One Person's Trash...

I’ve just completed my third day of school, and I am loving it so much! My kids are absolute darlings, and for the meantime they are very sweet, eager to learn, and eager to please. I am also very surprised at how quickly they are learning to understand English. After only one day of full translation by my aide, I didn’t need hardly any translation today except during story times. Speaking English is entirely different however, so I still send my kids to talk to Ana if they have any questions that go beyond my personal 5-year old Spanish capabilities. I wish I could have had a video camera to record my kids as I was reading them their story today. I read them There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, and this book has awesome, hilarious illustrations. It is a Caldecott Medal winner (for my non-Education major friends and family it is a highly coveted award given to books with original and award-worthy artwork) and really is a very funny book. Well, I didn’t quite anticipate this, but these kids have never been exposed to the nursery rhyme before, so they thought it was just the funniest thing they had ever heard. When it got to the part where the old lady swallowed a cow, they absolutely lost it. Precious. Tomorrow will be my first full length day, so I’m sure I’ll be getting a little bit of a break since the kids will be all tuckered out and will sleep solid during naptime so that I can do all of my paperwork.
All last week was spent cleaning out and arranging the class, which was really quite the feat. There is no air conditioning in the school, and since it is really humid where I am at cloud level, things have a tendency to get moldy rather quickly, so a lot of time was spent just wiping down and cleaning the existing materials. I also discovered a small family of mice who made their home in my cabinet, so after coming upon this I totally cleaned out every cabinet, shelf, box, etc. We have a wonderful view of the pine forest from inside our classroom, and the kids and I love seeing all of the birds that rest on the fence just outside the window.
I don’t remember if I’ve shared this or not, but I feel like I’m really getting the best of both worlds from where I’m at in Tegucigalpa. I’m at about 6,000 feet above sea level on one of the mountains that surround the city, while the rest of Teguc lies in the valley. One wouldn’t think that it would be all that different atmospherically, but it really is. At any given time, El Hatillo, which is my neighborhood, can be 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the city, making it completely temperate to live here. I have never yet complained of the heat while in Honduras, and I have not been in AC for the past two weeks. It gets cool enough at night where I sleep under a blanket and shut my windows to keep my room warm. A little different than what I was expecting. In preparing to move down here, I’d check the weather all the time for Teguc thinking that I was so on top of things, but I can see that it hasn’t done me that much good. Anybody who has been here through the winter says that it gets pretty darn cold…cold enough where the school usually cancels 2-3 days per year because its too cold for class. That also has to do with the fact that none of the buildings are insulated, and while it may be only in the upper 40’s outside, there’s really not that much of a relief when you’re inside a building.

Everything here is so lush and green that I just can’t get over it. Banana trees everywhere, palm trees, bamboo, bougainvilleas, azaleas, birds of paradise, pine forest, lilies, and all kinds of other plants and flowers that I do not know the names of. One of my favorites though is actually considered a weed, and you can usually see it in any kind of patches of grass up in El Hatillo. It has these little variegated leaves, and whenever you touch it the whole plant closes up instantly. Call it simple, but I think its so cool, especially when you’re walking through a field and you can see your footsteps behind you, and then slowly disappear as the plant opens back up.

El Hatillo is also sort of an asylum from the city. The city is full of all sorts of noise, crowds, and liveliness, and El Hatillo is very quiet and pretty peaceful. It also has a very interesting mixture of rich and poor--Several former presidents as well as the wealthiest families in the country live here, and then almost right next door there could be a one room shack that a family of 5 live in with chickens running around, clothes hanging up everywhere, and food cooking outside since many of the poorer homes do not have kitchens. And yet, they both could have amazing, million dollar panoramic views of the city in their backyard. The road going up to El Hatillo has amazing stretches of panoramic views of the mountains in the distance with the city down below, and even in all of its poverty it looks beautiful. Most homes are made from scrap materials and are only accessible by really ragged dirt roads that are so steep that you really need to have 4-wheel drive to navigate them, yet buses and taxis seem to do it all the time.

One thing that is seen on all buildings and homes, regardless of income, are exterior walls topped razor wire and a sort of nail-strip (or even sometimes broken glass) that rests just below the razor wire. All doors and windows have bars on them, and all homes and businesses of any value have a hired guard who will possess a weapon that is in direct proportion to the value of the home. I’ve seen guards who are in their 80’s who don’t have anything more than sticks to defend the property, and I’ve seen men in full camo with semi-automatic weapons. I know all of this sounds pretty dreary and depressing, but somehow it isn’t. It really is just a way of life, and the people here do not act like they dread their circumstances, so its hard for me to. Who am I to say that their standards of living and loving life are below mine? They are different, but I really do not feel like they are beneath me. There is something to be said that no matter what a family’s circumstances may be, they seem to make the best with what they have. Yards are not covered with junk and broken down cars, homes are not dirty and disgusting inside, and even though many of their clothes may have made their way through 5 different previous owners, most men wear shirts that are nicely pressed and tucked in with belts while most women wear neck-breaking stiletto heels all the time…walking up and down steep clay roads, riding the bus, walking over sewer grates….it really amazes me.

