Informal bus vendors are ubiquitous in Latin America and their presence is an expected part of any trip on public transportation. On one four hour bus ride along the central highway between La Guama and Tegucigalpa, probably 15 different vendors walked the aisle of our bus, each attempting to earn a few lempiras in his own “unique” way. It doesn’t take long to pick up on the patterns of stereotypical vendors.
For example, the herbal medicine “specialist” that came on board is a common breed among bus vendors. Touting a laminated poster with pictures of the myriad intestinal parasites, as they all do, he expounded upon the maladies caused by these parasites, describing intestinal discomfort in the vaguest way possible and linking all of your problems to parasites. Fortunately, he was selling the magic pill to cure our ailments. In the end, he sold people non-herbal medicine of the packaged pharmaceutical kind, divvying up the pills in the box as if he knew the proper dosage.
One man, an evangelical, instructed us to put our hands up and find salvation in the Lord Almighty. After praying for a solid 20 minutes and insulting all of the Catholics on the bus, he got to the sales pitch. Selling mini-flashlights and pens, which looked normal to the untrained eye, he explained that they were indeed blessed. My fellow passengers not only bought his products but applauded him.
Other vendors got straight to the point. One man, selling toothbrushes, fixated on the amazing tongue cleaner on the back. He threw in a free pen with purchase. I ended up buying a barely palatable cheese-flavored cookie topped with caramelized sugar because the woman selling them gave me a free sample and then promptly asked how many I would be purchasing. I couldn’t say none without feeling guilty. I also bought fresh boiled corn-on-the-cob which I actually wanted.
We were in turn visited by a clown and various others selling the normal goods – pop, water, plaintain chips, rosquillas (dried cheese rings), candied squash, etc.
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Upper Crust
Large concentrations of wealthy Hondurans are hard to come by, primarily because wealthy Hondurans aren’t all that prevalent. However, they tend to congregate in certain places, one of them being expensive private hospitals. I recently made a trip to Tegucigalpa to see an allergist and the Peace Corps sent me to the Honduras Medical Center. Despite expecting something nicer than the average public health clinic, I still wasn’t expecting the grand fountain in the lobby. I almost laughed out loud, the juxtaposition was so ridiculous.
As I sat down in the waiting room, I quickly realized I was surrounded by Coach purses. The woman in front of me was wearing Chanel glasses. One family was taking pictures with a digital camera. Observing the scene you might assume you were waiting to get in to a fancy restaurant. Pearls. High-heels. Copious amounts of mascara. One young woman was visiting the doctor in a dress and stilettos.
There was also a fish tank in the waiting room. And directly outside of the pediatric unit, absurdly enough, there was a well-placed candy bar stand. Nonetheless, despite the outwardly fancy appearance of the hospital, it’s still necessary to throw your toilet paper in the trash can.
-------
Maybe it’s purely a cultural difference, but I can’t help but think that many Latin American women, at least in Honduras, Peru and Ecuador, are stuck in gender roles of the American 1950s. No one exudes this quality more than the upper class. Just last week in one of the biggest newspapers, there was an article which, very seriously explained how a proper woman should act. Cell phone rings while dining in a restaurant? Daintily exit to your right but make sure to re-enter your seat from the left. Also, you should never reapply your makeup in front of people which to me implies that you should be wearing makeup. And professional women should always wear high-heels.
Go figure, I don’t remember most of the list.
As I sat down in the waiting room, I quickly realized I was surrounded by Coach purses. The woman in front of me was wearing Chanel glasses. One family was taking pictures with a digital camera. Observing the scene you might assume you were waiting to get in to a fancy restaurant. Pearls. High-heels. Copious amounts of mascara. One young woman was visiting the doctor in a dress and stilettos.
There was also a fish tank in the waiting room. And directly outside of the pediatric unit, absurdly enough, there was a well-placed candy bar stand. Nonetheless, despite the outwardly fancy appearance of the hospital, it’s still necessary to throw your toilet paper in the trash can.
