the start of something

"Team of Rivals," by Doris Kearns Goodwin

2011-05-07T10:27:00.000-06:00

If you decide to read ANY book this year, make Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It is a fascinating account of the life of Lincoln and the men of his Cabinet that provides incredible insight into the way that Lincoln navigated the many challenges that he faced as President. "Team of Rivals" is filled with great stories and depictions of the great figures of the time from their own words and the accounts of those who interacted with them - from Lincoln's Secretary, John Hay, who remarked that he "would rather make a tour of a small-pox hospital" than be forced to ask Secretary of War Stanton a favor, to Navy Secretary Welles' account of Lincoln's joy at hearing about the fall of Vicksburg, to Lincoln's remarks about the local political demands of the time for geographical balance in the Cabinet - "I suppose if the twelve Apostles were to be chosen nowadays the shrieks of locality would have to be headed." It took me a while to get through it, since it's 749 pages long, but don't let its length deter you. Even dipping into it from time to time will be rewarding, as you are likely familiar with the broad arc of the narrative. Yet I will point out that even so, the author somehow manages to make the account feel suspenseful.

I was really struck by how Lincoln at the start of his political career fretted that his generation would have no opportunity for greatness, in the way that the men and women of the revolution did. We do not face the challenges he did then, and most of us will never hold power in the way that he did, but I think that reading of the way that Lincoln lived his life may provide inspiration for all today who seek to be a part of efforts to remake our country into an even greater place, more full of opportunity for people of all backgrounds. He was practical, but held his ground on what he believed to be right; he was politically savvy, but time and time again forgave others, following his credo that "no man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention." After reading this narrative, which allows me now to know in much greater detail all that Lincoln did, I hold him in even higher esteem than I did previously.

Venturing outside Honduras!

2007-07-04T20:57:00.000-06:00

In the more-than-a-month since I updated my blog, a whole lot has happened. For starters, my ninth graders graduated! Next year, I'm happy to say, many of them will be going on to solid bilingual schools in San Pedro Sula, and with some of your support, we should be able to award a needy and very deserving student a partial scholarship to make it possible for him to continue his bilingual studies.

Right after the Saturday graduation--at 3 am on Sunday morning--some fellow teachers and I whisked the kids away on a trip to Roatan. The kids have been fundraising for it since the start of the new year, and their efforts, combined with some key donations and some really amazing support from a hotel on West Bay, made it possible. It was so wonderful to see kids who barely know how to swim starting to feel comfortable in the water, playing around in kayaks, and learning to snorkel. I loved the glass bottom boat, even though it made me seasick, because we got to see 2 sea turtles swimming around! It was a really special trip for me to be there with them and also to be experiencing that kind of natural beauty for the first time with them.

The other happening of note on that trip was that I got my hair cut: layered and (ever so slightly) highlighted--for the first time ever! I'm so happy.

The day after I got back from Roatan, my brother arrived in Honduras! We immediately embarked on a whirlwind 'highlights of Honduras' tour. On Friday we went on an awesome visit to the Pulhapanzak waterfall near Lago de Yajoa, during which we walked under the 45 m high falls. The only word for an experience like that is EXHILARATING. You can't see anything at all and it's hard to move forward because the water is pounding down so hard....and then you get to a part when you can look up and you're sort of behind the falls--not totally sheltered, but enough to at least grab a few quick glances up. When we got back from the waterfall (after eating the homemade cookies mom and dad sent down with the bro and rocking out a little in the parking lot), we went to the feria de san pedro to check out the wiiide variety of products available. I got a Golden Delicious Apple, which I have not had since Christmas, I think. It was great. We also, of course, went out to Klein and had a very chill evening.

Saturday was recouperation day....Sunday we went to Copan Ruinas and enjoyed checking out the Mayan ruins and eating a very good meal. My bro managed to polish off everybody's leftovers, which made quite an impression. His height is surprising enough in Honduras. Now that we're hanging out with the 'backpacker crowd,' though, I suppose it's not as novel. I packed up my stuff on Monday and on Tuesday at 5 am we embarked on the bus ride to Managua. Managua was terrible, like everybody says it is...I wish we had tried to go straight on to Granada. The best thing that can be said for it was that we got the chance to catch up on sleep.

Now we're here in Granada at a cool hostel with free internet...(yay!) This afternoon we swam in the Laguna de Apoyo, a lake formed in a volcano crater. The water was gorgeous, and the green mountains around it were perfectly picturesque. Tomorrow I think we'll head to a volcano and then we're thinking we'll try to get out to Isla de Ometepe, which is the island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. It's funny just to be traveling and chilling after so much time in Honduras teaching. Living the life of leisure is cool, but also kind of stressful in its own way. I'm trying my best just to relax and enjoy the ride. I'm really missing my boring, dirty little hometown in Honduras right now, actually, and the friends I made there and in SPS. But we're going to mantener al tanto, so no worries!

All good things....

2007-05-30T07:00:00.000-06:00

Two weeks of class left of the school year, and it’s pretty hard to believe how far I’ve come. Of course, that somehow makes these last weeks seem reeaally slow.

Some events of note recently:

Birthday celebration. Had a fun little dessert and drinks party on the back porch with my fellow teachers on the eve of my birthday before heading out to San Pedro to Kline Bar. There I heard two great local rock bands and had a fun time hanging out while enjoying numerous free drinks.

Surprise from the students. After Actos Civicos on Monday morning, one of my students approached me to ask me a question about the exam schedule. It was a ludicrous question and he couldn’t really keep a straight face. That’s when I realized there was more birthday celebration in the works. “Let me help you out,” I said, “Ask me about my weekend.” When we walked back to the classroom, everybody shouted surprise and presented the huge breakfast feast they had brought. But even better was that they brought a pinata! I learned that it’s pretty hard to hit the pinata when you’re legitimately blindfolded and turned around 24 times. All in all, it was a really nice way to celebrate.

Cusuco trip. On Thursday morning, my students announced that they wanted to go to Cusuco. On Friday. I told them that if they organized it all, we could go. To do my part, I walked home during recess to get the phone number of the guide. They called and arranged the tour, arranged transportation, wrote the permission slip, and got permission from the school administration. So we went. On Friday morning, they all showed up in their hiking clothes—or at least their non-school clothes—and we set off. We heard a small lecture about the park, which formerly was a logging site, but became a protected area in the 1950s, and then had a great “breakfast” provided by the students. Within the first five minutes of the hike they were all whining—“No aguanto más!” But eventually they settled down and got into the rhythm of hiking. We saw a quetzal in its tree nest, well, really just the blue and green tail feathers sticking out. Our guide just couldn’t convince the bird that it wanted to come out to spend time with 7th and 8th graders. A few times during steep downhill portions of the trail, the kids started slipping and sliding around, their Converse tennies lacking the tread to help them get their grip. Once one student fell down and that set off a domino effect, knocking down two other students and even the guide!

Birthday celebration 2 (3?). Since the two friends of mine who live in the city were away last weekend—are leaving this week!—they hosted a birthday/goodbye party/any other random occasion gathering in their apartment this past Saturday. Alas they had actually stayed out until 6 am the night before, so they weren’t in a wild and crazy party mood, but we had a fun time anyway. And we had a lot of time early in the evening to hear some funny stories via ‘Two truths and a lie’ and ‘Never have I ever.’

Other excellence. My awesome sister graduated magna cum laude this past weekend. In other words, she’s a huge rockstar. AND I received a package from my parents! So I ate Golden Grahams for breakfast this morning—albeit with boxed skim milk—while reading a New York Times magazine. And unlike yesterday, there actually was electricity when I woke up this morning. Now that is beautiful.

A whirlwind week

2007-05-08T15:36:00.000-06:00

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” (Rodin)

Lesser-known saying: Nothing like taking life advice from chai tea bags.

Rock-bottom. On Wednesday, I experienced the lowest of low times with my seventh/eighth grade class. They were just really, truly uncooperative and disrespectful. I was so at a loss that I let them go a few minutes early to recess—which I never do, so as not to give in to their frequent pleas to go just ten minutes, just five minutes, just two minutes early. I ended up sending all of them to the office at lunchtime so they could get a talking-to from the school’s director. I’m happy to say that Thursday was much, much better and on Friday I even got a few apologies. I hope that last week was a turning point and that they can spend the last four weeks before the exam and retest weeks peacefully doing the best they can to improve their English. Teaching has been difficult for me and I don’t expect any miracles, but I would like to end the year on a positive note.

Rodeo! On Sunday afternoon, I experienced several special events. I witnessed grown men (some straight from the disreputable billardes hall nearby) showing off for video cameras their sweet....jump rope skills. Yes, jump rope. It was evidently part of the town feria that’s going on this week. It seemed to be a special kind of jump rope situation, with two ropes at right angles to each other, which was a seemingly impossible configuration. Each time, several men would try to jump in and would make it only a few jumps before tripping. After checking that out, I headed to a field near the boulevard with some friends to the RO-DAY-OH! When we arrived, we paid the 50 lemp entrance fee and maneuvered past the cases of beer to the rough bleachers that had been set up about 10 feet from the “ring”—a U.S.-suburban-living-room-sized enclosure made of wooden posts (still in very tree-like form) and metal gates. We soon realized that most of the announcer’s time would be devoted to admonishing people who had entered earlier (without paying, evidently) in trucks and were standing in the truck beds to see into the rodeo. Despite continuous pleas to people to “sean educados” and colaborar con nosotros,” the nonpayers continued to observe and actually tore down some of the black netting that surrounded the ring so they could get a better view.

Pacifist bulls? The rodeo itself was a bit pathetic. Most of the bulls were pretty small and seemed to have no interest in entering the ring at all. Maybe they’re pacificists. At any rate, none of them seemed too interested in getting riled up. Many of them lay down once they got right outside the entrance and the vaqueros were at some pains to get them out in the ring. Even when they could finally drag them into the ring, most bucked around for a couple minutes and then, having thrown the rider or not, trotted docilely over to the exit. One of my friends who has been to rodeos in Panama says the bulls there were bulls, not tame like these ones. I suppose there just isn’t too much in the way of cattle around here, plus it was probably a budget operation. The funniest moment was when the only white bull entered the ring, in a playful mood. He bucked his rider off in about five seconds and then ran around the entire ring near the fences, butting in the direction of the men and boys who had draped themselves over the top of the corral. Most scrambled to pull their legs out of the ring but weren’t too disturbed. The only ones who got a real scare were too younger boys, maybe about 10 and 12, who had taken a friend’s camera to get some close-up shots. They were leaning through the fence with the camera when the bull started charging around. One ran back towards the bleachers but the other, caught between the netting and the fence actually dove through a whole in the netting. It was hysterical, particularly when the bull then trotted back to the exit, calm once again. If only I had been close enough to get a photo of a bull smiling...

Going OUT. That whole experience was very small-town and Honduran, and was really accentuated by my Friday night. I met up with a friend in San Pedro and we grabbed some dinner at Applebee’s in near proximity to several groups of pre-teens. I had the “zesti” (as our waiter wrote it down) chicken sandwich, which was great. Then we hung around my friend’s apartment, waiting to get picked up by a guy who went to our college and his friend. We would have dressed a lot nicer (okay, only a little nicer, since I don’t really have super-nice clothes here with me—but definitely I would have worn good shoes) if we had realized we were being taken out on a serious night out. At one point I do believe we begged to be taken back to my friend’s apartment to change shoes. That must have been before I hit the point where I was disparaging various possible U.S. presidential candidates in a far too loud voice.

Making the rounds. First we went to a very nice bar that evidently serves thai food and has a killer atmosphere...nice outdoor bar with comfy couches and a tree-filled, candlelit atmosphere. At first I thought we had valet service everywhere, until I realized that the white truck behind us contained the body guards. Kidnappings are just popular enough to make that kind of thing advisable, I suppose. Then we headed to, well, basically San Pedro Sula’s country club. There’s a full-sized Olympic swimming pool there, in addition to various tennis courts, a children’s play area, restaurant, and more. We went to the lounge and grabbed a few more drinks, and then headed to a classy club. (The ones we had been to before were part of what someone referred to as the “maybe get shot tour” of San Pedro.) It was indeed nice, albeit a bit smoky, and we heard all the reggaeton standbys, like “Acercate a mi” and some American favs as well. The whole experience was such a marked contrast to my usual life here. It was really fun—it felt like a real vacation, a real true night out. But it was also pretty surreal and strange to hang out with folks who live in a way that people where I live can hardly imagine existing. I know there’s a separation like that in the states, but I’m just so much more aware of it here.

The week begins again. It was back to school again today, but we started the week off right with a little party for my kids’ teacher from last year. It was great to see how excited they were about seeing their former teacher, catching up and showing off how much they’ve learned in the past year. Alas, this is my awkward segue into making a pitch for a new scholarship fund my co-middle school teacher and I have started for our ninth graders. The idea is to give at least one scholarship this year (and in years to come!) to make it possible for a deserving graduate of the school to continue his or her bilingual education at a reputable school in San Pedro Sula. If you’re at all interested in learning more, please send me an email and I’ll give you the inside scoop on what it’s all about and how you can help.

