dear john, im sorry i made baseball lame.

beach day! the whole gang...except for little andri, who was passed out in the shade.
esau found some cangrejas...which he brought back to alubaren in a pepsi bottle and then fried in lard and bullion cubes.
douglas playin with the boats.
splashin' around with grandma
SO SALTYYYYY
cute swimsuit little lady
grandma tina and her nietos
ah, cedeno...
esau, nuria, lisbeth, alison and noel...in the swishy swashy warm waters
douglas in his little sand lounge chair
they'll be pickin sand out of their butts for weeks
diggin and jumpin
playin soccer!! before some chumps swiped it
douglas playin in the sand
"I'm on a boat, ******-******!" says Andri. "Got my flippy-floppies!" agrees Douglas.
the kids and igor with some side-walk chalk art they did on my house...yeah i been doin some external decorating lately.

the serious shot.

21 February 2010
Hey, chochachos! It’s about 8:00pm on Sunday night, and I am waiting quite patiently for my Hayley Rice to finish….which is, in case the reader is wondering, is rice. With tomatoes and green peppers and onions. Hells yes Also, I have some spicy sausage I am gonna throw in there, and then throw in my MOUTH. Naum naum naum, naum.

So I’m a big fan of the concept of “Beach Day!”, in which one packs the car with sandwiches, soda, and Frisbees, and takes to the beach with one’s buddies for swimming and adventures. Honduras is nestled in the tender bosom of not one but two oceans, so in my hunk of time here I’ve had many opportunities to embark on such Beach Days. My neighbors, “Nely and the kids” (a nickname I have for them, which my buddy Patrick says should always be followed by “The Country Jam-Band”) always stay and take care of Igor while I cavort around the country, my pockets heavy with US tax-payers’ money, and I always feel guilty that I can travel about so easily and they can’t, ‘cause they’re hella poor. So we decided as an early “Semana Santa” adventure, we would embark on a Beach Day adventure of our own. I went to the market on Thursday and bought all the fixins’ for tamales (corn flour mix, potatoes, chicken, onions, sweet pepper, vegetable-based lard, spices and salts) and Friday afternoon we made about 60 chunkity ‘ol tamales, wrapped up steamy in huge green banana leaves. Then we packed baskets with blankets, towels, extra clothes, water, sunscreen, the works. Saturday morning, at 5:00am, my landlord Rony, who is married to Nely’s half-sister Mirian, pulled up outside the house with his two kids, Esau and Nuria (and his pockets full of gas money, provided by Uncle Sam). Nely, little Douglas, and her dad Ruben (the old man with Parkinson’s, if you recall) sat up front while the rest of us (Tina, Elias, Esau, Nuria, Lisbeth, Andri, Alison, Noel, and me) settled onto the foam pad we’d placed in the truck bed. The kids chattered excitedly about what the beach would be like (none of them had ever been to the ocean), while little motion-sick Alison barfed continuously into various plastic bags, which were then ceremoniously dumped over the edge of the car into the dirt as we flew along. We watched the stars disappear and the sun come up over the mountains as we drove along, and after an hour and a half we reached the paved road. By 8:00am, we arrived at the southern beach town of Cedeno, parked the car near a little shack at one end of the beach, and unloaded ourselves into the sand. This particular shack provided chairs, shade, and hammocks to the folks who purchased their wares, so we bought a bunch of sodas to complement our bucket packed to the brim with tamales. The kids stripped down to their underwear in about three seconds and sprinted toward the surf. “AHHH IT’S SALTY!! IT’S SALTY!! OH NO!!!” screamed Alison, totally upset by the fact she couldn’t drink it. “MY EYES! THEY BURN!” They quickly got used to the salt water, though, and from that moment on until we left at 3:00pm, the kids didn’t leave the ocean once (except to ingest tamales as quickly as Science would allow). I had brought my Frisbee and Noel his new soccer ball my dad sent him, but both toys went basically unused as the kids were way too enthralled by the crashing waves. We played a Catcher in the Rye type game in which I would stand waist-deep in the water and snag the kids as the receding surf dragged them out…then, as the waves rolled in, I would launch them like little brown surf-boards and they would “surf” in. The only people who didn’t enjoy the water were Ruben, who shuffled around dressed for the office in leather shoes, pinstriped slacks, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, and Douglas and Andri, the two-year-olds, who were so terrified by the immense body of water that they refused to even go near it. However, there were little fishing boats pulled up on the sand, and they had a great time climbing around and playing in the sand (Douglas tried to eat it, and then sat there gagging until someone ran over and rinsed his mouth out). At 3pm, we piled back into the truck and set off for home. This time, the ride was much more unpleasant, because the sun-burned, tired kids were very cranky and we were all melting under the blistering sun. At least Alison wasn’t puking nonstop again; she passed out in my lap after 10 minutes in and slept almost the whole way home. When we arrived at 6:00pm, everyone took baths and then we made a quick dinner of eggs, chorizo, cream, and tortillas before calling it an early night. The kids passed out on the floor, on top of the same dirty pad we’d had in the truck, mumbling about waves (I bet they all pissed the bed). Hells yes Beach Day!