-------
Maybe it’s purely a cultural difference, but I can’t help but think that many Latin American women, at least in Honduras, Peru and Ecuador, are stuck in gender roles of the American 1950s. No one exudes this quality more than the upper class. Just last week in one of the biggest newspapers, there was an article which, very seriously explained how a proper woman should act. Cell phone rings while dining in a restaurant? Daintily exit to your right but make sure to re-enter your seat from the left. Also, you should never reapply your makeup in front of people which to me implies that you should be wearing makeup. And professional women should always wear high-heels.
Go figure, I don’t remember most of the list.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Politics as Usual
Juana (my neighbor and a member of the latrine committee) and I, recently paid a visit to the municipality to verify whether or not they had decided to fund the latrine project. This is how it went: We arrived at 8:00 am and sat in the mayor’s waiting room for awhile. No one bothered to tell us that the mayor wouldn’t be arriving for another two hours. Meanwhile, I was hit on by the sixty-something year old municipal board member who once told me that my ticket into his swimming pool would be free, with the condition that I wear a string bikini.
We left and came back a little after 10:00 to find the waiting room full, primarily with people waiting to ask the mayor to pay for their most recent medical bill. (It’s literally like case-by-case welfare.) The creepy board member entered and, on his way by, both caressed and squeezed my arm, allowing his hand to linger for a highly inappropriate length of time. A couple of people were attended to before a corpulent pair of television reporters burst in and went straight into the mayor’s office. The mayor proceeded to allow them to conduct an interview. As the reporters left, two more entered and were let into her office in front of everyone else. At this point, Juana called Franklin, the vice-mayor who also happens to have a farm in El Sauce, and told him that we were waiting to see the mayor but couldn’t get in. Soon thereafter we could hear the mayor talking with Franklin on the phone. The door promptly opened and the “people from El Sauce” were asked to come in. Mind you, we were still not actually addressed. The reporters, still in process of interviewing the mayor and various others, had come to inquire about the pressing political issue of the soccer stadium. Apparently, I learned, it is to be renamed after the creepy municipal board member. The mayor was repeatedly interrupted by her cell phone but finally asked us what we had come for while someone else was being interviewed. She answered our inquiry with one sentence before her cell phone rang again.
We were informed that the project will be reviewed on the 29th of July. That’s it. That’s all we wanted to know. I can think of several more efficient ways that this information could have been communicated to us. Before leaving I got in one more question, which was to ask to borrow the projector. She yelled out to her secretary, whose eyes were completely rimmed in shocking electric-blue eyeliner, to check it out to me. We waited for another inordinate amount of time while the secretary typed out the necessary form with two fingers. Just two.
-------
To raise money for the ecotourism committee we hooked a DVD player and speakers up to a projector, powered them with a car battery and created a temporary movie theater in El Sauce. One little boy called it the gran tele or great T.V.. Only 3 families in El Sauce have televisions and no one has electricity, so it was a popular event. I’m sure that for some of the kids and perhaps even for some of the adults it was really special, something they’ve never done before. The movie selection, however, was a bit odd in my opinion; they chose to play Valdez, an old Burt Lancaster Western dubbed in Spanish. First of all, I’d never heard of Valdez and I certainly never expected to see it in Honduras. Secondly, I expected Burt Lancaster to be Burt Reynolds and was therefore slightly confused for the entire length of the movie.
The big dilemma is that what people really want to see is violence. Quality of is no importance. A movie starring one of the following action stars is preferable: Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Segal, The Rock or Chuck Norris. What these men may not realize is the extent to which they are idolized in Latin America. In an isolated community in the Peruvian Amazon, my friend Michelle snapped a priceless picture of a large mural of Jesus with his arms embracing Jackie Chan and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
-------
The other day I was inside my house when I heard what sounded very much like my scrub brush being scraped along the built-in washboard of my outdoor sink. Alas, I opened my door to find my neighbor, the same one with whom I discussed the merits of my pee bucket, lovingly scrubbing my brush back and forth along the washboard. She wasn’t washing anything. Oh no. She was merely observing the excellent quality of my scrub brush. She wasn’t embarrassed to be caught in the act of admiring a scrub brush but, rather, she continued to caress it while commenting on its remarkable attributes.