Swinging through the trees

2007-04-22T21:29:00.000-06:00

After the teacher’s meeting on Friday, I rushed back home to pack my backpack to go to Copan Ruinas for the weekend. A friend was going with her mom and her host family, so some of the other teachers and I got a ride with them in the back of the pickup truck. It was a scenic, albeit slightly nauseating, ride up the windy mountain road that begins after passing through La Entrada. We stopped along the way to get really ripe pineapple from a family selling it on the side of the road. Later....

“I can’t find my other flip-flop!” said the kinder/prepa teacher.
“Oh, I think I saw a flip-flop like that on the ground when we stopped to get pineapple. But I didn’t know it was yours...” said JE, the driver of the pick-up, with a shrug, totally straight-faced.

Five minutes later, the teacher finds his flip-flop. Nice joke, JE!

On Friday night we settled into our hostel, the Iguana Azul, and then had a drink at Twisted Tanya’s in tables perched at the edge of a second-floor balcony overlooking the mountains. We ate excellent non-tipico food at Via Via and had an early night.

Saturday morning we had a nice pancake breakfast out and then I had some decisions to make. My friends were going to tour the ruins with an illustrious tour guide of some repute as a comic and a charmer. (“The British stole the jade....those...bastards!”) I had already visited the ruins twice, so I wanted to do something else, but I wasn’t sure what. After talking with a woman at a coffeshop about a tour of a coffee finca, I decided I’d rather do the canopy tour—more time flexibility, plus I had just really wanted to do it the last time I was in Copan. So I signed up for the tour, after a trip to the ATM and a stopover at the library to buy the second two books of the “His Darkest Materials” series. (I had bought the first one, The Golden Compass, from there in February and polished it off in two happy days.) I befriended the nineteen-year-old Honduran girl working at the tour place while I waited for my ride. She wants to study tourism at university in San Pedro after working for a year. When I started humming along to one of the songs she was playing, we started talking about all the music she likes. She played me her favorite Switchfoot song and was super-jealous when I said a friend of mine had seen them in concert.

The canopy tour was awesome. An Israeli guy, a six-year-old and I did the course of more than a dozen cables, led by two Honduran guys my age. The six-year-old, Christian, was the most experienced of the customers—he seemed to be related to someone running the business, had his own harness, and spoke confidently about which cables were fast and slow. We started with a cable that Christian disparaged as very, very slow—although that didn’t stop him from calling back to us as he slid across that he was flying! The harness is like the ones used for rock climbing and it gets attached to your individual pulley at each cable platform—you grab onto the cable with your gloved hands and the guides give you a knee boost up to hook you on. Then they let go and let you slide away. You control your speed by keeping your dominant hand trailing on the cable behind the pulley. If you grip the cable tightly while arching your body towards it, that slows you down. My Israeli buddy kept breaking too much so the guides continually had to go several meters out onto the cable at the other end to reel him in. I loved the speed, though, which surprised me a bit since I am kind of scared of rock climbing and heights. I suppose it’s that it feels very secure and it’s a whole lot of fun to zip along with the trees below you, checking out the valley and the houses on the hilltops and even the ruins in the distance. Pretty soon I got down a great technique where I mostly didn’t break until about three-fourths of the way in and was able to control my entrance to the platform nearly perfectly, if I do say so myself. One of the guides was impressed enough to compliment me on it and ask if I was married.

The best cable trip was the one that is a meter long and goes over a river. Christian had to go paired with a guide on that one (usually one guide goes first and one goes last) because it gets really windy on the long cable, so if you don’t weigh too much and really control your speed you can end up just flipping around in circles. It was so exhilarating to race across the valley like that! The second-best run was a “slower” one where they showed me how to turn myself upside down, gripping the strap connecting me to the cable with my legs to sustain the position and letting my arms hang down. It was so awesome to look at all the trees from upside down! The stop at the end was a bit abrupt, though, since the guide basically has to catch you to stop you. They’re able to right themselves while moving if they do that, but they don’t try to make us beginners attempt that.

We took one brief walking interlude during our trip to see some rock formations carved by the Mayans called Los Sapos. I saw a very faded depiction of a woman giving birth, checked out the special stone configuration where Mayan women sat to give birth, and looked at a large frog carving. One of the guides told me that they say if you sit on the frog, you’ll have lots of kids, since the frog is the Mayan symbol of fertility. He figures he’s going to have a whole bunch since he sits on it all of the time! (I didn’t try it out.)

After my canopy tour, I was dropped off back in town, where I took a brief trip through the children’s museum, ate an excellent sandwich—a baguette with cream cheese, bacon and avocado—and went to my favorite Copan coffeshop, Cafe San Rafael, where I drank a wonderful moccachino. The place is picturesque beyond belief...you walk in there and feel an instant sense of calm. The smell of coffee roasting settles over you as you slide into a wooden chair, deliberating if you should buy a piece of the rolled pastry cake in the glass case. The two tables and long countertop on the right side overlook the owners’ enclosed front yard, full of green bushes and flowers. A great place for a descanso.

I met back up with my friends in the late afternoon for drinks before dinner, which proved much too much for me to handle on an empty stomach. I alternated between dizziness and extreme tiredness during dinner due to my happy hour overzealousness, but I managed to rally for the beer pong tournament we attended at a bar in Copan owned by a 23-year-old Californian guy. I was the goofball who spent the rest of the night sipping water from my nalgene—I very much enjoyed my role of professional beer pong spectator. It was all quite bewildering at first—there were debates about bouncing and blowing the ball out of the cup, leaning over the table, when the beers must be drunk, when re-racking takes place, etc. I never knew that there were such intricate—and evidently, partially regional—rules for the game! I did understand, though, that the random Honduran man who started sipping from the water cup used for rinsing the balls was definitely violating universal beer pong etiquette.

We ended up going to Papa Chango’s when the bar closed at 12, meeting a few other nice people over there, including a Yale medical resident who spent a good deal of time helping a friend understand the differing symptoms of dengue and malaria and alerting her to signs that someone is really, really ill. He advised us that the traditional Honduran medical treatment of a shot of antibiotics may not be great for future public health, but is actually pretty darn good at knocking out most bugs that might afflict you down here. I got to dance along in my chair to some favorite American and Honduran hits, such as my fav Estas de Miedo. Around 3 we headed back to the bar for a smaller-scale beer pong, round 2. As a result, we barely had time to grab some breakfast this morning before our ride back at 11 am. But it was a really fun night and well worth it—even if that curvy trip back down the mountains of Copan was relatively miserable in the midday heat after sleeping only a few hours and some solid hangovers on the part of my friends.

Unfortunately my welcome back home was a huge pile of laundry to be done so that I’d have clothes to wear to school on Monday. But all my stuff is currently drying and now I just have to pull together some stuff for school tomorrow. I might wake up at 5 to do it. I’m a bit exhausted, but I’m in a good mood. Here comes Bimester 5—the last one!

Ricas Baleadas!

2007-04-16T06:24:00.000-06:00

Passing by the Bodega Mabel at 7 am on Sunday, a market regular would have noted a new addition to the retail landscape: a crowd of ninth grade bilingual school students selling baleadas.

We had intended to assemble at 5:30 am, but when I arrived at 5:31, the only other person there was a fellow teacher. Students trickled in for the next hour, with two of the students with the most important components—the beans and the portable gas stove—arriving last, and only after several cell phone calls. There was quite a bit of chaos in the assembly of the operation..... “Do we have a table?” (We took a laundry room picnic table that was in use as an ironing board.) “Sugar? Milk?” (Students sent out to buy.)

Then there was a minor issue with the actual tortilla making—when we tried to fold the first tortillas, they cracked. The boy of the duo who had made the masa immediately avowed responsibility—“I just brought all the ingredients”—and the girl involved just shrugged her shoulders and bought the first cup of coffee. But several mothers quickly swung into action to help out, and with the addition of some more flour, the consistency was greatly improved. My fellow teacher and I wanted to help make the baleadas, but we were only allowed to be in charge of supervision and the money. As one student said rather untactfully, “But miss, if you make them they will be deformed! People will not buy them!”

Our first potential sale turned out to be a non-sale, since the waiting couple who had approached requesting two baleadas became discouraged when they realized that the beans were not even on location yet. (They were being heated nearby at a students’ house.) When asked to wait by an excited student, they turned away in disgust. Ah well.

Fortunately, the students ran off to grab the beans, which were indeed hot, and the mothers began to turn out quite perfect circles, so we soon had a steady stream of baleadas being made—not necessarily in the most efficient way, but slowly and surely. (It went much better once we sent someone to buy plastic wrap instead of messing around with plates—and that was all the better for orders to go.) While the students were not aggressive about hawking the food, enough people approached us to keep the sales going, and we sent out groups of students with five at a time to sell them to folks along the main street and in the heart of the market. I don’t have any proof that they weren’t just taking money from their parents and pitching the baleadas in the gutter, but they did return every time with the correct amount of money!

The limeade, made fresh from limes growing at one of the students’ houses, was N.’s personal project and made for the most enthusiastic sales of the day. Three boys traipsed around the market with the huge blue cooler, yelling to everyone to buy their limonadas. In less than an hour, they had sold out. If we do it again, we will definitely have to include that as one of our main products. Coffee, however, was much less successful.

There were so many beans remaining around 8:30 when the tortilla masa was all used up that the mothers urged us to send students for more ingredients to make more tortillas. They whipped up some more and sales continued to be pretty brisk, despite our slowness at bulk orders. I did feel savvy when one man ordered five and we asked him to go about his shopping in the bodega and then swing by on the way back for his food. He did just that and I was happy to be prepared to give somebody their food without a scramble for once.

Around 9:30, we sold our last baleada and closed up shop for the day. All together, the students had earned about 1,000 lempiras, or about $50. The money the students are raising is going towards a pre-graduation trip to Roatan—the first ever, and possibly first-annual? While the students tired at times of the venture, they were really excited to have sold so many baleadas, in defiance of some parental doubts, and suggested that we do it again some other time. Okay, maybe not next Sunday, they amended, but perhaps the one after that.

It was great to see them working as a team, and so even though it was an early wake-up, I was glad to have been there for it. I think it was fun for me and for them to be a part of the Sunday morning market action. It also helped me put in perspective what a typical Honduran life is like. Our town feels so suffocatingly small to me that I forget sometimes that for many other people, from the mountains, for example, this is actually a big place. Tons of families make a big trip here on Sundays to buy the food they need for the week—stacks of corrugated cardboard filled with eggs, sacks of flour and rice, bunches of vegetables.

Exam week starts tomorrow, and then we enter into our fifth and final bimester. I’m feeling ready to be home in the States, but I’ve got at least 2 ½ more months of soaking up all the Honduras experience that I can. While I’m very worn out at this point by life here, I’ve also been feeling a bit more connected to some members of the community, which is really nice. (I do love having a cafecito after school.) After the school year ends, I will possibly be traveling around for a while...if anybody has any interest in some Latin American adventures in July, definitely let me know.

Live update from Antigua

2007-04-06T17:01:00.000-06:00

Today started at 5:20 am when I woke up with a start in a grungy guesthouse in Antigua, unable to recall my alarm going off at 4:45 am, groggy, the drums that proceed Semana Santa processions beating nearby, the only thought in my head: I´m going to miss it all!
A friend and I pulled on some clothes and ran outside in the half-dark to join other sleepy procession devotees. We raced past five or six sawdust alfombras, or carpets (which we saw people just beginning to start making at 11 pm the night before) and quickly spotted the purple robes of the men who line the parade route in the hundreds, a honor guard of sorts for the Jesus and Mary statues that would pass by, the backup singers of the float-carrying band of Catholics. The float-bearers were dressed as Roman soldiers, complete with matching leather sandals and staffs with metal points, and they swayed from side to side as they struggled to heave the heavy float, with Jesus and his cross perched atop amid thorns and ferns. Women dressed in black with black mantillas on their heads followed, carrying an equally formidable float that held a statue of the Virgin Mary, beautifully dressed in a blue cloak and looking quite serene despite the hundreds of vueltas around the streets she was about to undergo. As the sun came up, the crowds dissapated, off to breakfast and to prep for the continued processions throughout the day.

At Bagel Barn I ate my first bagel since I´d been in the States in January and, enamored of the cream cheese, actually licked the last remaining bits out of the bowl in which it was served. Then my friends and I headed back to our room for a nap. When we woke we grabbed some lunch at a place that offered to let us screen a movie of our choice in a little back room. We watched ¨Chocolat.¨ It was an excellent break and we emerged rejuvenated and really in the mood for some good chocolate, which we later failed to find. However, the puffy fried balls of dough sold on the street--like munchkins but bigger and more deliciously glazed--sated our hunger for sweetness.

