEN KIDDING. We freaked out and I practically peed myself. A double rainbow! During the dry season! Craziness. Then, suddenly, we looked up and noticed a THIRD rainbow stretching across the sky, wider and brighter than out first two. That’s right, people. THREE FREAKING RAINBOWS. Then, the most magical thing of all happened. It began to rain. And not just sprinkle-sprankles. It poured, it dumped, and David and I gleefully slipped and slid our way down the mountain back to my house. When we arrived, we were totally soaked, and it was absolutely amazing. People were talking about the miracle rainstorm for days afterwards, but it wasn’t a miracle…it was just Somebody upstairs sayin’ “Hayley, I dig what you’re doin’.” I feel like God sent me a December 19th holiday card or something.
Because I am the luckiest lady in the world, I am leaving tomorrow for Nicaragua, to celebrate the New Year with my Peace Corps posse. Hell yes and hot damn I am ready for some volcanoes and lakes and swishy-swashy-warm pacific ocean….so you see, even though I am spending Christmas without my family and presents and stockings and pies, my life really isn’t all too rough down here.
Looooooooooove
Hayley
5 comments:
Hayley, I too would like to say that I dig what you're doin'. Happy holidays, pretty lady!
Dear Hayley. It's Patty, your ex-neighbor from Dixon. Just talked to your Dad who gave me your blog address. So good to know what your're up to. What a fantastic experience! Loved your blog. Heard you're still "saving" people scared of frogs,like me. I've been travelling around the world myself. My blog is www.mytb.org/Patricia-Cali-Pipoca
Take care. Patty
Ah! FELIZ 2010.
And when you were "sittin’ up on the hill, looking at the gray clouds in the distance, and commenting on how much we missed the rain" before watching 'The Harder They Come' before the 3 rainbows arrived, is that ALL you were doing? :)
Yeah, I guess I dig that.
yo--had a dream last night that I beat you up because you wouldn't give me the phone number of some people to whom I lent a baby that I had somehow stolen. Long story. Anyway, hope you are NOT beat up... but know that I can do it, even in my sleep.
love you! Erika
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