Update

This week I’ve been working in the mornings with the librarian. Every morning little kids from the school come to read during recess. It’s great to see them use the library, though there are a few concerns. One is the lack of space. The library consists of a closet-sized room that everyone passes through to get to the secretary and treasurer’s offices, meaning it can get very crowded in there. There is only room for about 5 chairs; the rest of the kids sit on the floor. Another concern is that the kids do not take care of the books. They put them on the floor, they rip pages, they draw on them, etc. Part of the reason why this is, is because most of these kids don’t have their own books. Additionally, they have no concept of taking care of something that isn’t theirs. So the librarian and I are planning story hours in the school, to read stories and include a part about correct use of the library.

In the afternoons I’ve been continuing my once-a-week English classes. This week we reviewed numbers in English, and I had the idea of playing Steal the Bacon (which I translated into Spanish as “Grab the Pork Rind”) which the kids seemed to enjoy. One kid I had to kick out of class because he decided not to participate or respond to my questions, stating that he came that day “to take the science quiz, not to go to a stupid English class.” So he missed playing Grab the Pork Rind.

I’ve also begun giving charlas (talks) on the environment with the head of the Environmental Unit in the municipality. These summer months are when forest fires are most prevalent, due to the dry climate and the farmers who begin the tradition of burning their fields to prepare for the next growing season. Last year San José estimated a loss of nearly 100,000 plants due to fires, and a few fires that threatened the town’s water supply. So we’re beginning the year with talks on deforestation and environmental conservation in every aldea (21 in all). We give the information to the community leaders, and give them a few didactic materials for them to teach what they learned to the rest of the community. We began this week in El Barquito, the poorest aldea in San José. In a community of 17 houses there are only 3 latrines, and there is no running water. The people there rarely leave the community, meaning they almost never meet new people much less an American like myself. So they had major pena when we started with the dinámicas. We played hot potato at one point (person stuck with the hot potato when the rhythm stopped answered a question about the environment), and some were so afraid to participate that they actually ran out of the room. But in the end I think they enjoyed it, and they got something out of it. In fact, at the end of the charla one guy spoke up and said something that stuck with me: he mentioned that their pena sometimes keeps them from giving opinions, but that regardless he recognizes the importance of learning to conserve the environment and of teaching the concepts to the rest of their community. EXACTLY!!! So we left the community feeling like this is definitely an activity worth doing.

Semana Santa

I’ve waited a few weeks to write because, simply, there was nothing going on. Last week was Semana Santa, the week before Easter when everything shuts down. Last week was also the feria in San José, which celebrates the town’s patron saint. Unlike the rest of Honduras which headed to the beaches, I stayed in my town to see what this much-anticipated feria was all about. The highlights included:

A greased pole

My friend losing the competition for queen of the fair (some chick with a lisp ended up winning… whatever)

the local crazy dancing a little jig

Folkloric dance

Mugigangas (kids wearing womens clothing and gorilla masks who grab children and dance with them)-- notice the woman dancing with one mugiganga in a pink floor-length jacket. That would be the high school principal.

and a little whirling swing ride set up right in front of my house, which resulted in lots of kids crawling on my porch and leaving trash everywhere.

In all it was nice to see, but I’m thinking the beach next year.

Questions and Answers

A collection of funny, ridiculous, scarily ignorant or amazingly profound questions and statements made by various people in Honduras.

“When a rocket goes into space and those rocket pieces break off, where do they go?”

(when completing an English quiz) “Profe it says here ‘you singular,’ is that like cingular the phone company? Do I put my phone number here?”

“The sign says this is a library, does that mean the books are for sale?”

(pointing at a picture of Barack Obama) “Are there really people who look like him in the States? They don’t all look like you????”

(a Honduran bigshot politician, upon hearing a volunteer retell the Thanksgiving story) “Are you sure you know the Thanksgiving story? Because someone told me that during the Pilgrims’ first winter a flock of turkeys flew into their village and the Pilgrims killed them and ate them.”

(upon looking at a picture of my boyfriend) “Was your boyfriend at the Vatican for the burial of Pope John Paul II? I think I saw him on TV!”

(kids in the municipal library) “Do you have any books on World War 3? The teacher told us to do a report on it.”

Me at the pulpería: Why is that chicken sitting in the box of diapers?
Friend who runs pulpería: (looking at me like I’m an idiot) She’s laying her eggs.

Me: I got my TV fixed.
Neighbor: Ahh, so you can watch the Passion of Christ?

“Marina, you read a lot right? Is it true that if you conceive a baby in the daytime they’ll be born white like you?”

Delights of Delicias

This past weekend I went with my friend to Las Delicias, an aldea of San José with a larger population than San José´s urban center (where I live). I’d never been to this aldea before, though I’d always wanted to see it since it´s the biggest (with over 2,000 residents) and I was never told much about the place other than it had no electricity and it was really boring. So we went to visit a friend of my friend, so I could see for myself was Delicias was like.

My 2-megapixel camera does not do the place justice. It was truly beautiful, set high up in the mountains with the most stunning views I’ve seen in Honduras so far. The people that received us were very kind, welcoming, and amused that I was there snapping pictures of everything. We walked around town and kids stopped dead in their tracks to watch me, their mouths hanging open. It’s not every day they see a tall white girl like me I guess.

From my time there I took away a few impressions of Delicias. First, there are lots of kids. And I mean LOTS of kids. This year 150 kids enrolled in first grade, so that the teachers had to break up the class into three sections. This still averages 50 kids per 1st-grade class. Ahh!!!!!

Second, it’s beautiful. The weather is cool and the air is clear, and luckily we went on a nice clear day where the views of San José were fantastic.

Third, Sundays in Delicias are boring. I mean, it was wonderful to go there for the day, to get away from the reggaetón music that blasts from every house in San José or (even worse) the Mexican ranchera music that blasts from every cantina. It was really cool to be able to hear a car coming from miles away, or to sit around and shoot the breeze without a TV blaring in the background. But indeed, it can be a boring place. The people that live there joke that boredom and cold weather are the reasons for the 150 kids in 1st grade, and I’ll believe it. When there’s no entertainment, I guess having kids is your pastime.

From what I gathered, on Sundays the girls stay home or go to church, and the boys get drunk. Everywhere we turned there was a staggering bolo, or a bolo passed out on the road, or a bolo arguing with another bolo in a slurred, sloppy manner.

Notice the little blip in this otherwise-perfect landscape? That would be a sleepy bolo.