In the afternoon, I visited the ruins of the church on the main square, the destruction wrought by an earthquake in the 1700s. It was so peaceful--and free of people trying to sell me things, which is rare here. I´ve begun to think that all churches should have open ceilings. I suppose it´d be a bit inconvenient, but seeing the sky out of those large portholes in the desolate nave was really beautiful.

Walking back to the parque central to meet my friends, I cut through the present-day parish church, commonly referred to as a cathedral but evidently not actually one, and came upon crowds watching a statue of Jesus, formerly hung on a cross on the steps of the church, be incensed and blessed before being placed on an inclined bed on top of yet another huge float. A large group of men, dressed in black robes this time, hoisted it on their soldiers and left the church, beginning yet another procession through town. At that point, all of the alfombras had long been trampled, the colored mix of sawdust and pinebranches and fruits and flower petals shovled into dump trucks that follow the processions along their routes. But crowds still lined the sidewalks and street corners to see the statues go by.

Tonight the plan is for a relaxing dinner, drinks at the Irish pub here (we were there last night briefly but left shortly after the power went out), and then packing up for our bus ride back home, which begins at 3:30 am. I don´t think going to sleep is part of the plan. Blessed Good Friday, everybody.

Awesomely informative blog entry (with apologies for excerpting from emails)

2007-03-18T10:53:00.000-06:00

In March, my small town here in Honduras began to feel like the latest tourist destination. We’ve had tons of visitors, with more to come in the upcoming weeks.

Parents come on down. My parents came the last week in February and brought with them a cornucopia of food, including batches of homemade chocolate chip cookies for the families we’re closest to, a case of instant oatmeal, tea bags, and granola bars. It was really great to have them here visiting me—now they know what it’s really like for me to be down here. It reminded me that even though I’m used to everything at this point, it is a strange and more difficult existence that we lead down here...I felt like a superhero, speaking more Spanish than them, plus being used to nonflushing toilets and sporadic power outages. My dad brought a whole bunch of 3-D pictures of the moon, Mars, and some of the other planets, as well as some 3-D glasses, so we hung up the pictures in the library and gave some ‘tours.’ The little kids loved it—were totally entranced by the 3-D moon pictures in general, since they can recognize it—and were incredibly adorable sporting the glasses. My mom brought down a heart model and gave a bit of an explanation of it to the older kids and talked about heart transplants, which they found really interesting.

We went on a weekend trip together to Copan Ruinas, where we saw the Mayan ruins—amazing, even though I’d seen them once before—and visited a bird park full of toucans and parrots and other really cool birds that are native to Honduras and other parts of Central America. We had an especially authentic experience because the water and the electricity went out while we were out eating dinner on Saturday night, and did not return until the next day. I asked at the beautiful bed-and-breakfast where we stayed if I could have a bucket of water to flush the toilet, and the guy offered to do it for me, but I explained to him that it was quite all right, that actually I have a lot of experience with this. My mom and dad also went on a mini-trip while I was in school to a forest called Pico Bonito, where they ended up fording a river and doing a rather strenuous sounding hike. But they were very proud of themselves for navigating around alone with their limited Spanish, and seem to have enjoyed the adventure.

School successes. In the combined 7th/8th grade, we just finished a unit on poetry and had great success writing haikus and other short poems and coming up with some great similes and metaphors. The ninth graders have been practicing how to write outlines in preparation for a research project that will enable them to start writing historical fiction stories. We’ve also been focusing on both grades on prepositions, since they are especially troublesome for nonnative speakers, and reading some great novels. Raven’s Gate, a mysterious story about an orphaned boy, has been a particular hit—I’m so excited to have reluctant readers coming to me at recess to discuss what might happen next in the book. I’ve arranged for an organization called Junior Achievement to come give personal finance classes to the middle school students, and we start next week. I think it’ll be great to give the kids a solid practical background in how to save, using a checkbook, and navigate the Honduran bank system.

Overall my students have been relatively rowdy in the past few weeks, although the ninth graders had an impressively calm and engaged discussion of Raven’s Gate on one of the days that my parents were visiting, which made me proud. Recently, though, I did really enjoy watching the seventh and eighth graders rocking out to Hey-Ya as they worked on their book projects, including a magazine devoted to Abby Hayes and a short play based on Sideways Stories from Wayside School in which students are turned into apples.

College visitors show their strength. We had an awesome group visit from Claremont McKenna who were a great help in the classrooms and also nearly finished building bathrooms for the kinder and prep students. The sun has been fuerte recently, as we enter spring, so they’re to be admired for continuing to work away at mixing cement, hauling blocks around, and digging ditches. We have another volunteer group coming next week. Our nonprofit’s director also visited this past week and it was great to have her here. She even convinced some of her SIPA friends to vacation in Roatan and stop over in Cofradía to check out our school. Hanging out with them felt like when you’re in high school hanging out with college kids—you really want to be as cool as them. They were kind enough to talk about their experiences at SIPA and even critique our resumes for us.

Public Policy Jobs? The search for new teachers for the 2007-2008 school year has already begun, and that means I’ve begun to feel the pressure of looking for a job myself. I plan to head back to the states—as much as I love the new friends I’ve made here, I’d like to be closer to my family and friends from back home. School ends around the last week in June, and I hope to stick around until July sometime to do some traveling around the area. If you have leads on jobs in public policy, let me know.

525,000 moments so dear. On a concluding note, one of our close Honduran friends had a frightening experience this week, and while everything turned out all right, it has definitely reminded the volunteer teaching team that all that we must be aware of our vulnerability, even as we enjoy the embrace of a community that is so welcoming and supportive. “Life does not count by years. Some suffer a lifetime in a day, and so grow old by the rising and the setting of the sun.” Augusta Jane Evans.

Recoger elote

2007-01-24T22:44:00.000-06:00

I picked my own corn today during a free period. It was a great field trip.

The father of one of my students was taking orders for manos (groups of five) of corn yesterday, and I took the opportunity to invite myself along to check out the operation. I wasn’t allowed to go in the corn field, though, because I was wearing a skirt and flip-flops.

Instead I got to be privy to an extremely amusing defense of a healthy diet on the part of another school father, who works with the owners of the field (who happen to also own pretty much all the land surrounding the school). This father has lost thirty pounds after some kind of cholesterol scare-speech from a doctor. He had lots of tips about not eating margarine, eating plenty of fresh vegetables and being careful about carb consumption (not eating spaghetti, rice and tortillas in the same meal, for example—a meal I have actually been served at school, on occasion with a platano substituting for the rice.) Even more humorous was the bemused look on the face of the landowner’s son, who’s my age. He became even more bemused when the diet maven declared that he had even (gasp!) given up beer.

At any rate, I was not deterred by lack of proper clothing, and vowed to wear legitimate footwear and jeans the next day, despite possible temperatures in the high eighties—“winter” in Honduras is stealing away. So today I went over and got a lesson, with the corn-agent parent accompanying me. Landowner’s other son looked boggled but gave the instructions to enseñarme how it’s done. We weaved our way into the corn field with a macheted man in rubber boots in the lead. The man pointed out that some ears of corn are too duro and won’t bend when you touch the tops. Others are more squishy and bendy, which shows they are good to pick. I ought to refer to the corn as elote—it was explained to me that elote is what corn is called here when it’s not “in a can like you eat it in the United States.” (I didn’t try to explain that I actually eat it on the cob there. Possibly some Hondurans think all Americans eat entirely out of cans. My dad suggested he could bring down an MRE and really mislead some folks about what we eat....that and the NASA dried ice cream...)

Here’s the technique: Grab the stalk right under the elote and pull down quickly on it to break it off the stem. It’s fun, at least when done in small spurts. I made off more than a mano, seven elotes (which the corn-agent turned ayudante kindly carried for me). Maybe I got a break for picking my own. I offered my assistance if they ever need a hand in the future. Somehow I don't think they'll take me up on it.

Class Notes

Today I more or less successfully implemented a rotation of English stations for pair-work. I’m always scared for some reason to do stuff like this, I guess because I know they don’t get along with each other and struggle to stay on task when unsupervised. But these were straightforward tasks and most groups held it together. The favorite station was definitely the study of concrete poems....I could see the lightbulb going on when they were figuring out on their own what a concrete poem was, and most jumped at the chance to try their own. Two students were really insightful about a poem about a football player that has the words dashing back and forth along yard lines on the page. One ninth grade student wrote about love again, and the specificity of her sentiments makes me think she has someone in particular in mind. Seeing her in that happy little haze made me think today of my favorite poem from early high school—a poem from the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe anthology called “The stupid jerk I’m obsessed with.” (It’s about the agonizing joys of fixation on a guy.)

I also did some more drilling with main idea—one of my goals of the bimester is to provide the students with helpful lessons in how to do research without plagiarizing—and then as a reward let the seventh and eighth graders do some self-portraits with my camera. They had grown increasingly jealous of the ninth grader’s self-portraits, which were taken before break (and developed in the States) and are now on display in the room in the frames they made themselves. My favorite is the frame shaped like a red high-heeled shoe. The others are more abstract (except for the star for the figurative “rock star”) but equally endearing. They all also wrote small poems about themselves and an explanation of what the picture does and does not reveal about them, now posted up near the photos.

Our paper mache globes are on hold because some people still have not brought in paint...I made that a requirement and alas I’m more or less stuck with it. Fingers crossed that the three paint-less students come through for tomorrow. We’re having a parents meeting tomorrow to discuss the possibility of contributions to defray the cost of materials for a Junior Achievement personal finance class for the middle schoolers. I hope there’s enthusiasm. I’m taking the lead on this, so I’m pretty invested in it....I really do believe it would be great for the kids to get that kind of practical knowledge.

I feel like I’m connecting more with students in the other grades, which makes me happy since so often, since the middle school is a building separate from the elementary hall, I feel a bit left out. I’m trying to remember the advice from Heat to be invisible and make yourself useful because it eventually pays dividends. In my case, I’m just looking to be more connected to the younger students. I helped out with a P.E. class today, and yesterday I spent a little time with a first grader struggling with some addition and subtraction problems.

Other events of today

Surely there have been interesting things that have happened since I last wrote, but today is most prominent on my mind, alas. And surely it’s in some way representative, at least of the good days! So here's what I did after school.... I walked home in the heat, cutting through some property (with permission) and waving to what I call the “garage door opener family.” They live in a house at the end of a long driveway, for free or at low rent, but always must be home to open the gate for cars entering or exiting. I always wish them “Buenas.”

I bought myself a mora slushy for 10 lemps (~50 cents) that was so-so and interrogated the teenager who sold it to me about whether there is a schedule for when they serve coffee slushies. (Not exactly.) I saw a police truck stop at a house down the small street around the corner from the house and a bunch of police who were riding in the back climb out, machine guns in hand, to grab some guy. That was a bit out of the ordinary. As I walked by the Aguas de San Pedro office, I noticed the water company's slogan today for the first time and chuckled: “Mejor cada dia.” Possibly someday even improved enough to drink. After chilling in the house and eating some Honduran cheese as a snack—queso fresco—I went running on the boulevard, getting a good deal of dirt in my eyes in the process and at one point even feeling the grit crunch between my teeth. One guy said, “la quemó!” (I was ahead of the friend who came with me.) I didn’t know that expression existed in Spanish. Evidently.

Then stopped by the grocery store and vegetable market with my friend just as they were closing up, since everything more or less closes when the sun sets. The woman at vegetable stand folks was super-nice and asked us about where we run and even offering her own experiences of running around town (that’s a rare thing, particularly for a woman). Quick walk home for a cold shower, some pizza that my awesome housemates made and kindly let me partake of, and some computer work before bed.

And so here I am, with kids in the street yelling “Que golazo!” since their schools are out of session so they get to play and play and play. Since I came back from break, I’ve noticed a lot more the casual friendliness and chattiness of people we encounter daily. I suppose I’m seeing the contrast with my life in New York. As I walk through the streets, I do get annoying comments and kisses from guys that I wouldn’t get in the States. But much, much more prevalent are the simple “adiós,” “buenas” or “buenos días” or “buenas noches.” It’s so wonderful and natural to converse with people you interact with in stores or say hi to people you pass on the street.

Oh, and did I mention that I spent the weekend sitting on a quiet beach called Tornebe? Awesome.

Some not-so-recent events of note

2007-01-10T22:13:00.000-06:00

The Christmas concert. My small group of high-heeled seventh and eighth graders sang “The Magic of Christmas Day” and “Jingle Bell Rock” quite angelically. (The only boy in the group was a no-show, alas unsurprisingly.) The fourth graders I taught “Jingle Bells” on the recorder to were adorable and more or less played the right tune—once I was able to get them on stage. After their class performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, they all mobbed Santa—one of their fourth-grade classmates—and knocked him over in his sleigh in an effort to steal his candy. I did have to play fairly loudly to guide them, but fortunately I was used to that light-headed feeling after three weeks of noisy lunchtime practices.

