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
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
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.
