Of rowboats and visas and dancing

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

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.