I’ve suddenly found myself rather busy, which is nice. I began TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology) classes this week, with 16 teachers, and that went quite smoothly. I went by the high school one morning, to recruit baseball players, and mentioned to the principal that I’d like to start a project called “Youth to Youth: Work Skills and Orientation”; a 10-session, 40-hour work-shop that helps the kids identify their aptitudes and labor interests and, once they’ve identified possible careers or jobs they might enjoy, orients them on how to pursue them. It’s very intense and work-heavy, both for the facilitator and the participants, and I’ve been stressing about it because my counter-part that was trained in how to facilitate the program with me has since jumped ship and enrolled in the Police Academy—I’m flyin’ solo. So anyway, I sit down with the principal, and she whips out her little calendar, and figures out when the 11th and 12th graders could sacrifice an entire morning. We decide that Fridays would be best, and she announces that we must begin the NEXT DAY. I stay up until freakin’ 2:00am creating all the visual aids I would need and preparing, and wake up at 5:45am to I can get to the school by 7:00am. Despite my sleep deprivation and nervousness, the workshop went really well for the first day and the kids seemed into it (the methodology is excellent and uses a lot of games and activities). I enjoy it, sort of…though pre-schoolers and little guys like that are much more my thing and dealing with 37 high schoolers was definitely a challenge for me…they definitely think I’m super lame (probably because I kept telling jokes and doing things that can only be fairly described as such). We had the next session the next day, Friday, and from now one will have one session per week until we finish. Oh heavens.

On the baseball front, Las Panteras have suffered a revolution and an abrupt re-enrollment. After we lost our first game, all the big kids that have played baseball for two years decided baseball is no longer cool, and ceremoniously quit (including my pitchers, catchers, and best basemen). I tried everything—talking to their parents, talking to them, going to the school—but it’s a closed case. Baseball is officially Hella Lame. I went to the school and recruited heavily, and all this week I’ve had numbers higher than I’ve seen all year—20 kids came on Wednesday, and 24 on Friday. But the dynamics are totally different. Before, the kids were the same ones who played with John (the volunteer before me)—generally well-behaved, successful kids whose parents are involved in the community and the churches. And, since they began with John, most of the kids were now pretty big and pretty good players. However, since they all quit, the ranks have been re-filled with all the little ragamuffins—the kids who roam the pueblo all day because their parents don’t care, little urchins who do poorly in school and stay up until 10:00pm every night playing soccer in the street because they don’t have enforced bedtimes. A lot of them have drunks for dads, and these kids have mouths on ‘em that would make a very surly pirate blush and say, “Well, I never!”. Essentially, these little guys, the smelly kids at school, have become the core of Las Panteras. Baseball is no longer for the cool kids, it’s for the underdogs. This interesting social phenomenon came about very abruptly—I didn’t specifically invite this crowd of kids, I just issued a general invitation at the school and showed up a the baseball field the next day, expecting nobody to show and instead being greeted by 20 very punctual children, all eager to play. It’s frustrating, because the regional championship is in April and I’m now starting from scratch with kids who have no idea how to play baseball, but it’s awesome having a group of kids who are just there to play and not obsessing over whether or not we win our little scrimmages against Reitoca. And the best part of all is that these kids, who are always getting yelled at in school and bear the reputation of the “bad kids” have now accomplished two practices in which they were as good as GOLD. No cussing, no fighting, no rudeness (except for one kid who straight-up peed on another kid…needless to say, Pee Boy has been removed from the team). Maybe this will act as a catalyst in a life-changing metamorphosis in these children, and then Disney will make a movie about it. The rag-tag group of misfits who manage to win the big game…just like in Wet Hot American Summer. Only instead of calling it off and running off into the woods, we actually will play and it will be Awesome.

Love,
Hayley

P.S. I just found a tarantula the size of my face chillin on my bedroom wall. But my neighbor squished it with a broom so it's cool.