We left and came back a little after 10:00 to find the waiting room full, primarily with people waiting to ask the mayor to pay for their most recent medical bill. (It’s literally like case-by-case welfare.) The creepy board member entered and, on his way by, both caressed and squeezed my arm, allowing his hand to linger for a highly inappropriate length of time. A couple of people were attended to before a corpulent pair of television reporters burst in and went straight into the mayor’s office. The mayor proceeded to allow them to conduct an interview. As the reporters left, two more entered and were let into her office in front of everyone else. At this point, Juana called Franklin, the vice-mayor who also happens to have a farm in El Sauce, and told him that we were waiting to see the mayor but couldn’t get in. Soon thereafter we could hear the mayor talking with Franklin on the phone. The door promptly opened and the “people from El Sauce” were asked to come in. Mind you, we were still not actually addressed. The reporters, still in process of interviewing the mayor and various others, had come to inquire about the pressing political issue of the soccer stadium. Apparently, I learned, it is to be renamed after the creepy municipal board member. The mayor was repeatedly interrupted by her cell phone but finally asked us what we had come for while someone else was being interviewed. She answered our inquiry with one sentence before her cell phone rang again.
We were informed that the project will be reviewed on the 29th of July. That’s it. That’s all we wanted to know. I can think of several more efficient ways that this information could have been communicated to us. Before leaving I got in one more question, which was to ask to borrow the projector. She yelled out to her secretary, whose eyes were completely rimmed in shocking electric-blue eyeliner, to check it out to me. We waited for another inordinate amount of time while the secretary typed out the necessary form with two fingers. Just two.
-------
To raise money for the ecotourism committee we hooked a DVD player and speakers up to a projector, powered them with a car battery and created a temporary movie theater in El Sauce. One little boy called it the gran tele or great T.V.. Only 3 families in El Sauce have televisions and no one has electricity, so it was a popular event. I’m sure that for some of the kids and perhaps even for some of the adults it was really special, something they’ve never done before. The movie selection, however, was a bit odd in my opinion; they chose to play Valdez, an old Burt Lancaster Western dubbed in Spanish. First of all, I’d never heard of Valdez and I certainly never expected to see it in Honduras. Secondly, I expected Burt Lancaster to be Burt Reynolds and was therefore slightly confused for the entire length of the movie.
The big dilemma is that what people really want to see is violence. Quality of is no importance. A movie starring one of the following action stars is preferable: Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Segal, The Rock or Chuck Norris. What these men may not realize is the extent to which they are idolized in Latin America. In an isolated community in the Peruvian Amazon, my friend Michelle snapped a priceless picture of a large mural of Jesus with his arms embracing Jackie Chan and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
-------
The other day I was inside my house when I heard what sounded very much like my scrub brush being scraped along the built-in washboard of my outdoor sink. Alas, I opened my door to find my neighbor, the same one with whom I discussed the merits of my pee bucket, lovingly scrubbing my brush back and forth along the washboard. She wasn’t washing anything. Oh no. She was merely observing the excellent quality of my scrub brush. She wasn’t embarrassed to be caught in the act of admiring a scrub brush but, rather, she continued to caress it while commenting on its remarkable attributes.
Untitled
It’s been ages since I last posted a blog, primarily because I’ve been uninspired. On the one hand, those incidents and observations which once struck me as noteworthy or ridiculous have long since slipped into the mundane. Furthermore, for whatever reason, I spent a good deal of the first five months in Honduras just plain unhappy and, hence, uninspired.