Personal space is also something that gets tweaked with Central American interpretations. Actually, I take that back. Space in general, not just personal. The streets are all very narrow, with very narrow sidewalks that might give you about a 2 foot buffer between the side of a building and an old school bus roaring down the mountain. By the way, on a side note, have any of you ever seen a junk yard full of old school busses? Me neither, and here’s why. They all get shipped down to South and Central America to be used as city travel. Some of them might still possess things like “Leon County School District” on the side, and some might be completely modified to have purple flames, huge mufflers, and glitter writing all over it. I don’t know why some make the “Pimp my Ride” cut and others do not, but it makes it interesting. Now, back to space. On these school busses, sometimes you’ll see funny things like “Maximum Capacity: 50”….I think the bus company was selling itself short, because down here you can get double that. Many of the seats will have 3 people sitting in them, in addition to fitting as many people in the aisle as possible….but at this point you’re probably only ¾ of the way done with the collection route, so many hang out of the doors, and a lot of busses provide railings on the top for people to sit on the roof. It is impossible to be sitting and touching no one….many times you’re pinned right up against someone else, and my immediate reaction is discomfort and embarrassment for having to be pressed right up against somebody or having to stand where your butt or armpit is in someone’s face, but once again it is just a way of life, so who am I to judge? So what does one of these amazing bus rides cost? 6.5 Lempiras, which equals roughly $.35 , which will take you quite a ways into town. Taxi rides are quite a bit more, but go much faster. It takes about 20-25 minutes to get from El Hatillo into the center of town, and a taxi one-way will cost 150 Lempiras, or about $7, but when split by 3-4 people it isn’t bad considering that you’re paying for speed and personal space. Most taxi drivers try to overcharge us gringas, but my roommate is a pro at negotiation.

Tonight I went into El Centro with a couple of friends to meet another friend of mine who is in Honduras with the Peace Corps. El Centro has the National Cathedral, as well as pretty unique street vendors selling everything from mangos to underwear to ripped-off DVD’s and off brand electronics. Its not quite the street market finds I was originally hoping for, like ceramics, embroidered cloth, hammocks, and baskets, but those can definitely be found in the more rural areas outside of Tegucigalpa. We went and got licuados, which are AMAZING homemade smoothies that equal about $.50 each. You pick out which fresh fruit you’d like, and they throw it in the blender with a little milk and sugar, pour it in a bag, and voila--a licuado! (By the way, ask me about the interesting ways they package things sometime…). We sat on the steps of the cathedral, caused much attention as any groups of gringos do within the city, especially when gringas outnumber gringos, and had an amazing time. We finished up the night eating from this amazing street vendor who you could smell blocks away, sitting at what we could best call our “sidewalk café” which was nothing more than a plastic table and buckets next to the street vendor. All we were missing was espresso served in little demicups and you would think we were in Paris. Or not. Maybe the stray dogs and car exhaust take a little more imagination to overcome…..
Well, I feel like I have been rambling on for quite sometime. But the whole reason I even sat down to write this came after we ate at our street vendor. After we were finished, we walked over to a trashcan to throw our plates away, and there was a woman digging in the trash. She turned and looked at me, and I could see that she was at least 8 months pregnant. I completely did not know what to do. She had a black banana in one hand, and I could see that she was eyeing my plate, which had some vegetables still on it. I looked at her, handed her my plate, walked away, and was instantly ashamed. I had done nothing for her. I mean, I could have bought her the same plate of food I was eating, which would be good and filling as well as nutritious, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. It’s a general rule of thumb to ignore the kids who come up to you trying to sell you gum because they think you’re rich by simply being American (and we are by the way), and you definitely ignore all of the piroppos, or cat calls that happen when you walk anywhere, and somehow I was able to totally ignore this woman, who was so desperate that she was digging through the trash so that she could feed both herself and her baby. I know that guilt is not a feeling that comes from God, but I feel nothing but guilt right now. If I could take a bus down there to go see her again so that I could make it right, I would. I feel like my first pop quiz for my Christian life in Honduras came up and I failed it. Its easy to talk the talk when you’re around others who feel the same way, yet when it came time to put it to action I screwed up. I don’t want to mess it up again though…there’s nothing else I can do about it right now, but I know that I will come across other opportunities like that again, and its my hope that I can actually do something about it next time.
Please continue to pray for me that I’ll be able to find something else to get involved in besides school. I want to, and I need to do something in which I am able to live out those things that God tells us to do, like loving our neighbor as ourselves. I sure know that I would never want to get to the same point that that woman was…

Please also pray as I continue to adjust to all sorts of new stuff. In particular, it feels a little strange having to be completely dependent on others for ANYTHING that I need to get or to do. I have always seemed to take pride in my independence, like never having to have my parents pay for college or flying off to a foreign country by myself, but here there is nothing I can do on my own. I cannot really speak Spanish, I can only understand slightly more than I can speak, I cannot drive, I do not know my way around on the busses, I have to ask teachers all the time when things are due or how to fill out certain forms…I am not competent at hardly anything right now, and its difficult. However, I am learning from my surroundings that independence is a luxury that not many others have, and that it can many times work to your detriment. Here, everyone seems to take on an attitude of “we’re all in this together” and so leaning on someone or having them lean on you (both physically on the busses or figuratively) can actually provide comfort. God also needs you to be at this point, when you realize that you really can’t do much on your own, and even those things you can do you’re probably pretty lousy at unless you give up your independence and learn to trust in him.

So please, continue to pray for me, and continue to write me e-mails, even if I’m not so quick at returning them. They really help to lift me up and make me feel not quite so far away. I love you all, and I’m really hoping that maybe a group from church can come down and visit me for a mission trip….let me know and I will plan one all out for you. Who knows, maybe you could come across that woman from the park….

Serving Gladly,
Macayla