My middle schoolers prove that middle schoolers are universally horrible. By the time vacation came around, I was so sick of them I really couldn’t wait for vacation. There were only a few moments in my first four and a half months here when I let the thought enter my mind that I might not come back after Christmas, and most of those moments were in the final week of school before break. They were disrespectful to me, not paying attention, whining, hitting each other, calling each other names, trying to get off-task, not doing their homework, not taking notes, breaking classroom property and much more....not all of them at once, for the most part, but enough to really get me frustrated. During break the New York Times had an article about how adolescents are the plague of school systems and that all the reconfigurations—junior highs and middle schools and so on—have done nothing to fix the problem. I was glad that the paper of record could put it on the record that basically, when it comes to that age, you just have to remember that they’re inherently a struggle.

My last day reminds me (sort of) why I want to come back. On the last day, I insisted that they take their vocabulary test, which they had been annoyed about since Monday when I handed out the words. I reminded them that English learning couldn’t stop just because we were getting close to a break. Then I gave them a vacation homework assignment of three independent reading entries and three journal entries. (In retrospect, a poor idea, since it made this week a bit difficult—i.e. made them hate me—when some people just flat out did nothing and I had to get on their cases for it.) But after that, I let them more or less hang out and play games. Well, until at the end of the day they had to clean up the room and the yard right outside before I would give them their brownies. Food sure is a motivator... We watched some TV shows, played some games, listened to music and talked. Oh, and I let them throw water balloons at each other. I told them if they were responsible enough to remember to bring them in, they could throw them. Alas things got a little out of control and they started throwing buckets of water at each other. Of course, I ended up getting completely soaked and spent the rest of our final day of school seeking out sunlight in free moments in an effort to ensure that my underwear would eventually dry out. But even though a lot of times I’m no fun, I’ll admit it...I enjoyed getting soaked. The kids were at their best—they dropped the angst for a few minutes and just had a good time.

Goodbyes. I printed out some bilingual Christmas cards with a picture of Cusuco National Park as viewed from the window of the ecolodge there and the words: “Open the windows of your heart / And let in the light and peace of Christmas.” “Abra las ventas de su corazón / Y deje entrar la luz y paz de Navidad.” Then I went around handing them out to friends of ours here, mostly to the families who are friends of the volunteers each year. Getting that chance to talk to these people who we rely on so much for support and friendship was really wonderful. I was glad to be able to formally express my thanks to them. And when Dr. Z told me they’d be waiting for my return, I was really touched. Suddenly I realized that I have established relationships with lots of people here, even if I feel as if I should know them better at this point, that our relationship should be less superficial somehow. But even if our conversational topics are generally unexceptional, even if I’d like to get to know them all better in the New Year but don’t know exactly how to go about it, I felt really known. It was a good way to leave. And it gave me an odd premonition of what leaving for good will be like....how we’ll have these same small moments of goodbye, but

Christmas and New Year’s. I celebrated with family and friends, respectively, in New York. It was awesome. In between I spent all my time relaxing, sleeping, or running around the city trying to meet up with all of my friends. It was so, so, so wonderful to see everyone and talk with everyone and share stories and photos. That made it hard to choke out to everyone that the next time I would see them is (gulp) six months from now. I didn’t sleep much that final week at home, knowing that I would be headed back here to Honduras.

But here I am. More soon.

1-2-3-4...

2006-12-04T22:31:00.000-06:00

“UNO, DOS, TRES, CUATRO....” blared the club-sized speakers on the back porch. A small crowd danced in the darkness, illuminated only by the colored and white Christmas lights flashing from the beams. Hondurans mouthed the words while the American party hosts smiled and chimed in at key words like “salsa de tomate,” “aguacate” and “cohmbo.” (You know, like a Wendy’s combo, as a Honduran friend explained--I wasn't quite sure at first...)

All week I had been very nervous about the special pre-Navidad dance party I had taken the lead on organizing. My fears seemed to be on the verge of being fulfilled when only three guests had arrived two hours after the official party start time—and two were the twins who own the ridiculous sound system. There aren’t too many folks our age around town, that we know, anyway, so turnout was a legitimate concern. But ultimately a few key invites recruited a friend or two (all guys) and upon stopping over at a neighbor’s house, I learned that she has not one son our age, but two. And the music definitely drew a few people to our portón, to see whether they could join in on the fun. (How that ten-year-old kept sneaking in I’ll never know...but he did seem to be sort of supervised by one of the women from the neighborhood).

I danced for hours and hours to reggaeton, salsa, and meringue, and even attempted the Honduran classic, punta: buzz back and forth like a vibrating speaker, faster than seems humanly possible. I also drank a good deal of the punch—fruit punch, mango and strawberry Tang mix and “Russian” vodka made in Honduras, met a new teacher from the other bilingual school, got to know some old friends better, snacked on chips and tajadas with guac and refried beans, and showed off my hot new dress. It’s black with green polka-dots and I would like to thank the Honduran immigration office for it, because if I (and all the other teachers) hadn’t had to go into San Pedro four separate times to get our visa situation worked out, I would never have become acquainted with the fine merchandise of Mendels. Indeed, Mendels’ underwear section is actually visible through the plate glass that separates the back of the store from the immigration office stairwell. I’ll also thank the immigration bureaucracy on behalf of the guy who does the bag check (a requirement, including at grocery stores, in the city), who never would have gotten to ask me so many questions about where I’m from and how long I’ll be here in Honduras. Also, shopping is so addictive. I hadn’t really bought much of anything since I came here, and all the sudden I’m the proud owner of a dress and skirt and new tank top. Oh, and shoes, but I rarely wear them because my feet aren’t really used to shoes anymore, especially sockless as I opt to do here.

At any rate...the dress was a hit and there were lots of fun moments. I watched a Honduran friend pour rum into his drink and then seeing him taste it and protest, “You didn’t tell me this punch already had alcohol in it!” (I did try, I believe...). I jumped up and down to a series of American classics that we substituted in towards the end of the night—and which more or less drove away our party enthusiasts, alas, but it was well worth it. When everybody left the euphoric feeling of a really fun night and a successful venture remained, and I couldn’t sleep. It reminded me of when I used to get back to my apartment in New York last year after going out....how I would just sit in bed with my bedside lamp on for a while, replaying everything in my mind, smiling, thinking about how good life can be.

I ran into a party attendee on the street the next day and she said I danced like a real catracha. Cool stuff. I do feel like I’m a much better dancer here, but I think it’s just that I’m much more enthusiastic because I associate dancing with having fun, going out, meeting new people. It’s also more fun to dance to the Honduran mix of classics and reggaeton, with a lot of dancing in couples but dancing with everybody. Plus being in a new place has somehow given me the boost of confidence or anonymity that I needed to really enjoy dancing. I think I keep saying this here, but it’s evidently something that goes through my mind all of the time!

Travels in Tegucigalpa

Speaking of dancing, I also had a great time at a party thrown by some teachers we befriended at the Discovery School while at a conference in Tegucigalpa. Our stay there, the Thursday through Tuesday of the week before Thanksgiving, was a really interesting experience. For the first two nights, we stayed at the house of an uncle of a teacher from our school in a somewhat infamous colonia. It was cold at night in the house because it isn’t really sealed up—it has a lot of gaps that are only partially closed by scraps of metal roofing and wood—and definitely less luxurious than our home life. The bathroom didn’t have a door on it and had no light inside, the electrical wiring was really jury-rigged and the whole house just had the air of something that was moved into far before it could be actually completed. However, the view from the pila on a back balcony of the horse was breathtaking. The city of Tegucigalpa, somewhat disjointed, dirty and confusing during the day, looked cohesive, a single swarm of lights in the mountain hollows. The big cathedral of Suyapa lies below in the foreground and is beautiful, even if our host disparaged it for being awfully expensive when so many are in need. There’s a brand new children hospital perched on a hill near to the house, but it hasn’t opened yet because the government can’t find enough qualified people to staff it.

During the daytime, we were transported to a whole other world: the Marriott. There the New York Times news digest (printed from the internet, a subscription-only service) is available at the over-air-conditioned coffeeshop in the lobby, you can drink the water from the sink, if you like, and flush your toilet paper, and at several breaks in the sessions, uniformed employees serve mini-quiches, éclairs, and strawberry shortcake with freshly squeezed juices and English Breakfast tea. I felt like the country cousin in my capri pants and polo shirt, since most of the other attendees were teachers at more affluent city-based schools where the dress code is more New York business than gringo volunteer practical-wear.

I learned some good grammar games, among other things, and was reminded of just how different our school is from the typical bilingual school here. But speaking with the teachers from the more equipped and established urban schools gave me insight into the kind of teaching and level of English proficiency we must continue to strive for, even though it our circumstances are so vastly different. Even more valuable was the visit to the Bixby School on the campus of Zamorano University, Honduras’ renowned agricultural school. There I saw some really excellent teachers in action and realized that classrooms can be tranquil, well-controlled, and cheerful places to be. It was a bit discouraging to see how well their kids speak—and how little they whine!—but I have to remember that my junior high students haven’t had the privileges most of Bixby’s students do, such as parents who are highly educated (many are professors at the university), a consistent education for their whole lives, plenty of textbooks and other materials, and even just a more mild climate that makes learning in the spring and summer months so much less headache-inducing.

Reminders of home

Sadly, since we had taken so much time off from school to go to the conference and get our visas, we had a full day of school on Thanksgiving. My kids weren’t too interested in talking about giving thanks and one went so far as to disparage my attempts by saying that it’s an American holiday that they don’t care about at all. It all made me pretty homesick, knowing that my family was gathered together. But our administrator organized a great meal that included a waldorf salad and—the best surprise of all—asparagus! After I indulged myself with all the special foods, plus our old standbys, banana bread and McCormick-mix cake, I felt a lot better.

Now that it’s so close to when I’ll be heading home, I’m feeling more homesick overall than I have in a long time. But I’m lucky to have had two visitors this weekend! It’s so amazing that they could come here and see what my life is like. (And I’d also like to thank the two awesome girls who contributed to the care package delivered to me!) After meeting them in the central park on Saturday, we grabbed licuados and wandered around to meet a whole bunch of friends around town before heading to a bar in SP that I had wanted to check out for a while. It was a very chill, quiet place where you could sit and talk at tables, on cushioned chairs, or outside on a terrace. Reportedly they usually have live bands, but that night there was a poetry and short story reading. I was so exhausted from the night before that I more or less nodded off during the reading, but I revived for some conversation outside with some guys who go to a university in the city. It all seemed like a very non-typical place, but I was glad I got the chance just to talk and gossip with my friends. Definitely wouldn’t have been as easy to do that at a dance club.

On Sunday we slept in and then went on more of a paseo around town, running into some people on the street and getting invited in for coffee near the school, which was wonderful. The water was out for all of Saturday, and on Sunday we experienced the eight hour (semi-planned) power outage that really allowed our town to show of itself at its most third-world-countryness. My friends seemed somewhat impressed by the life I lead—a life that I know is not ordinary, compared to what we’re all used to from the States, but seems somewhat unexceptional now in the mundane details. (I forgot you have to sort of learn how to bucket flush a toilet if you’re not used to it.) I really enjoyed eating out with them last night at a typical dinner out at a restaurant, since I’ve hardly ever eaten out here. The plan is to meet up again on Friday in San Pedro for a trip to the Lago de Yajoa, along with any of my housemates who are interested. I’m really looking forward to checking out the waterfall.

Of rowboats and visas and dancing

2006-11-16T06:47:00.000-06:00

This afternoon the teachers are headed to Tegucigalpa for two conferences. It’s a bit stressful packing and getting ready to go, but I’m excited to take a break from school, learn about others’ experiences teaching in Honduras, and check out the nation’s capital.

So to follow up on the last entry, I was crushed to learn that night that the plans to go to the city to go out had fallen through. But at the last moment I did get an invite to a party for “senores”—in other words, a party with a lot of musica clássica and overdressed older folks. Even though I was there in my tank top, jeans and chancletas, I had a great time. Had a little trouble with the salsa, but I’m hoping to get in some more practice soon. The girls and I want to throw a pre-Christmas party at our house before we head back to the States for the break, and we plan to invite all the people in our age group we know. And some select older folks, too, I suppose, since the top invites form a short list. At school on the following Monday, I ran into one of the parents who had been at the dance and she was so excited to see me and to gossip about the people with whom I had been dancing. Some things really are universal.

I also learned later that some of the dance had been videotaped and broadcast on the local cable channel. My students had a lot of fun with that. It also opened up a favorite topic of conversation: “Do you have a boyfriend? Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Otherwise school proceeded more or less as usual that week, with me trying to prep my students for some midterm-type tests. Results, received this week, were relatively discouraging—some intense reviewing and drilling is in order after this conference break.