Thankfully, I’ve been busier than I ever was during the first five months in Perú or I might have gone insane, literally. In short, I’ve been helping the community to organize a latrine project, teaching sporadic environmental education classes and helping the local ecotourism committee to get off the ground. Here’s a brief synopsis of each if you want more info:
Latrines:
My parents informed me that many people don’t actually know what latrines are, which frankly blew my PC oriented mind. To clarify, latrines are outhouses. Currently, half of the population of El Sauce shares one large communal bathroom—the great outdoors. The other 50% uses latrines. The goal of the project is to provide 100% of the population with latrines and, therefore, avoid environmental contamination and infectious diseases. Thus far we have formed a committee and determined the basic structure of the project, which I wrote up in the form of a grant proposal. We are currently looking for funding. The total cost to repair and construct 46 latrines will be roughly $6,600.
Environmental Education:
At the local primary school in El Sauce, I do various activities with the kids to teach them about their natural resources and the importance of living sustainably. They don’t always comprehend, of course. Once I asked what trees are good for and a young boy enthusiastically responded, “Burning!” They seem to enjoy the classes which are a welcome change of pace from the monotony of normal classes which they spend mindlessly copying information.
I’m also working with the 9th grade class on both a tree nursery and a waste management project. Supposedly, they are supposed to be running the show. Instead, I offer them the training they need and then I’m surprised when both they and the teacher fail to do anything with it. It is the most disinterested group of kids that I’ve ever worked with. Enjoy is not a word that can be used in the context of this 9th grade class. It’s stereotypical. They stare at me blankly, talk, throw things, flirt, read magazines, wander off, etc. Finally, during the last class, I told them that they were the worst class that I’d ever worked with and that I couldn’t believe the extent to which they were throwing away their education. And, for the first time, they were silent.
Ecotourism:
Work with the ecotourism group is going surprisingly well. Basically the group consists of members from three communities that all lie within the buffer zone of the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara. Honduran law allows for and encourages the co-management of all Honduran National Parks , meaning that a national or international NGO may formulate and execute a management plan which allows it to oversee the proper management of a given protected area. On paper this law is excellent because it eases the burden on the Honduran Government to invest significant capital in the management of their national parks while allowing for dedicated NGOs with adequate experience to pick up the slack. However, in the case of certain parks, such as the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara, there is no co-manager which results in no management, no investment and no tourism. The overarching goal of the ecotourism committee is thus to one day obtain NGO status and transition into serving as the co-manager of the park. In the short term, we are starting to implement a community-wide environmental education project.
Besides work…
In June, my sister came and kept me company for an entire month. She probably wasn’t too thrilled when she had to lug her very heavy backpack, including a tent and myriad things for me, up the mountain to my site; but, after that, we had an excellent time. Literally, we were never much more than 12 feet apart for the entire month. We washed clothes by hand, cooked 3 meals a day, hiked around the mountain, rode in the back of pick-up trucks, drank licuados, perfected the art of tortilla making (almost), and talked about my neighbors by candlelight. My sister is probably one of the few people who would actually enjoy a comprehensive tour of the latrines of El Sauce while on vacation.
Besides hanging out in my site, we also visited Copan Ruinas (an impressive Mayan archeological site), Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar and my friend Ellie, and Cayos Cochinos ( a marine reserve in the Caribbean). We even managed to hitch a ride on a catamaran to Utila, another Caribbean island off the coast of Honduras. We also stayed in one of the world’s sketchiest/dirtiest hotels in Tela and had a bunch of bananas thrown at us by an angry market vendor who, for good measure, yelled after us, “Vayase a la mierda,” because Kelly accidently broke some of the over-ripe bananas from their stems. My sister’s visit allowed me to enjoy a place that I haven’t really enjoyed because I’ve no one to enjoy it with. Plus, she taught me to always look under the toilet seat for spiders and left me with a surplus of semi-functional but creative, hand-crafted candle holders.
When my sister left for the States, so did I, which made her departure all the more bearable. At the last minute, my neighbors tried to send all sorts of strange and impractical gifts home for my parents—freshly made, un-pasteurized cheese, green peppers and dried cheese rings. They wanted to send coffee but, alas, none was ready. I can only imagine the sheer quantity of coffee they’ll attempt to send with me when I leave.
