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

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

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

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...

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!"

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

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!

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.