Survey!!

Igor in the 2010 Regional Grand Opening of the Most Freaking Expensive Dog Kennel Ever

the awesome swimmin hole 3 hours away from our homes...went there hikin through the woods and crossing raging rivers with nely, the kids, her brothers, and my good buddy eddie

noel with his leaf boat

Igor, guarding the giant bucket of spaghetti and tortillas

lisbeth, alison, and noel making leaf boats

eddie!

water fallllll!!! don't ever climb under one of those things, though. you might drown.

douglas, nely and me.

alison pretending to be a campesino who has to do her washing in the river (seriously, that was the game)

eddie? eddie!

on the way to the swimmin hole.wooosh there we go

my little buddy douglas, who comes over every day and demands to bathe himself at the pila "yo solito" (all by myself)

the kid won't stop!

this is what i do to naughty little boys. INTO THE CAGE, BABY.

13 August 2010

Hey, chochachos!

Instead of a normal bloggy blog, I have copied-n-pasted the infamous "Close-of-Service" Survey that all us "seniors" have to fill out...please enjoy.

Name: Hayley Kercher

Site: Alubarén, F.M., also known (by me) as The Lubes, or when I’m feeling playful, the Lubey Lubes.

Project: Youth Development

Nicknames: Most people in my site call me Heely (yes, just like those sweet sneakers), but that’s not so much a nickname as it is an adorable mispronunciation.

Biggest Accomplishment: Leading my baseball team in a consecutive series of wretched defeats, thus generously teaching the children the thrill of being good losers. You’re welcome, babies.

Biggest Disappointment: My god. The teachers here. One hundred times, one thousand times. You cradle the future in your pudgy little hands and you do NOTHING.

Biggest Regret: Not doing anything to curb the rampant rape-n-pillage of our madre tierra here, except for discreetly furrowing my eyebrows when people throw soda bottles out the bus window.

Things you will miss most: Little Douglas (my 2-year-old neighbor) yelling from across the street in his tiny voice “YA SE LEVANTO, HEELY?!” when I yank my creaky front-door open every morning. Sitting in their house in the afternoon and drinking coffee and eating corn and its by-products (or mangos if it aint corn season). Having my entire world revolve around a 1.5 mile radius. The love and joy I feel radiating into my soul from the big brown eyes of the kiddies in my town. Taking said kiddies on Adventures in the hills. Jesus. Everything. I love you Honduras.

Things you will miss least: Working with the teachers. And the fierce fiery inferno that is my house. And the tarantulas.

Worst Illness: Once a tórsano (bot-fly) laid an egg in my eyeball and then it turned into a larvae and it was hella gross. Then it got infected and they had to amputate my eye (rather like melon balling) and now I have a glass one. But please don’t ask me about it as I’m sensitive.

Biggest Freak-out: When I was taking a shower in Gabe’s house on top of his pretty green mountain during a thunderstorm and was briefly electrocuted by a rogue bolt of lightening that hit just outside the bathroom and traveled through the hose and into my body. I bellowed several short, hoarse screams (like a muppet, I’m told) and leapt out of the shower, dripping soapy water all over Gabe’s bathroom floor while I pranced around, flapping my hands and panicking in all my pasty naked glory.

Biggest fear during PC: That I would wake up one sweaty morning, smack my mouth, stretch my arms, rub my cute little eyes, and focus in on a giant tarantula, suspended above my face like a mid-air nightmare on my mosquito net.

Most useful thing I brought: Underpants.

Least useful thing I brought: Orthopedic inserts. I never did wear them. Also, a whole fistful of bobby-pins. Why??

Favorite activity I did when bored: Go scrambling around in the hills behind my house with Igor and the kiddies, just stompin around lookin at all kinds of dragonflies and such, cannonballing into swimming holes.

Weirdest thing I did when bored: Sit with my feet touching sole-to-sole in my hammock and pretend that my big toes were giant worms (a la Tremors) and then make them fight to the death. Also, I like to close all the windows in my house and dress like a Cowboy and then do the Butt-Cheek Dance.

Greatest lie I told at my site: What? No, I don’t have to pay any extra to take Igor back to the states with me. Totally free.

Favorite Honduran Inquiry: Once, at the swimming hole, my neighbor timidly implored me to show her my nipple, because she was so curious about what a little gringa nipple might look like.

Best Honduran Gesture: Oh, but there are so many. But if I have to choose just one, I will have to go with my personal favorite, the lip-point. But runner-up for the nose-scrunchy “What?” thing and the belly ruuuuuuuub.

Favorite CD/Song during my service: Oh heavens, I cannot decide such a thing. Let’s just say I listen to hella jangly banjos.

Song I would be content never to hear again: Pretty much any Jesus-Love-Ballad featuring a dude that sounds like a weasel and his trusty A-tonal Casio keyboard, played on a bus.

Favorite books during service: Before Peace Corps, I had no idea who Tom Robbins was. Can you imagine?