I went home for the week, primarily to attend my friends’ wedding but also to spend time with family. It was a wonderful week, uneventful but relaxing. Since I was just home six months ago, nothing was new or shocking. Though I was, admittedly, baffled by the punctual start time of the wedding, something my sister was not surprised by. Really, I thought the start time of 6:00 meant that most of the guests would be arriving at that time and that the ceremony would start at some time thereafter. To my sister’s dismay we were among the last guests to arrive.
Rather than finding the American lifestyle to be wholly overwhelming, as some PCVs experience, I felt slightly disconnected from it. We went to a local flea market and antique show and I felt like I’d walked straight into a Michael Moore film highlighting typical Americans. And, I still don’t understand the phone machines. People can justify them left and right, but I’ve survived for 25 years, nearly 26, without instant internet access, GPS and other cell phone applications and I DO NOT understand why everyone feels like THEY need those capabilities at their fingertips or they might, heaven forbid, not be able to what? I don’t honestly know. Anyway, instead of feeling out of sorts, I feel quite happy to feel just a little bit disconnected.
Back in Honduras, I reentered Honduran time. I was only gone for two and a half weeks, yet one young woman commented that I’d been gone for at least two months. Two months! Nonetheless, warped sense of time or not, the United States is never very far removed from Honduras. Case in point, yesterday, I met a young Honduran girl named Oprah.
Thankfully, I’ve been busier than I ever was during the first five months in Perú or I might have gone insane, literally. In short, I’ve been helping the community to organize a latrine project, teaching sporadic environmental education classes and helping the local ecotourism committee to get off the ground. Here’s a brief synopsis of each if you want more info:
Latrines:
My parents informed me that many people don’t actually know what latrines are, which frankly blew my PC oriented mind. To clarify, latrines are outhouses. Currently, half of the population of El Sauce shares one large communal bathroom—the great outdoors. The other 50% uses latrines. The goal of the project is to provide 100% of the population with latrines and, therefore, avoid environmental contamination and infectious diseases. Thus far we have formed a committee and determined the basic structure of the project, which I wrote up in the form of a grant proposal. We are currently looking for funding. The total cost to repair and construct 46 latrines will be roughly $6,600.
Environmental Education:
At the local primary school in El Sauce, I do various activities with the kids to teach them about their natural resources and the importance of living sustainably. They don’t always comprehend, of course. Once I asked what trees are good for and a young boy enthusiastically responded, “Burning!” They seem to enjoy the classes which are a welcome change of pace from the monotony of normal classes which they spend mindlessly copying information.
I’m also working with the 9th grade class on both a tree nursery and a waste management project. Supposedly, they are supposed to be running the show. Instead, I offer them the training they need and then I’m surprised when both they and the teacher fail to do anything with it. It is the most disinterested group of kids that I’ve ever worked with. Enjoy is not a word that can be used in the context of this 9th grade class. It’s stereotypical. They stare at me blankly, talk, throw things, flirt, read magazines, wander off, etc. Finally, during the last class, I told them that they were the worst class that I’d ever worked with and that I couldn’t believe the extent to which they were throwing away their education. And, for the first time, they were silent.
Ecotourism:
Work with the ecotourism group is going surprisingly well. Basically the group consists of members from three communities that all lie within the buffer zone of the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara. Honduran law allows for and encourages the co-management of all Honduran National Parks , meaning that a national or international NGO may formulate and execute a management plan which allows it to oversee the proper management of a given protected area. On paper this law is excellent because it eases the burden on the Honduran Government to invest significant capital in the management of their national parks while allowing for dedicated NGOs with adequate experience to pick up the slack. However, in the case of certain parks, such as the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara, there is no co-manager which results in no management, no investment and no tourism. The overarching goal of the ecotourism committee is thus to one day obtain NGO status and transition into serving as the co-manager of the park. In the short term, we are starting to implement a community-wide environmental education project.