This past weekend was a busy one. The housemates and I threw together an Indian birthday dinner for one of our fellow teachers. With the spicy food, the punch brought by a Honduran friend, and good company, we all had a really fun time. On Saturday I met two friends from college in San Pedro to go to the Lago de Yajoa. It was pouring when we arrived at D & D Brewery, a hostel and, of course, brewery, run by an American ex-pat with a host of pet friends. With bravado he calls them bad names and says dumb things to them—with bravado and fondness. Unlike most Honduran animals, they look as if they have been fed consistently for their whole lives. The dogs seem like monsters; I think usually the lack of good food when they’re young cuts their stature and size. At any rate, we got a room and then had an early dinner with the pets and two other visitors, two guys in the late twenties. After an early dinner, we indulged in several rounds of beers, including apricot, pale ale, porter, and mango. I was so exhausted that the beer made me more sleepy than psyched up, so I went to bed at 9.

The next morning, we rented a row boat on Sunday morning for 40 lemps and attempted to row out of the canal to the lake. Rowing in a clunky wooden boat with two mismatched oars is ridiculously hard, by the way. We looked so pathetic doing it that another group grabbed onto our boat’s chain and towed us much of the way there. The lake was beautiful—edged by mountains, totally quiet and undiscovered, peaceful and just cool enough and populated by those tiny fish that splash above the water—a spattering of flash bulbs, the paparazzi heralding the arrival of the predators.

I was sad not to have time to check out the waterfalls nearby, but I suppose I’ll just have to come back soon. The bus ride back was uneventful. On the way back, when I got off at the bus terminal, I was approached by a police officer concerned that I seemed to be looking for a bus—tan solita, too! So two of his police crew ended up walking me up to the road where I could cross the pedestrian bridge and get on the bus. I always seem to give off the impression with strangers that I don’t speak Spanish. It’s just that when people talk low I just can’t hear them enough to really understand them. I need to stop using my indiscriminate “que” and replace it with “no puedo escuchar” or “puede hablar en voz mas alta?”

Yesterday we trekked to the big city for the second time this week to try to get our visa situation straightened out. Last time, we arrived after the office had closed. (We didn’t realize quite how early they closed.) This time, after waiting in a conference room for an hour, we learned that the woman who does the electronic fingerprints was at a meeting. Guess we’ll be headed back again once we return from the conferences. At first I was really frustrated at the lack of progress and the waste of time, but I decided to take advantage of the goods of the city. I ate pizza, browsed grammar books, bought tea, and did my first clothes buying in Honduras. The yield was a pair of black shoes that are striking similar to some I have back in the States, a navy blue polka-dotted skirt that looks cute, and a brown lacy tank top for going out. Buying stuff definitely whetted my appetite for more buying and made me analyze the serious deficits of my wardrobe here. I’m happy to have some closed-toed shoes and I’m excited to be on the lookout for a shirt to go with the skirt. Living in New York City last year, browsing was one of my biggest pastimes, so it has been a big change to live in a place where the best bet for browsing is the fruit market, where I can cruise for the sweetest pineapples and just-right ripe bananas.

I had a “how Honduras experience” when I went in a department store to use the bathroom (it’s near where the bus stops.) After I used the sketchy bathroom in a store, I decided not to worry about flushing since the toilet was both lidless and handleless, and emerge to find a cleaning lady scolding me, “Use the bucket for the toilet”—a Hello Kitty bucket to fill in a garbage can full of water to flush. I went back and flushed it. Awesome. Every store I went into in the city made me so conscious of being a gringa. You have to check your bag at the store, and since I had come from school mine was heavy and unwieldy. Each bag checker would start conversation based on my looks: “Are you from the United States?” “Where are you from?” On the other hand, it’s kind of fun to talk to random people like that. And I’m thinking I might miss the attention when I’m back at home!

Invierno

2006-11-04T14:56:00.000-06:00

We’re entering invierno here in Honduras, so the weather is a bit cooler and rainier. At times I can even sleep with my sheet at night, and wake up in the morning wanting to wear long pants—for about an hour. My dad sent me his personalized weather homepage, with the highs for Providence, RI, White Plains, NY, Durham, NC, San Diego, CA, and San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The first four were all in the 40s. Honduras was listed at 84 degrees. The rain does cool off our hot, hot world, though...and when it does, the kids break out jackets and sweaters and even, in one case, a red turtleneck to wear under the short-sleeved gym t-shirt.

October went by in a blur. After the trip to Copan, I didn’t get out too much. One treat, though, was getting to go out dancing in San Pedro at a nightclub called Confetti. It was so much fun. A few of us got driven there by a friend of ours, grabbed dinner, and then went to a bar in the mall that stays open later than everything else there. There I saw more hipsters than I knew existed in Honduras (they don’t reside in my town so much) and then went out dancing at a club. I even got to dance with our hot 20-year-old Honduran friend. We heard an odd (reggaeton?) rendition of “Yo shorty, it’s your birthday” and a particularly ugly version of “All the leaves are brown...” Other than that, it was mostly Latin or reggaeton. I learned how to do some dance where you step forward and then step back (“atras” / “adelante” / “atras” / “adelante”) and then spin around really quickly. So fun.

In school, there have been some successes. The new demerits system for the junior high may be working, sort of. I noticed considerably less complaining on the part of a certain bright but whiny student towards the end of the week, because she was hoping to earn the free homework pass they get if they get no demerits for a whole week. And I’m not sure what was going on with one adorable but troublesome boy in my class, but on Friday he was stellar—he was the only one in his group being serious about the work and volunteered to write something on the board. I’ve also had a lot of people reminding each other (in that catty middle school way, but you know..) to speak in English. And on an unrelated note, one of my eighth graders used a possessive (my sister’s house) unprompted in her writing. Maybe these kids are learning something!

On Thursday, my co-junior-high teacher and I went to San Pedro to visit some schools. We’re researching prospects for our ninth graders, who will be graduating this year. It got me so psyched up. We got driven around by one of our ninth graders parents, which made it a lot easier. Even though they are so expensive—it would be very difficult for many of our parents to send their students to the schools—it was really exciting to see their beautiful facilities and speak with some other students. Our school pales in comparison to these schools, with real-building style schools, tiled bathrooms with fluorescent lighting, kids whose uniforms aren’t dingy from walking to school and playing in our dusty yard, air conditioning, textbook sets, covered play areas and large computer labs. We hopped on a chicken bus home in the rain and sat up front where we could watch the ayudante lift all the little kids over the puddles into the bus. Very adorable.

I was so energized by the trip that when I returned to teach the last period of the day—the usually hassle-licious ninth grade global studies class—I startled my students with my enthusiasm. They were so suspicious about it: “Why are you so happy? Were you having fun in San Pedro instead of teaching us?” Nothing they did could shake me. It was awesome. Amazing how much easier teaching is when you’ve had a break from it and are simply in a really good mood. And they were happy to hear about the schools...they’re both very anxious about their futures (and the strain a new expensive city school will put on their families) and thrilled to get the chance to meet other people and get out of their small town. Some schools even let the boys wear, as part of the uniform, (gasp) jeans!

At home here in my little dorm-like house with five other girls, we’ve gotten addicted to Desperate Housewives. A mom came to visit a few weeks ago and brought it for us. At first we were totally skeptical, but we tried it last weekend and got completely hooked. Most of the people in it are pretty creepy in some way, so Scrubs is definitely better for a lighthearted after-school break, but DH is really addictive—lots of cliffhangers. And two hot guys. We’re hoping to get Grey’s Anatomy and some other stuff for Christmas...but of course then we’ll have even more to distract us! It’s a dangerous thing.

A recap of some of the highlights of my time here so far for those who haven’t been keeping track....in the past several months I have: checked out a beautiful national park in the mountains nearby (and sang Disney songs on the ride home in the back of a pickup truck in the pouring rain), went to the beach, marched in the Independence Day Parade, visited the Mayan ruins in Copan (and met a 23 yr old Californian guy who just bought a restaurant in Copan and is now running it there while living in a hostel...awesome), seen “Golpe de suerte” (“Just my luck,” in English with Spanish subtitles—we got everything so much better than the rest of the audience), taught more than forty days of school, eaten about thirty baleadas, hosted multiple parties at our house, and even had a birthday extravaganza weekend for one of my housemates! We’re headed to a conference in Tegucigalpa, the capital, around Thanksgiving, which should be cool. And after that it’s almost Christmas and time to head home for a few weeks! It’s all going pretty fast, even though a school day can at times seem interminable.

Really hoping to get to go out dancing again tonight. Not sure if everything will work out, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Copan Ruinas

2006-10-15T23:33:00.000-06:00

Sipping a White Russian in my going-out jeans and tank top, looking around as friends and new acquaintances chat and flirt and request songs to be added to the itunes playlist, I feel closer to New York City than my Honduran hometown. I'm in an open air restaurant bought on the internet for $4,000 by a 23-year-old Californian only five weeks ago. He tells us, in between grabbing drinks for the customers who are, at this point in the evening, all teachers from private bilingual schools, that he majored in hotel and restaurant management, so really it's not as random as it sounds. Even as I admire the risk he's taking, I am gaping simply at the entire atmosphere of this place, Copan Ruinas, where I am out on a Friday night. That is, I am really out and not just on a trek down a dusty road to the pulperia that's open until nine to pick up some cornflakes or light bulbs for the back porch. I'm put in the mind of summer evenings walking down Broadway in my tailored pants and Ann Taylor Loft sweaters, listening to Bloc Party on my way to meet friends for drinks at happy hours.

Ever since I arrived, but with a fevered intensity of late, I have been fantasizing about stumbling across a coffeeshop in my hometown here. Not to transport me back to my professional girl days, but just to evoke the peaceful happiness of those afternoon and evening coffees. "Oh!" I say in my dreams. "It's right here!" And all the Hondurans I tell just smile and say, "Of course it's right there." So when faced with the prospect of going to a coffeeshop in Copan, I took a long time choosing, to draw out the pleasure.

The one I chose has dark wood trim and tiles painted in a brick imitation that defies the classlessness implied in imitation--it is innovative, the terra cotta bringing a tropical feel to a classic American style. The shop has three sides, the fourth has only a bar bench that marks the border of soothing order and the lush wild flourishing of the owners' front yard garden. The meadow grasses and flowers hide bits of the mountain view, a medley of small-scale color and greater green majesty. The mochaccino, served in a big ceramic mug, was sweet and soothing, as it should be. All was right with the world, and for a moment I could stop thinking about tourism, gringos, development, and the contrasts between life in Copan and in my hometown.

Visiting Copan makes me aware of how undeveloped my hometown would seem to a tourist, even though it is by no means rural or isolated. My hometown is just a regular place where showers are always cold, roads are always dusty, and uniformed schoolchildren swarm the streets. In Copan, there are restaurants that serve foods besides the platos tipicos and hostels with Israeli and Dutch backpackers. Souvenir shops and foreigners are ubiquitous, there are English book trade spots and shopowners quote me prices in American dollars. (I can't resist assuring them that I only have lempiras, that I live here now. I eat hamburger with real beef, albeit one only a centimeter thick and missing my tajadas (plantain chips) as I stare down the anemic french fries.

Everything's a bit mixed up in my mind in Copan. It's a disorienting place, with baleadas sencillas for 10 lemps and imported Gala apples from Chile for 12. I get confused about who I'm supposed to speak to in Spanish and who in English. A friend and I meet an Irish guy in the hostel while he's waiting to use the shower that is off our room and because he starts speaking to us in Spanish we keep speaking it, even when he says he's from Ireland. I mean, I knew we should start speaking in English at that point, but we were in a rhythm, even as he got increasingly weirded out. Another friend walks in and breaks the spell by saying, ÂWait a minute, did you say you were from Ireland? Why are you guys speaking in Spanish?" We start laughing, but I'm mortified, particularly when he says, "Well, I don't like to presume that you speak English, but you said you were from the States and then kept responding in Spanish..."

I've started trying more often to make conversation in general, and particularly with the Hondurans I interact with--the guys at the stand where I buy a coffee granita after school (a wonderful, wonderful find of last week), the woman who sells me a bag in a craft market in Copan. I tell people a lot what I do, but I'm much more interested in hearing how they spend their time, what their thoughts are. Some people--like the women at the bus stop on the way to Copan--will barely let you get a word in once they start. (They aren't fans of the current president at all, because he doesn't do anything for the real people, the poor people, they say, and in our town no one has papers for the land, so the government says they could make everyone move and use the land, so everything under this new president really isn't going well, and by the way, it's dangerous for us four to be traveling without a man.)