Favorite Honduran fashion: The women’s soccer team in my town like to do their daily activities with stylish tops made of plastic garbage bags on under their bien socado polyester shirts, to help them “lost weight.” It’s a thing, seriously.

Best jalon: When my two buddies from home and I were camping on Punta Sal and had wandered 4 hours through the jungle to the other side of the peninsula to find a nice campsite, only to discover the destined beach was all kinds of buggy and actually sort of feo. We were starving and hot and tired and not at all looking forward to hiking another four hours back with all our shit, when all of a sudden, a shnazzy speed boat built for 20 zoomed into the remote cove, picked a group of day-tripping gringo missionaries who had been hiking and suddenly appeared out of nowhere from the trees, and offered us a ride back to the main beach where all the prettiness hangs out. We got to ride in the very front, and since it was a tour group, they stopped a couple times on the way back to the main beach to do awesome things like leap off the stern into secret Ocean Caves and such. Best of all, there were Snacks.

Worst jalon: ain’t no such thing. Jalons are Fun Things.

Best bus ride: I like riding the bus out of my site, at 5:30am, rolling up and down the hills and watchin the stars fade and morning sun do its thang all over the emerging horizon. All homes with tortilla smoke driftin out the roof and little kids herdin their cows with a stick.

Worst bus ride: That exact SAME bus, only entering the mountain from the freeway, all terrible and boiling hot at 2:00pm, dusty as shit and stinky, with all the pleasantries of the morning evaporated by the sun.

Favorite food: I really dig a nice bean and rice soup, all thick and savory and spliced with generous sprinkling of culantro, bien espeso. With like four hot, thick corn tortillas.

Worst thing I smelled: Having a wet dog sleep under my bed, immediately after rolling the hell out of a dead animal of some sort.

Stupidest thing I did in the past 2 years: Once, while hiking up Volcan Maderas in Nicaragua, I drank a mud puddle. I’d forgotten to fill my Nalgene, and was halfway up the mountain before I discovered this. It was like little knives of thirst stabbing me in the tender under-belly that is my throat. Thus, in a swirly moment of dehydrated delirium did I thus fill my belly with an entire liter of chestnut-colored water. Later, Giardia called me and was like “Hey, Haylz, wanna hang?” and I was all “Not really, Giardia, I’m kinda busy at the moment,” and Giardia was all like “Too bad man, I’m already on my way! I hope you got good Netflix!” but I didn’t because that does not exist in Honduras. So then I peed out my butt (POMB) for several days.

Untrue fact told to you as an undeniable truth: jelly beans do not exist here (yes they DO, they’re called Perlas and it is awesome.)

You know you’ve been in Honduras too long when: your Honduran visa expires.

I never thought I would: learn to enjoy hangin out by myself, with myself, for such an extended period of time.

If I had to do it all over again I: would not….NOT do it again. (As in, double negative…as in, would.)

Favorite piropo: I always enjoy it when a dude abruptly leans into my face while walking by me on the street and blows me an obscenely loud smooch followed by an “mmm mi amor.” Lovely.

Favorite Ropa Americana t-shirt: my glow-in-the-dark dinosaur facts t-shirt. Sorry, but it’s just the best there is.

Favorite animal story: The first time the shroud of mystery surrounding bird sex was finally lifted. To this day, when a rooster walks by I slide up and surreptitiously shut and lock my doors, my heart a-poundin’ and palms sweating.. My god.

Best habit acquired: Learning to fork-lift my food from my crotch to my face while curled up in my hammock, plate balanced on my thighs, book in my hand and surprisingly little dinner on my shirt.

Worst habit acquired: Putting things off till tomorrow because that’s what everyone else does. Also, never picking up my dog’s turds.

Things you missed most from the U.S.: Toasty sandwiches with remarkable insides, tasty microbrewy beer, sumptuous cheeses, sushi, and the ability to decide I want any of the above in my mouf and making that happen, all in the same moment. Also, ridin’ around in my bike on nice smooth suburbian streets and such.

Things you missed least from the U.S.: Pesto. Because I ate a whole vat of it every single week.

Honduras Highlights: The time I went to the beach with my neighbors who’d never seen the ocean before. Everyone got sunburned as hell and all kinds of gritty sand up in their cracks and dehydrated as the dickens and it was GLORIOUS. Also, I sure have taken a particular delight in knowing and loving you all, my happy friends. Let’s stay up all night and eat candy!

Best advice for fellow PCVs: Hot damn and hells yes, this is the most glorious job in the world and don’t let the lack of sumptuous cheeses blind you to that fact. Livin’ in quaint little green pueblitos, savin’ the babies from all kinds of typhoid and rolling in the love of neighbors and such COME ON THIS IS THE SHIT AND YOU KNOW IT.

Most likely to (for yourself or for others): eat three bags of Perlitas before I finish fillin it out (me).