Besides work…
In June, my sister came and kept me company for an entire month. She probably wasn’t too thrilled when she had to lug her very heavy backpack, including a tent and myriad things for me, up the mountain to my site; but, after that, we had an excellent time. Literally, we were never much more than 12 feet apart for the entire month. We washed clothes by hand, cooked 3 meals a day, hiked around the mountain, rode in the back of pick-up trucks, drank licuados, perfected the art of tortilla making (almost), and talked about my neighbors by candlelight. My sister is probably one of the few people who would actually enjoy a comprehensive tour of the latrines of El Sauce while on vacation.
Besides hanging out in my site, we also visited Copan Ruinas (an impressive Mayan archeological site), Parque Nacional Cerro Azul Meambar and my friend Ellie, and Cayos Cochinos ( a marine reserve in the Caribbean). We even managed to hitch a ride on a catamaran to Utila, another Caribbean island off the coast of Honduras. We also stayed in one of the world’s sketchiest/dirtiest hotels in Tela and had a bunch of bananas thrown at us by an angry market vendor who, for good measure, yelled after us, “Vayase a la mierda,” because Kelly accidently broke some of the over-ripe bananas from their stems. My sister’s visit allowed me to enjoy a place that I haven’t really enjoyed because I’ve no one to enjoy it with. Plus, she taught me to always look under the toilet seat for spiders and left me with a surplus of semi-functional but creative, hand-crafted candle holders.
When my sister left for the States, so did I, which made her departure all the more bearable. At the last minute, my neighbors tried to send all sorts of strange and impractical gifts home for my parents—freshly made, un-pasteurized cheese, green peppers and dried cheese rings. They wanted to send coffee but, alas, none was ready. I can only imagine the sheer quantity of coffee they’ll attempt to send with me when I leave.
I went home for the week, primarily to attend my friends’ wedding but also to spend time with family. It was a wonderful week, uneventful but relaxing. Since I was just home six months ago, nothing was new or shocking. Though I was, admittedly, baffled by the punctual start time of the wedding, something my sister was not surprised by. Really, I thought the start time of 6:00 meant that most of the guests would be arriving at that time and that the ceremony would start at some time thereafter. To my sister’s dismay we were among the last guests to arrive.
Rather than finding the American lifestyle to be wholly overwhelming, as some PCVs experience, I felt slightly disconnected from it. We went to a local flea market and antique show and I felt like I’d walked straight into a Michael Moore film highlighting typical Americans. And, I still don’t understand the phone machines. People can justify them left and right, but I’ve survived for 25 years, nearly 26, without instant internet access, GPS and other cell phone applications and I DO NOT understand why everyone feels like THEY need those capabilities at their fingertips or they might, heaven forbid, not be able to what? I don’t honestly know. Anyway, instead of feeling out of sorts, I feel quite happy to feel just a little bit disconnected.
Back in Honduras, I reentered Honduran time. I was only gone for two and a half weeks, yet one young woman commented that I’d been gone for at least two months. Two months! Nonetheless, warped sense of time or not, the United States is never very far removed from Honduras. Case in point, yesterday, I met a young Honduran girl named Oprah.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Living alone?
When I moved into my house a couple of weeks ago, some of the excitement of living alone had worn off and, thus, my first night was passed in a state of melancholy. However, my spirits began to pick up again as soon as I ate my first piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter rather than a plate full of fried plantains topped with cabbage or that dreaded bowl of soup chock full of plantains, potatoes, cassava, rice, pasta, and another unknown bland carbohydrate.
Ironically, I seem to have less privacy now than when I lived with a host-family. Unless I hermitically seal the house and otherwise pretend that I’m not there, I have visitors. They come in the front, they come in the back, and they peer in the windows. Some are genuinely interested in visiting while others are just nosy. The latter kind just wanders in and starts looking around. There is also that breed of visitors that I am wholly unaccustomed to – the mute loiterers. Seemingly contented by my mere presence, they silently follow me around as I continue to uncomfortably go about my tasks as if they were not there.
