Mad about Pena
Pena is a word to describe, timidity, shyness, embarrassment. It is used to describe what most Hondurans have. I see pena in the faces of nearly everyone I meet, when I’m meeting them for the first time: men who ask everyone in the room who I am, EXCEPT ME, women who laugh nervously while backing away from me, little kids who bury their faces in their parents’ lap. “Tiene pena,” they say. That explains it all. They’ve got the pena.
The other day my 10-year-old neighbor came over with her little sister, and the sister was too shy to ask me to use the bathroom. I told her she had to ask me or I wouldn’t let her use it (a little harsh I know, but the girl wouldn’t talk to me, what could I say?) and she looked at me like a I was a monster and nearly cried. I let her use the bathroom.
Pena is present at school. It’s nearly impossible to get students to present anything in front of the class. Girls squeal “ayy no!” and hide behind desks. Guys cross their arms and look stone-faced. Pena is present at meetings, too. The tourist group I work with, these guys chat away when it’s just us. But put them in a room with the mayor, or with the NGO that’s funding the group, or with any authority figure, and they suddenly have nothing to say.
Granted, the supposed #1 fear among Americans is public speaking. But we all still do it. Many Hondurans simply don’t, and blame it on the pena. It’s incredibly frustrating sometimes when dealing with people and their pena, which seems to hold groups back from achieving more for their cause. The tourist group, for instance, relies on one person, the president, to say everything in meetings, to mention all completed projects and propose ideas to NGOs for new projects. However, sometimes the president doesn’t come to meetings. Sometimes he has ideas that contradict the ideas of the group. But the group doesn’t say anything—they’ve got pena.
After awhile I realized where some of this pena stems from. The little girl who had to pee, for instance, almost never leaves the house. She almost never meets new people and doesn’t know how to introduce herself, how to shake hands, how to say please or thank you. Asking me to use her bathroom must be hard to do. Also, self-esteem is not always high. From what I’ve seen at school in San José and elsewhere, the “everybody wins a trophy” mentality of Americans does NOT exist here. There are clear winners and losers. During spelling bees and beauty pageants, parents and teachers say point-blank if the kid is better or worse and why. Maybe this contributes to the pena. It makes sense, and it makes me understand the pena phenomenon a bit better. But it’s still frustrating.
Stupid pena!!!
The other day my 10-year-old neighbor came over with her little sister, and the sister was too shy to ask me to use the bathroom. I told her she had to ask me or I wouldn’t let her use it (a little harsh I know, but the girl wouldn’t talk to me, what could I say?) and she looked at me like a I was a monster and nearly cried. I let her use the bathroom.
Pena is present at school. It’s nearly impossible to get students to present anything in front of the class. Girls squeal “ayy no!” and hide behind desks. Guys cross their arms and look stone-faced. Pena is present at meetings, too. The tourist group I work with, these guys chat away when it’s just us. But put them in a room with the mayor, or with the NGO that’s funding the group, or with any authority figure, and they suddenly have nothing to say.
Granted, the supposed #1 fear among Americans is public speaking. But we all still do it. Many Hondurans simply don’t, and blame it on the pena. It’s incredibly frustrating sometimes when dealing with people and their pena, which seems to hold groups back from achieving more for their cause. The tourist group, for instance, relies on one person, the president, to say everything in meetings, to mention all completed projects and propose ideas to NGOs for new projects. However, sometimes the president doesn’t come to meetings. Sometimes he has ideas that contradict the ideas of the group. But the group doesn’t say anything—they’ve got pena.
After awhile I realized where some of this pena stems from. The little girl who had to pee, for instance, almost never leaves the house. She almost never meets new people and doesn’t know how to introduce herself, how to shake hands, how to say please or thank you. Asking me to use her bathroom must be hard to do. Also, self-esteem is not always high. From what I’ve seen at school in San José and elsewhere, the “everybody wins a trophy” mentality of Americans does NOT exist here. There are clear winners and losers. During spelling bees and beauty pageants, parents and teachers say point-blank if the kid is better or worse and why. Maybe this contributes to the pena. It makes sense, and it makes me understand the pena phenomenon a bit better. But it’s still frustrating.
Stupid pena!!!
posted by Maureen at 1:14 PM
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