To get to Copan, my friends and I board a bus that is not supposed to stop. (We called to ask them to look out for us at our boulevard.) Thus we can't really complain that there are no seats left. We brace ourselves against the coach bus seats, transplanted into an old American school bus, along with a sweet sound system, of course. More than an hour later, when some passengers disembark from the "direct" bus, we gain seats. As I plop down, I notice a friend giving me a goofy look. I turn to my right. The woman next to me has two chickens in a cardboard box--the first chickens I have seen on a bus, in fact, despite the American slang name for cut-rate Honduran buses. Not a big deal, except that she seems to keep inching the box closer and closer to me, and one chicken seems increasingly interested in stretching its head towards me. I scrunch up towards the aisle and manage to nod off, but am awakened by the chicken lightly pecking at my leg. The woman is giving the other one some water out of a plastic cup. I start staring the friendly chicken down, but he seems unintimidated. But somehow IÂm more comfortable with him than a previous trip, when a woman was nursing her baby next to me for most of the time and immediately behind me was a chatty man whose conversation starter was, "I lived in Texas." At that point, I did, in fact feel compelled, as surely you would, to ask where and why. "Prison. Undocumented." It's okay, though: he found God there. Whatever journey these chickens are making is probably pretty significant for their lives, but they don't want to talk about it, and since the road by that point is sickeningly windy, I can't say I mind.

On our second night in Copan, seeking fun, my friends and I headed to a bar further afield. We started talking to some guys in their late teens, and were startled when one responded to a question in perfect, American-accented English. "We were the first class at the Mayatan school," another guy explained. (I hope future students from our school, who will attend it for their entire elementary education careers, will speak so well someday.) Two of the three guys were dressed like New York hipsters. Like I said, very disorienting. All of the sudden, we found ourselves across the street from two men engaged in a brawlÂwith knives. Two other men jumped into the fray with their own knives as we ourselves jumped, behind our new Honduran friends. "Don't worry, we'll protect you," they assured us in English as we ran to the bar, terrified. When we were in the clear, they told us that women are pretty safe in those situations, since they just never get involved in the fights, and besides, everyone in town looks out for the tourists.

"We're fortunate," one long-time resident told us that same night. "We have the tourism." Somehow--assumming some prototype of an ignorant American looking for the pristine exotic locale--I expected the woman to talk about how all the foreigners have overrun her childhood home. But whereas in my adopted town, many people are self-employed or work in the maquilas, in Copan, teaching Spanish or otherwise catering to the tourists is the way to advance oneself. I was happy to speak with her; she is a woman I admire, a woman with a strong voice for her ideas. She suggested firmly as we spoke that our teacher team set a schedule for speaking Spanish at home, since we spend so much time together conversing in English. She even proposed a harsh punishment for the disobedient: doing the others' laundry. And of course we got teased for finding laundry so hard, protesting that we didn't cry the first time we did laundry at the pila: those were beads of sweat!

The reason behind the tourism, the old Mayan city, is beautiful and peaceful--surely not the way it presented when the buildings were whole and in use. That wonderful green lawn must have trampled by priests pouring liquid offerings into the altars, athletes pouring out of the locker rooms (yes, they did have rooms they used for changing, archaeologists believe) to play a ball game whose stakes were death, servants going on errands, carvers assembling crews for the king's latest commission. My friend and I didn't pay for a guide, so we listened in on several snippets of lecture in English and Spanish at various points during our wander around the grounds. We saw the longest Mayan hieroglyphic inscription in Latin America, featured on a huge stairway that archaeologists reassembled in largely random order. At first we were hesitant to climb on the ruins, but we soon got into it, even if we were saddened to see some teenaged girls checking out each others' makeup while perched on top of a temple. My friend and I took a couple shots of each other from a hilltop with an arm out, as if saying, "All this is my kingdom!" Also, we spent a few solid minutes poking fun at the folks who were videotaping. A whole lot of action shots at the ruins of an ancient city, eh? The serene Sculpture Museum provided us with useful explanations, such as that "pop" meant "mat," and showcased some of the originals that they have replaced outdoors with replicas. (Sadly, it's a bit hard to tell the difference.) It also presented a lifesize replica of a temple called the Rosalila, which was found whole underneath another temple. The design of the museum is supposed to replicate the experience of finding the temple: visitors walk through a long, dark, tunnel and then come out into the light to find the bright orange-red building. Considering how peaceful our trip was, though, I'll speculate that more people come to Copan now because it is built up as a tourist town than for the ruins themselves. But I'm sure those ruins--stark stone and strange imagery--make an impact on those who take a break from buying cheap ruins replicas to go look.

We snuck out of Copan at daybreak, slipping past the backpackers in the other room, and the young restaurant owner, who says not finding more permanent lodging has been good for recruiting business. We packed up and woke up the vigilante at the hostel who camps out on the porch, got our lock deposit back, and boarded the 6 am bus back home. When we arrived at 10 am, exhausted and somewhat unsteady on our feet from the sickening speedy downhill spiraling our bus did in the mountains, we got right back to work: our first stop was the copy shop, to ask what time they planned to close today. The first exam period of the year starts tomorrow, and while being here is a vacation in some ways, for our students it is most definitely real life. And real life means work--for them, and for us.

I am, however, hosting a memoir-reading tea party on Wednesday to sweeten the deal.

'I didn't want to eat. I only wanted to spend time with the horse.'

2006-10-01T12:08:00.000-06:00

And now you’ll want to hear about my students, and how they behave, and how well they speak English, and what they do that is endearing, and what they do that is insufferable, and how they have grown in the month since school began.

And I hold out my hands, browning daily in the sunny schoolyard, and wiggle my fingers—a magic trick. I conjure up a vision of them: sitting, standing, slouching over their desks. But the vision is not whole. It is a holograph to be looked at from one angle and then another, a computer screen that flickers when filmed.

“I forgot my homework,” F. tells me.
“You forgot it? That’s too bad. You’ll have to stay in for recess.”
F. grabs a page in her notebook and rips, then motions with it in my direction.
“No, miss.... She smiles.
A few minutes later she does the same act with presentation she is scheduled to give. Amazingly enough, I fall for it again.

The school director walks into my classroom to get a student to discuss a discipline issue. “Están tomando un examen?” It is a beautiful moment. They are in fact working on their second drafts of their memoirs. They were resistant to the idea of continuing to work on them, but working they are. A few have even added details based on an exercise—which they only partially processed—on different ways to begin a story. Alas the two students who have the most trouble settling down to work will be pulled out of class. (They were calling a classmate names, and that classmate is a bit of a tattletale.) I instantly blame myself for not better handling behavior management and discipline. I wonder what those two students might have written if they had stayed in class. The beautiful moment is broken.

But the students have written some heartfelt pieces, intimate, full of lines that are telling and lines that are inadvertently poignant:

When I went to school, I did not want to go play at lunch. My teacher called my parents to ask them what was wrong. I was traumatized. ..... Three years later my father left the alcohol.

I didn’t want to eat. I only wanted to spend time with the horse.

My grandfather’s nickname was Papiman. He would always give me five lempiras to buy candy.

I ask a student in class one day whether she is sick—her eyes are red, her face looks a little puffy. She says she is fine with a flat, strained voice that sounds like the indifferent tone she always uses. But the next day I see her crying during lunch. How could I not have realized she was upset? It has something to do with a boy, I think. I don’t know what to say. Her other teacher gives her permission to skip the next class. I awkwardly give her a pat on the back and say, “Hope you feel better.” I doubt she is comforted.

Another day. The boys in my class ask me, “What did you do to your hair?” They want to know why I cut it, where I cut it, and why does one side look shorter than the other? When I lean over their desks to ask them questions about their work they reach up to touch it. I remind them of our class “no touching” rule. I tell one student that I don’t touch his hair, either. Of course, he offers that I could if I wanted to. Walked into that one.

A girl observes that another girl is very flexible. “She is a snake.” I ask why. “She drew a picture of a pig with my name on it. She is a snake." She doesn’t seem shaken by the interaction, and I am so proud of her chain of thought. I consider that perhaps I should not ask students to describe each other when we continue our work on metaphors.

The students whine a lot. They complain a lot. They say “Ayyy Misssss!” They try to convince me that I said the vocabulary quiz would be on Tuesday, that they didn’t know, that they had too much work and it’s very unfair and they did not have time to study, and didn’t you say it was Tuesday—you did, you did! I find it very hard not to get visibly angry. These kids are very lucky to be going to school, but like kids everywhere they don’t appreciate it much. It’s comforting, somehow, to know that kids everywhere are so similar. They call school a jail (“But jail is better because you have TV and you can relax,” one student told me), want only to talk to their friends, spend too little time on their homework, and need to borrow pencils. It can be hard to keep that in focus after a trip to City Mall, where the clothes are American style with American prices and all the classic fast food chains are there. (Watching an undubbed Lindsey Lohan movie in the air-conditioned City Mall movie theater made me ridiculously homesick.) But always I am reminded of how their experience of normal is different in the details. One student’s father works in the States, illegally. He has been gone three years, and he’s supposed to return, but...

There are so many stories that I want to discover, and I hope my students will let me into their lives in the same way that I’m trying to let them into mine. They are fascinated to hear about my life in New York, my family, my friends and their extraordinary world adventures. They love to ask questions about topics I know about off the top of my head that are new to them, like Judaism. If you want to expand their interest, mail me some matzoh—they would love to try it.

My students--seventh, eighth and ninth graders--at times seem a bit anomalous in the context of the whole school. To have stuck it out this long, past the government-mandated sixth grade education, they generally have parents who are very involved in the school. There are fewer scholarship students, and on the whole their families are really committed to helping secure a strong future for them. For that reason, I sometimes feel that I am not getting the chance to grasp first-hand the wide variety of our school attendees’ experiences. I also feel detached from the school community on occasion because the junior high is in its own building and my classes are smaller, so I know fewer kids. But then I walk to school and get passed by a busito, the students scream “Miss!” and stick their arms out the windows to wave. Then a first-grader being taken to school on a bicycle yells “Good morning!” at me from quite a distance and repeats the phrase until I snap out of my daze and yell back. Then a group of students sings The Wheels on the Bus to me at recess. I realize I am a part of it all. I just have to keep pulling myself into the mix.

**********

I decided after racing through the book Banker to the Poor that in the future I want to manage something big and ambitious and innovative. I like to manage, even if it’s just the creation of a house stir-fry meal. I remind myself that I’m scaling up, to adopt business-speak. Putting out the paper five days a week was a warm-up for placing knowledge in twenty adolescent minds five days a week. I foresee even greater and similarly serendipitously wonderful challenges ahead. Maybe in that vague “ahead” place, I’ll even be able to escape the painfully earnest tenor of this paragraph.

Taking refuge in cool Cusuco

2006-09-18T13:04:00.000-06:00

The mountains in Cusuco are so beautiful. In the dusk they are beautiful and dark in the ever-darkening sky and no camera can capture them. I have never seen so many stars before—not even that time in Maine when I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. I can’t count those stars, could never count them, and the big aloneness of it or the old friends in my mind or the cold breeze on my bare feet make tears roll around my eyes. The stars stay up there, blinking and blurring, but the tears will not fall out.

The town lies below, like in storybooks, but not with poetic pinpricks of light: the blobs of orange light are streetlights that supervise the cars I can’t see swerving around dusty deep potholes and expose the green in the puddles I can’t see where frogs ping like a fast-paced video game. I feel homesick for this place that is not mine, knowing the cars and frogs are there. It has made itself present to me through a real expression of its essential self. Human-made, it declares, shining into the mountains covered in types of ferns that dinosaurs once ate.

The coffee we drink in Cusuco is straight from the palo, rich and warm. In the morning I dip in pieces of my puffy fried tortillas, already sugary-sweet with naranja marmelada that the cooking women have made in their homes. How, I ask them. I think, How and who and what and when and why. The jelly, I clarify. Yes, the delicious jelly. How do you make the jelly, and how do you live this life—this life that is yours and mine and not ever ours. They tell me how. They pick the fruit near their homes and boil it, they say, they add the sugar and the pectin, they say, they put it in jars when it is gelatinous and hot hot, they say, really hot. They tell me that tomatoes are out of season already, planted in January and harvested in June or July. For the tortillas, they make three slits in each—look, like this, así—to make them expand with the heat of the stove. Two of the sons of the cooking women sit on a bench, whispering to each other. One boy tells me he likes mathematics best in school. That detail seems more important than the two teachers in the school, than the hundred students in the school. Scrawny chicks huddle together under a small overhang to get out of the rain and they are more important than me getting soaked. The woman at the top of a mountain nearby has story lines in her face. But I just coo at the plants that she sells. I just offer her a leftover piece of breakfast tortilla and ask, How many years have you lived here? Forty, she says. The number weighs her down, makes her sink into a pace in my mind where she will not flit away.