My neighbors surpass the limits of any kind of friendly-neighbor scale. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately (I haven’t yet decided), they have chosen to express their kindness almost entirely in the form of food. The first night my landlord gave me around 5 pounds of potatoes. On the second night, when they discovered that I wasn’t making tortillas, they disappeared and came back with two, which quickly turned into a steady flow. I now have tortillas coming at me from all sides. The grandmother was thrown into a tizzy when she realized I also wasn’t eating beans and she herself presented me with my own personal pot. They make sure to check up on my egg supply and they’ve given me more than enough tomatoes and green peppers. I think they’re afraid that I may very well starve on their watch so they’re watching very closely. I even caught grandma peering in my window more than once.
My neighbors aren’t the only ones giving me food either. I’ve been given an entire head of lettuce, a squash, two ears of corn, eggs, and cassava. On one day alone I was given four pieces of cake, four plantains and two tamales. Really, it’s too much food for one person to consume. I actually attempted to give the corn away to a needy family and instead they just cooked it for me on the spot.
The squash recently went bad and, because I felt guilty about wasting food, I attempted to dispose of it by throwing it into the trees behind my house under the cover of night so that no one would notice. Unfortunately, I threw it straight into a wet towel which I didn’t see in the dark, making a huge racket in the process. Part of the squash stuck to the towel and half of it ricocheted back onto the house. I ended up having to wash the towel and the house to dispose of the evidence. I never found the other half.
-------
One of my neighbors recently complemented me on my pee bucket which I had left outside to dry. She literally told me how nice it was and started estimating how much it must have cost me. It wasn’t until I caught myself telling her that I thought the color was really nice that I realized how absurd the conversation was to begin with.
-------
Some young boys (third grade and younger) paid a visit and told me that they liked my ponchito. Maicol, the 4 year old that has a crush on me told on them. I had to ask him for clarification because I didn’t know what that word meant. He pointed to his crotch and told me they were malcriados (badly behaved.) Obviously, it means vagina. Honestly?! They are in primary school!
Ironically, I seem to have less privacy now than when I lived with a host-family. Unless I hermitically seal the house and otherwise pretend that I’m not there, I have visitors. They come in the front, they come in the back, and they peer in the windows. Some are genuinely interested in visiting while others are just nosy. The latter kind just wanders in and starts looking around. There is also that breed of visitors that I am wholly unaccustomed to – the mute loiterers. Seemingly contented by my mere presence, they silently follow me around as I continue to uncomfortably go about my tasks as if they were not there.
My neighbors surpass the limits of any kind of friendly-neighbor scale. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately (I haven’t yet decided), they have chosen to express their kindness almost entirely in the form of food. The first night my landlord gave me around 5 pounds of potatoes. On the second night, when they discovered that I wasn’t making tortillas, they disappeared and came back with two, which quickly turned into a steady flow. I now have tortillas coming at me from all sides. The grandmother was thrown into a tizzy when she realized I also wasn’t eating beans and she herself presented me with my own personal pot. They make sure to check up on my egg supply and they’ve given me more than enough tomatoes and green peppers. I think they’re afraid that I may very well starve on their watch so they’re watching very closely. I even caught grandma peering in my window more than once.
My neighbors aren’t the only ones giving me food either. I’ve been given an entire head of lettuce, a squash, two ears of corn, eggs, and cassava. On one day alone I was given four pieces of cake, four plantains and two tamales. Really, it’s too much food for one person to consume. I actually attempted to give the corn away to a needy family and instead they just cooked it for me on the spot.
The squash recently went bad and, because I felt guilty about wasting food, I attempted to dispose of it by throwing it into the trees behind my house under the cover of night so that no one would notice. Unfortunately, I threw it straight into a wet towel which I didn’t see in the dark, making a huge racket in the process. Part of the squash stuck to the towel and half of it ricocheted back onto the house. I ended up having to wash the towel and the house to dispose of the evidence. I never found the other half.
-------
One of my neighbors recently complemented me on my pee bucket which I had left outside to dry. She literally told me how nice it was and started estimating how much it must have cost me. It wasn’t until I caught myself telling her that I thought the color was really nice that I realized how absurd the conversation was to begin with.
