Trash talk

This week, as my first official project as a Peace Corps volunteer, I´m giving miniworkshops (charlas) to all the high school classes on the importance of protecting the environment—namely, on the importance of throwing your trash in the trash can. This is in preparation for a clean-up day I´m trying to organize for next Tuesday. Now, I admit, there is a lack of trash cans in this town. There is one can in the high school and one in the park. That´s it. In addition, there is a lack of proper waste management, so that most people are forced to burn their trash. But more than anything, people are just used to seeing trash, they´re used to chucking trash, their parents leave trash so why can´t they keep on leaving the trash everywhere? Compost is unheard of. Recycling virtually doesn´t exist. Litter is not a word in Spanish. The trash issue is an uphill battle, this is for sure.
So I´m starting in the high school, to see if my charlas will have any effect on their attitudes about the environment. So far they´ve gone relatively well—I´m giving the talks along with a representative from the mayor´s office, so he´s been a big help. I made sure to insert plenty of games, dinámicas, and even a scavenger hunt so the kids don´t get terribly bored. I don´t know exactly how much they´re learning from my charla, but at least they´re having fun. We´ll see what happens on Clean Up day.

A mother´s day like no other

Mother’s Day is the same day in Honduras as in the States, but down here it is more widely celebrated. The high school puts on skits. The dancing troupes perform. Mothers are serenaded beginning at 3AM (in which I participated, foolishly). Alternatively, those who no longer have a mother get plastered at the local cantina. Such was the case this Mother’s Day, when I met a Honduran friend’s dad.

This was no ordinary dad—by the time he came home he was a raging bolo. He came stumbling in to the delight of his multiple children, sat down and began leering at me and engaging in slurred conversation, ecstatic that a gringa had come to visit. He entertained my harsh questioning (Me: “Have you heard of AA?” Bolo: “Of course, I go every week!”) and then invited me to a hotel in front of his wife, who was laughing merrily along with the rest of the family. Hmm.

Bolos are much more accepted here as a part of the community at large, and indeed are present at the majority of functions (don’t even get me started on the bolo at Palm Sunday mass). So when a bolo with his wife and five kids in the room asks me for sex and money, what is a bewildered gringa to do? I tell you what to do—HIDE. So I hid. I told him I was leaving, ran to the back of the house, and kept running around while the bolo clumsily chased me. It wasn’t long before he got tired and fell asleep in the kitchen, whereby I casually made my departure with my friend and host sister.

“Come back soon!” said the bolo’s wife.

Will do!

SITE! San José de Comayagua

I wrote a whole article about bolos in San José without actually mentioning that I´ve been in my site for nearly two weeks. I live in San José de Comayagua, which is a municipality of about 6500 (1100 of whom live in the urban area, the rest in rural villages called aldeas), and is considered a sub-developed area. Whatever that means… in general people get by, but poverty is definitely around. I work in the mayor´s office and the high school right now. Doing what, you ask? Not too much right now, I must say. But I´ll try to teach a class or two if I can, or work with this youth tourism group they´ve got here, or work with cooperatives, or the computer center, or a women´s group in the rural village. There is certainly no shortage of work to be had.

As for the town, the town is very quaint, with a tiny park with chickens and roosters roaming freely. People seem very nice so far, and very eager to compare me to past Peace Corps volunteers. I know much more than I should about these people I´ve never met—but it´s nice to know the community appreciated them.

The one computer center has pretty slow internet access, so it may be tough to write blog entries consistently, but I´ll try to nonetheless. There will be quite a lot to say… I´ve been in-country nearly three months now, and I still feel every day is a crazy adventure.

Thou shalt say my name

I never liked it when people consistently forgot my name. You might say it’s a pet peeve of mine. I’d get a little ticked off, a little offended, and I’d attribute the slip to carelessness and disrespect. I’m a bit more sensitive about it than others. Allright, so now imagine myself in a country where NOBODY remembers my name. It’s not even that it’s an exotic, weird name to remember—I go by Marina down here, a fairly common name, and even so the entire population forgets. They call me the north American girl (or sometimes the German girl, interestingly enough), or muchacha, or gringa, or Courtney (after the former Peace Corps volunteer who lived here, a girl who looked nothing like me), or Madrina (which the high schoolers call me because they know it ticks me off), or they call me nothing at all.

The only people that seem to remember me are the bolos. Bolos are Honduran drunks. I live underneath the only drinking establishment in town, and every time I pass by I hear a chorus of bolos making kissy noises and screaming “MARINA!!!!!!!” There could be a bolo on the verge of passing out in the street-- if he sees me he will never fail in a hearty “MARINAAAAAAAHHHHH” before drifting into unconsciousness. Love em or hate em, at least the bolos know me here.

That’s okay, right?