In the forest our guide feeds us tart citrus fruit, guayaba, or guava, and pieces of an acidic stem that supposedly alleviates thirst. There are too many plants and too many plant names. One tree grows flowers that are an official plant of El Salvador—and that Hondurans eat fried with nationalistic glee. There are three kinds of ferns. Some vines are like wood and good for swinging. Some vines that look the same are like plants and will break under your weight. Cola de mono looks like a monkey’s hairy tail, curled towards the sun, oreja del burro is a split-open seed-pod that falls to the ground. Labios de mujer look lascivious, painted a too-bright purple. We hike to a waterfall and lie on rocks near the cold spray.

One day we get a ride down to our lodge with a family from the city who escaped for the weekend to camp in the coolness of the mountains. They talk about colonias in New Jersey they have visited and I am startled to realize a colonia is not something exclusive to here—it’s just a word. The truck’s CD player shows reggaeton music videos. The contrast between it and the truck we take to school sometimes was as great as the climate difference between the mountains and our town in its heat-trapping valley.

After a tranquil weekend, the ride home is violent—an appropriately driving rain bombards us as we squat in the back of a pickup truck. Water puddles in our clothes and stings our faces. We slide backward and forward as the truck strains to climb inclines and swung around steep downhill curves. My arms get sore from bracing myself on the side of the truck. But as we descend, the air gets thicker and warmer and the rain slows to a drizzle. Our clothes begin to dry and we lose the subdued, survivalist look of endurance. As we drive back into the colonias surrounding the center of town, we began to sing—Disney’s greatest hits. We swing our dripping, sleeve-sheathed arms to wave adios to gawking families. On foot we might have been embarrassed, but soaking, exhausted from hiking, and anxious to be home, we are glad to be united, singing, back in the gringo spotlight.

School becomes laundromat

2006-09-09T22:06:00.000-06:00

On a break from band practice, A. drums her way around the school office, maneuvering around a cactus-like plant and ducking nonchalantly under a row of underwear, hanging from a clothesline attached to the office and the flagpole. A friend and I had hung our underwear there to try to keep it out of sight. We had suspended the rest of our clothes among the playground equipment, my towel drying snug up against the swing set, my shirts adding some color to a glance at the school’s gray block walls.

M. approaches as I throw more shirts and skirts into a big blue bucket and sprinkle in some laundry detergent, then grab another item to scrub and rinse it on the board next to the pila. “Laundry, teacher?” he asks with a smile. Even here, the sight of a teacher doing her laundry at school on a Saturday is worth a grin. I’m embarrassed, so I shrug modestly—“Still no water in town, so it's better to do the laundry here.” Usually the water only goes out for seven or eight hours at a time, but the water has been out since Thursday morning. M. shrugs back, since he lives in town, too, and then runs off to get back to practice.

The Independence Day parade is only six days away, and the band still sounds a bit garbled. For bands here, the instruments are primarily drums and xylophones, and dancing while playing is an important element. The twenty or so band members do a nice job with some tunes I don’t know, as well as the Honduran National Anthem and an excellent rendition of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence.” Last night when we were hanging out in the dark, without power, we heard the sounds of a band, so we walked out to the town square and discovered a parade for Children’s Day organized by some public schools. Dozens of children marched with blue, red, or green lanterns containing candles, and several bands much larger than ours performed, stopping at the entrance to the square to do an endless series of dances and beats involving turns, spinning of sticks, bobbing in all directions, head-turns, and swinging of xylophones.

Last weekend, we saw another sort of performance: a soccer game! Really not exciting enough to merit an exclamation point, since the score was cero cero. Made me understand why soccer games can become violent. There were guards with machine guns all around the edge of the field, staring at the crowd for the entire game, but the only crazy event was that some fans used the squares of paper handed out for confetti to start a small fire. We cheered for Olímpia even though Real Espana is technically our team because the Hondurans we were with object to the name Real Espana. One explained matter-of-factly, in Spanish: “The Spaniards killed our ancestors.” The trip home was way more exciting than the game. After squeezing onto the super-crowded bus and finding a seat between two guys who revealed they had some space available—“They want your body,” my already seated friend said, “but that’s okay,” I got to enjoy some fun conversation. “It’s really dangerous for you to be out late at night.” In response, I observed politely that it looked like it was going to rain and within a few minutes, lightening began to flash menacingly in the sky, rain came pounding down, the bus tilted frighteningly as we drove on the sidewalk to avoid puddles, and the lights flickered. At least we weren’t getting a ride home in the back of somebody’s pickup truck, as we so often do around town! But we made it home safely and capped off the experience with a mad dash home from the main street through mud and puddles and huge streams of water cascading down the abrupt drop-off that is our street.

You may have difficulty understanding my life this week here if you have done any of the following: taken a warm shower, turned on the AC, flushed a toilet and thrown your toilet paper in with it, washed your dishes with water from the tap, enjoyed an entire day of uninterrupted electricity. But you can approximate the experience a bit by making a lime licuado. Buy some limes, throw them in a blender with some sugar (okay, a lot of sugar), milk, water. Strain. Add some ice and blend again. Then pour into a tall glass and enjoy. I promise that it’s gonna be slammin’.

Striving for tranquilo

2006-09-01T22:35:00.000-06:00

A bunch of platanos hangs from our rafters on the back porch and several white and light-blue birds have come by thinking to themselves, "Sweet! A birdfeeder!" It's very cute, actually. Less cute are the many types of ants who reside in our house. We have one kind of ant, a rather large, light-brown ant in the bathroom, and both large and small black ants in the kitchen. I had heard that ants bite, but I had never experienced the fury of tiny, tiny black ants--well, of any ants, actually--until recently, when I was brutally attacked while attempting to cook pancakes. They sure do sting! Cleaning the kitchen became a serious priority immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, it is impractical to sweep and mop every single time anyone eats anything. Due to the lack of snack foods in Honduras, we have become huge fans of popcorn. In other animal news, last night we definitely spotted a tarantula on the back wall of our yard. It seems to have disappeared today, so I am hoping it went to visit the neighbors.

It has been a super busy week. After the teacher's meeting today, conducted in Spanish, of course, I felt saturated in Spanish enough to think to myself, "It has been a week super-busy." (I'd like to take this moment to praise the director of the school, who speaks slowly and clearly enough that I actually understand her very well.) My favorite thing that I have picked up on is using bien as an adverb, as in "Es bien frio" or even "Es bien malo"! Right now es bien caliente--this afternoon a mini-thermometer for science experiments showed 98 degrees. At 7 pm, with the sun set, it has dropped to 92 degrees.

I just realized that I have not mentioned on the blog that we had a full roster of fun events last weekend, namely a birthday party last Friday and karaoke--which was hysterical--on Saturday night, plus a huge feast for H's birthday on Sunday night. I led the creation of the stir-fry, and it was awesome, if I do say so myself. Most interestingly, though, when I went to church on Sunday morning, I found the church overflowing with people as a result of the thirty-one weddings taking place. There were kids eating flavored ices, adults fanning themselves madly, and couple after couple approaching the bishop to accept the vows. On the altar there was one up, and one on deck.

On Sunday night, after a full but fun weekend, I realized that I really had not planned properly for the week. Several nights this week I stayed up until 12:30 or 1:30 am getting ready, and then woke up at 5:50 in the morning. It was very painful. But settling into the new classrooms was great--it's so nice to have my own space. When I looked at the room this afternoon before I left, I realized just how crazy it is that I'm here with my very own classroom to set up and decorate and maintain. I have hung some posters on the walls with a rubber cement glue called UHU, and I need to hang up more. It just feels like such a commitment, because things pasted with UHU are not easily separated from the wall again. I have a line with clothespins attached to the window bars (I may have delusionally said previously there are screens, but in fact there are not) and I hang some papers there, but we get quite the breeze in our tiny Junior High pasillo, so they don't survive too well there. My co-Junior High teacher has crafted a nifty bulletin board out of cardboard and I really should do the same. I have been hanging up some inspirational quotes, in addition to the National Geographic maps. I made the ninth graders write last night about an Albert Einstein quote: "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." I'm looking forward to seeing what they have come up when I get around to grading their homework--really soon, I resolve in this very moment.

It was a pretty good week with the kids. I'm setting up some new routines: a "Take One/Leave One" folder at the door for depositing homework and picking up handouts, space on the shelf for journals and for folders for in-class projects, vocab tests and independent reading time on Fridays. I find grading to be one of the more painful parts of being a teacher because I feel responsible when, for example, someone doesn't understand the assignment. But if other folks did, or asked questions until they did, then I think I have to subtract points.... I've been thinking a lot about what it would be like to be in school and not be that great of a student. Those are the students whose minds I really need to get inside, so I can figure out how to help them.

Today was a half day for a teacher meeting, and next Friday is the Dia de Los Ninos, so the kids come to school for only three hours and play games we make for them. The week after we have another half day and a day off for the Dia de Independencia parade. Hondurans are all about their celebrations. Makes it a bit hard to get in a school routine, though. I can get really frustrated here at times, because it is so hot, and I always feel so dirty (so much dust!), and life here is simply exhausting. Fortunately my sufferings have been alleviated somewhat because I have fallen in love with liquados, a true substitute for Starbucks drinks. Sipping a banana liquado puts me in the same mood as when I drink a chai creme--a mood I now have a word for: tranquilo.

"I think I...conocer...?"

2006-08-26T16:52:00.000-06:00

When we walk to school at 6:30 am, the dusty, uneven road to the town center is quiet. There are no trucks swerving right and left to avoid the rises and plummets of the rolling cobblestone-and-dirt street, but a few red and white mototaxis with three wheels race passengers to their destinations. Small groups of subdued, sleepy schoolchildren in uniforms—white shirts and blue skirts, green pants with light green shirts, gym t-shirts and warm-up pants—wait for the bus or walk to school. The walk is long—twenty minutes, at least—but the air is cooler so early in the morning. Sometimes we get a ride in the back of a pickup truck, speeding along at an exciting clip, except where we must pass over the muertos (dead people—a slang name for speedbumps) near a giant cigar factory. I hear that the cigars are imported to America, and that you can’t buy them here anywhere.

At the school, the watchman lets us inside the wall surrounding the school grounds. During the night, the watchman is a big old man with missing teeth, a cowboy hat, and a gun. The dayshift man, however, looks considerably less like a cartoon. The school buildings are made of cinderblocks, with bars and screens in the windows and big metal doors leading to each classroom. The pasillo, or hallway, opens into the school yard on both sides. The tin roof flexes in the heat, making a sound as if a sporadic hailstorm where constantly passing through the area.

The Junior High classrooms, in a separate two-room building on the grounds, were not ready at the start of school, so my students have taken up temporary residence in the library and an empty classroom that will be the teacher’s lounge. It has been a frustrating experience, particularly since every teacher’s book I have read emphasizes the importance of the start of the year as setting the tone. I am finding it difficult to make the students feel welcome and establish a routine when I cannot decorate or arrange books and materials. (Yes, the tone I myself adapt for this narration is considerably calmer than the one I used the night before school started when I learned about the delay.) The classrooms are supposed to have electricity by Monday. I’m hopeful, but not convinced.

The students, for the most part, are well behaved. The ninth grade boys are constantly whining, “Missss, he’s touching me!” They also, however, tend to participate more in class. The ninth grade girls are on the whole quieter and more serious. Their first journal entries ranged from the boring but true (too-cool-for-school girl writes [paraphrased from memory]: “I like music. My favorite music is salsa, meringue, reggaeton...”) to the endearing (cool guy writes: “I want to learn more about you and Miss ____) to the fascinating (bookish, hard-home-life kid writes of a pen pal friendship: “I know she loves me but it is very hard for us because of distance.”) In the combined seventh-eighth grade, there are only six chatty but adorable girls. They are much further behind in English. Their speech sounds like, “I think I....conocer...?”) Their wishes, according to their writing, range from wanting to visit the Bay Islands to becoming a doctor to being the best student in the class to traveling the world, to traveling the world as a model flight attendant. The last one might mean the best flight attendant, but I bet the intention was two professions rolled into one.

I’m learning a little more Spanish—some words here and there, like ganchas (clothespins)—and speaking it more than I ever, ever did in the US. I can more often follow a conversation than participate in it. As of yet, I am an extremely uninteresting conversationalist.

One major gripe I have with Honduras is that the constant sweating is wreaking havoc on my skin. The sunscreen and bug spray don’t help, either. I was born for a temperate climate! I have begun liberal use of baby powder, and I have begun dreaming of having a shower at school for when I arrive in the mornings. Ideally I would take about three showers a day, but I would never be able to wash all the clothes I would constantly be changing into. (Have I mentioned that laundry without a machine is a huge hassle?) Plus our water goes out very frequently. We have water most consistently in the afternoons, because the storms come in the evenings and then the water usually stays shut off until sometime the next morning. Nothing like waking up in the morning to realize that everybody is going to have to bucket flush the toilet before going to school.