-------
Some young boys (third grade and younger) paid a visit and told me that they liked my ponchito. Maicol, the 4 year old that has a crush on me told on them. I had to ask him for clarification because I didn’t know what that word meant. He pointed to his crotch and told me they were malcriados (badly behaved.) Obviously, it means vagina. Honestly?! They are in primary school!
Monday, March 29, 2010
More Pictures from Site
I posted several more pictures from my site and the surrounding area. To check them out look in the Honduras folder!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Moving Out
I think that it would be difficult to convey just how ready I am to live without a host-family. I'm oh so ready. It will be a welcome change after living with host-families for more than two and a half years. Currently I'm on host-family number 8, if you include when I studied abroad. I could probably write a book about living with host-families by now, not that I'm any kind of expert. It takes a certain personality to make it effortless. In my case, it has never been effortless.
My current host-family is great. But perfection is hard to come by in a host-family. My host-father, for example, likes to blare reggaeton right on the other side of my wall. He gets really enthusiastic about his favorite songs and turns the volume up several notches with each favorite song. He has a lot of favorite songs. Of course, he also never turns the volume down so that, after about three of his favorite songs have come on, the house is practically shaking. My host-mother is a great cook, but, like most Hondurans, she's a big fan of the manteca (congealed vegetable oil that comes in disconcertingly large tubes.) It says cholesterol free on the outside of the package but that's not fooling me. It seems to be reusable and any food product that's reusable can't be healthy.
Luckily, I found a house to rent in El Sauce, which was no easy feat given the general lack of houses. Someone recommended that I live in one of the two houses which were recently abandoned - abandoned because the men from my site who were murdered lived in them. Instead, I'll be living in the house of a young bachelor, who decided he would rent to me after I explained that I would only be renting it for 10 months. He chuckled and said that he didn't want to commit to renting for any longer than a year because, goodness, what would he do if he found a cute cipota (young girl) that he wanted to robar (steal/marry)?!
The house is certainly nice by my community's standards, nicer than most of the houses, with cement floors, a shower, doors and windows. However, it's basically the one of only two houses that meets the Peace Corps security standards. My host-family doesn't seem to care that it is a completely secure house and can't fathom a single female living by herself. Proudly, they seem to have resolved this issue by reassuring themselves that they will just send my 10 year-old host-sister to live with me when I move out. While this is a perfectly normal custom in Latin America, I find the prospect none too thrilling. I just hope they’ve forgotten within the next two weeks!
My current host-family is great. But perfection is hard to come by in a host-family. My host-father, for example, likes to blare reggaeton right on the other side of my wall. He gets really enthusiastic about his favorite songs and turns the volume up several notches with each favorite song. He has a lot of favorite songs. Of course, he also never turns the volume down so that, after about three of his favorite songs have come on, the house is practically shaking. My host-mother is a great cook, but, like most Hondurans, she's a big fan of the manteca (congealed vegetable oil that comes in disconcertingly large tubes.) It says cholesterol free on the outside of the package but that's not fooling me. It seems to be reusable and any food product that's reusable can't be healthy.
Luckily, I found a house to rent in El Sauce, which was no easy feat given the general lack of houses. Someone recommended that I live in one of the two houses which were recently abandoned - abandoned because the men from my site who were murdered lived in them. Instead, I'll be living in the house of a young bachelor, who decided he would rent to me after I explained that I would only be renting it for 10 months. He chuckled and said that he didn't want to commit to renting for any longer than a year because, goodness, what would he do if he found a cute cipota (young girl) that he wanted to robar (steal/marry)?!
The house is certainly nice by my community's standards, nicer than most of the houses, with cement floors, a shower, doors and windows. However, it's basically the one of only two houses that meets the Peace Corps security standards. My host-family doesn't seem to care that it is a completely secure house and can't fathom a single female living by herself. Proudly, they seem to have resolved this issue by reassuring themselves that they will just send my 10 year-old host-sister to live with me when I move out. While this is a perfectly normal custom in Latin America, I find the prospect none too thrilling. I just hope they’ve forgotten within the next two weeks!
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