Tonight we’re going to karaoke at the house of some prominent (read: wealthy) folks. I’m hoping there will be food—it’s so much easier when we don’t have to cook for ourselves. The most common foods served are: papusas, a ball of quesillo (a kind of cheese) enveloped in tortilla dough, and balleadas, made of thin flour tortillas folded in half, with refried beans inside and also a thin cream squiggled out of a bag, like frosting. There are also catrachas, a fried tortilla topped with refried beans, hard cheese, and sometimes (maybe with another name) diced cabbage and carrots. Once at school we were served hot dog rolls and cream, mantequilla, as a snack. (Shudder.) When we were in Triunfo at the beach last weekend, I had some toast and refried beans as a snack and it tasted awesome. I suddenly had the thought that I’ve been missing out on a wonderful thing all of these years. Good thing I came to Honduras, huh?

Beach time

2006-08-21T23:34:00.000-06:00

The first picture is from the beach at Tela, where we stayed Saturday night in a really nice hotel: right on the water, iced pineapple juice delivered to the room upon arrival, and wonderous air conditioning. The other two pictures are the beach and the door to our cabana in Triunfo. It's much more rustic there, but the water was beautifully blue. The Carribean ocean is a wonderful thing to anybody raised in the Northeast. No offense to the Jersey shore, but this was the most gorgeous beach I've ever visited, and I could have stayed in the water for several days straight.

The big city

2006-08-17T16:52:00.000-06:00

The letters C O CA – C O L A are nestled in the hills above San Pedro Sula and outside a pizza restaurant stands an armed guard. Walking the grid of calles and avenidas, I inhale the copious exhaust of cars that honk in warning as they pass through each intersection. One store offers an “explosión de precios bajos,” another sells Converse sneakers. Water trucks and white taxis are everywhere. Moneychangers near the plaza flash their bills and say dollares, dollares.

The postcards for sale in the Mercado Guamilto depict the cathedral in the Parque Central and a few other older-looking buildings, but more exemplary is the corner marked by Wendy’s, KFC, and Burger King. When I waited for the Rapidito bus to the city earlier in the day, passersby greeted me on the street with adiós, and an old woman even grabbed my arm to tell me Buenas. But in San Pedro, all is economic: ¿Que quiere?

On the ride home we drive past a building with a huge picture of Tweety bird. A couple near the roadside cuts grass in their front lawn with machetes. I nearly fall asleep on the way home—I’m a small-town girl now, and the big city life wears me out.

Dancing real close...

2006-08-12T10:24:00.000-06:00

On Thursday I went out dancing, Honduras style. By which I mean I danced at somebody’s house, without the aid of alcohol, in a way I would not ordinarily dance in front of my parents, in front of other people’s parents. Oh, and with some of my students. But hey, it was pretty fun. A bonus is that it doesn’t require much in the way of conversation.

The guys, even ones who are twelve or thirteen years old, have no qualms about partnering up with you to dance to reggaeton. Alas it’s part of the same machismo that makes it so annoying to walk down the street with other girls. All the kids seem to dance with their friends and relatives all the time—and their parents encourage them. The guys don’t hesitate to pull you in real close for a dance step I like to call “make a small circle and sweat on your partner.” But it was fun to dance with folks who so obviously enjoy it, and who more or less excel at it. (No white man’s overbite here.) At a bar or club it likely would have been stressful for me, but it was such a friendly atmosphere that I left smiling.

I’ve learned how to go buy food at the local pulpeteria and the owner is extremely understanding of us gringas, which I truly appreciate. Por ejemplo, she showed us a pound of beans. (I would quote her, but I recall that she used some verb besides mostrar that I can’t quite recall.) I definitely need to review the Spanish words for vegetables. Today, however, we walked up the main street a ways to the supermarket. There are no street signs, so precision in directions can be difficult. The supermarket is the only place here that you can buy leche descremada and whole wheat bread. Unfortunately, leche descremada only comes in a box, as opposed to fresh in a plastic bag. Also unfortunately, boxed milk tastes—and smells—exactly as if it has been in a box for three months. Best to consider it some other sort of beverage altogether.

Vaya pues (“anyhow,” more or less), even after only a week here, trips to the supermarket in town are a special treat. Instead of asking for everything, I can look at what is available for myself and choose. Today another volunteer and I spent about twenty minutes browsing there, much to the amusement of the Hondurans, who do not seem to do quite as much recreational shopping. The supermarket has a pretty extensive selection, including shampoo in a big glass counter. A few days ago, I picked out a shampoo bottled that looked nice, but the employee helping me shook her head and pointed to the picture of a curly-haired girl. She substituted a more suitably straight-haired girl. (Even though in the humidity my hair is curlier than ever.) Today while using my “SEDAL Control Humect,” I figured out that it is “para la caspa.” That is, it’s a dandruff shampoo. Makes me wonder what I have been agreeing to in all those conversations when I respond with only a nod of the head and a little laugh.

"Nos vemos!"

2006-08-10T16:31:00.000-06:00

Life I love you
All is groovy

Listening to music (Simon & Garfunkel, if you hadn't guessed) while sitting on my bed in my room here transports me back to my bedroom in my old apartment. I can imagine that perhaps I have moved to another apartment—someplace a little shabbier, in the East Village, perhaps, where the super has forgotten to repaint the apartment.

But then my gaze flickers over the shelves made of rough planks and cinder blocks. In the heat I feel the blowing of the gale-force fan. (“There really isn’t a low setting: more like 100%, 95% and 90%.”) A rooster crows—they seem to have no sense of day or night. Often they sound not like roosters but like people demonstrating the noise they think roosters should make. A lizard climbs the wall. It is a gecko, I’m told, although despite watching the Geico commercials, I can’t be sure. He makes his clicking sound, joining in the chorus with his brothers and sisters in the walls and on the porch and around the backyard. Geckos are more attractive than ants or spiders, so we let them go where they will. They would make a good pet, or a good mascot, and more importantly, they are said to eat mosquitoes.

While the arrival of the super—well, really just our landlady’s brother—to fix the clogged drain was encouragingly similar to NY life, the other drop-in guests made it impossible to overlook the cultural differences. A Honduran woman who studies in the United States recently told the story of how she stopped by the house of an American friend one day with some cookies. “We’re so happy that you feel comfortable enough to drop by,” the friend told her. But the Honduran woman didn’t see the gesture as signifying any particular sense of closeness. “In Honduras, we go to everyone’s house. You don’t even have to like that person,” she explains. Last night, when we wanted nothing more than to make some dinner and relax, neighbors came by to sit on the porch and play a Shakira CD for us. They were very nice, but even though we were in the midst of a huge house-cleaning project, they were undeterred. When you are tired, or feeling iffy, or about to make dinner, or trying to do work, or hoping for a moment alone—well, let’s say they don’t take a hint. But they will care for you, bringing you devices to pour water from the cooler jugs and juice oranges and tortillas con quesillo. And when they leave they will say, “Nos vemos!"

Pictures

2006-08-08T21:50:00.000-06:00

Today we went to the school to check out our classrooms--and try out the jumble of keys! The walk was advertised as 1 mile or 15 minutes, but it's definitely longer than that. You walk by a cigar factory with the greenest soccer field in all of Honduras and some poorer areas. We can take a shortcut through the property of a friend of the school, which makes the walk safer--the school is very nice, but in a pretty remote area. I took some pictures when we were there. The picture of the mountains is the view from the back of the school property. The building off by itself is the former kindergarten/preparatoria, but it is going to become the "junior high." For the group shot, we are sitting in front of the main pasillo where all the other classrooms are located. The new kinder/prep bulding is actually still a work in progress--at this point the walls are only a few feet high!
I felt a bit feverish today, I think maybe from not drinking enough water on the walk, but some resting in the afternoon (skipping out on a bit of lesson planning, but I couldn't focus at that point anyway) and some tylenol made me feel so much better. Plus we used the McCormick alfredo sauce packets B and L bought me to make pasta tonight, and that was awesome.
There's a lot of together time here, especially right now since we're "orienting," but all is well. I find myself staying up a little too late, just to have time to organize my stuff and have some time to think on my own. I miss everybody, so let me know what you're up to!

I'm here!

2006-08-07T18:49:00.000-06:00

Here I am!

I woke up yesterday, Sunday, at 4 am after going to bed around 1:30 am to get to the airport in time for my 7 am flight. The flight was great—I even arrived early to San Pedro Sula. When we came through the clouds to land, I could see the sand of the beaches extending out into the water. A twisty brown river cut its way through the fields. It was quite a contrast to flying over Atlanta (my connection from LaGuardia) with its clusters of housing developments.

When I arrived at the airport, I breezed through customs, snagged a luggage cart, and recovered my three bags. Three zippers had broken during the journey, but nothing seemed to have fallen out, so I was very thankful. I walked out into the arrivals area and endured my nightmare scenario—nobody in sight to pick me up!—for perhaps twenty minutes. When I saw a gringo in shorts, accompanied by a Honduran man and his daughter, I figured they were looking out for me, so I introduced myself, and I was right. Hurray!

I spent the next four hours waiting for another volunteer in the departures section of the airport, which mercifully is air-conditioned. I spoke some Spanish and English with a parent from the school and English with his daughter, who is in second grade. I found that I could understand him—I’m sure he was simplifying his speech for me—and talk back some. They actually had Wendy’s at the airport, but I opted for my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Finally we drove to Cofradia, passing by the mountains and many different villages. There were Pepsi ads everywhere.

By the time we arrived at the volunteer house, I was exhausted and starving. But I immediately loved the patio in the back of the house, which is fully covered by an overhang and has a wooden dining table and chairs. We wandered out to go get supplies for dinner, since the house was not at all stocked with food, but it was too late to go to the bigger stores. The pulperia down the street was open, but we had no success getting fresh tomatoes to eat with the pasta we had, and when we asked for “salsa de tomato,” we got ketchup. Oh, and tomato paste. Neither one seemed that appetizing. So we settled on a beans and rice meal. The owner of the store kept saying, “Oh, you can cook the beans with some cilantro and .... and ....” (hard for me to catch it all, as is proving characteristic of all my interactions with Hondurans so far), but we kept having to admit that we didn’t have that. I think she ended up throwing in the cilantro for free because she felt bad for the incompetent gringos. The beans, unfortunately, take at least an hour to cook, so even when we got home we had a long wait for dinner. By the time we got to eat there, it was about ten o’clock. Fortunately for us, Hondurans decided that they’re done with the whole daylight savings thing, so the clocks went back an hour Sunday night/Monday morning. Thus, only nine o’clock! Yeah, it was a long day.

Everybody in the program seems great, and we’re settling in well. I had a good night’s sleep, after managing to get a pretty comfortable double bed, and unpacked some of my stuff. There’s a lot to get used to—the heat, the language, the food, the no-flushing-of-toilet paper and sporadic water access—but I think it’ll all be okay.

Today we spent most of the day sitting on the back porch doing some training in preparation for the start of school. We got lunch in town at a local establishment. It’s basically a few picnic benches indoors, with a sheet hung behind them to separate the dining area from the cooking area and, presumably, the rest of the owners’ house. I ordered an enchilada and was a bit surprised to receive a crunchy fried tortilla topped with, I believe, shredded cabbage and carrots and some sliced tomatoes covered in grated cheese. More like coleslaw than a Mexican enchilada. Afterwards we got licuados—milkshakes, basically. I had pina, served in a bag with a straw, and it was excellent. I seem to be hungry all the time, though. The heat is really draining. The woman who runs the licuado store said that I looked like the youngest one, like a child. I told her (I think) that I was actually one of the oldest. She didn’t seem convinced.
Tonight there’s a welcome dinner. Some folks are coming over to make papusas. I’ll have fun introducing myself to all of them, since Bridget is basically impossible for a Honduran to say. I’m trying Breejeet, but they still get tongue-tied. I might have to start going by some other sort of name!

Note: written 8/7 and updated on 8/8 for formatting issues.

two weeks until I leave...

2006-07-23T01:24:00.000-06:00

"But knowing that cliches are cliches doesn't help you to escape them. You still have to go on experiencing your experience as if no one else has ever done it."
(Indecision)

I'm going to try to keep that in mind when I get to Honduras--that even though many of the experiences I have may seem banal in their familiarity to those who have lived abroad before, that's okay. I'm going to do some good work, to see and learn new things, to gather stories, and ultimately to figure out not "how do I know?" but "how do I choose?" and "what do I do?" (Here I quote the incomparable Cary Tennis.)

I have two weeks left before I leave the country, so I have been saying a lot of goodbyes. I have been very conscious this year of being thankful for what I have, particularly for those moments when I feel really, wonderfully happy. But saying goodbye to the great folks in my life has definitely made me even more aware of how--even though this year was a hard one in so many ways--I have been happy. While my college life was more fantastic and life-changing than I could ever have imagined, this year has actually been that too, albeit in a quieter, less glamorous way. I'll be bringing lots of great memories with me to Honduras, from my whole life. And I am ridiculously excited about the upcoming year.