Yo necessito practicar mi espanol...

Well, it seems that from the many concerned e-mails that I have gotten that I should clarify exactly what it is that I am doing here in Honduras. Besides my full-time teaching job, I have also been attending this church that is smack in the middle of El Centro (main city park) that has amazing outreach opportunities by being right in the middle of everything. I have really been wanting to get involved in other areas of life besides the school, so I have the opportunity to help with their “after school program” for lack of a better term. They have this whole section of the building open for kids to just come and hang out at all times of the day, and they have food, internet, music equipment, foosball tables, and other stuff to entertain kids to keep them out of trouble. Some of those kids happen to be street kids, and this is the part that maybe I didn’t quite explain well enough. I will not be going out into random alleys to seek these kids out. Rather, I will be part of a church that tries to help them and tries to provide for them out of love. These are not hardened criminals…they are kids that have needs that are so beyond what we can comprehend. I have been told that the reason they start inhaling glue is because it helps relieve hunger pains, and it’s a cheaper alternative than buying a meal, which is so hard for me to understand because you literally can get a plateful of food for about $1 from street vendors. So, the doors of the church are open to them and they try to help feed these kids and keep them out of doorways for at least part of the day. Will I personally be tending to their needs? Who knows….but I would guess not because I figure they probably won’t even be able to understand me very much, and I highly doubt I would be able to understand them. More than likely I will be hanging out with kids, helping them with homework, maybe even leading a bible study. So, no fear. I’m just happy to be part of something that is working to change the city, not that I will personally be doing it myself…at least not yet

So, now that that is out of the way, I can fill you in on regular life. I start very early in the morning, and we have teacher devotions at 6:50. I teach my darling kindergarten babes, and I pretty much do not sit down or eat until the kids leave at 2:20. I try to put all my work onto certain days, so that I will really only have to do major planning or grading on Wednesdays and Sundays after church. That way, I am able to ride the Pinares bus down to El Centro, and either do some shopping for random items (which I will explain in a second) or just get a licuado and people watch on the steps of the cathedral. I have made friends with this totally cool Honduran who has shown my friends and I a cute little Bohemian book café on one of the side streets downtown. They show free independent movies every Tuesday night, so last week I watched an Israeli movie with Spanish subtitles. I feel like I got the majority of the message…mas o menos. All down the street from the book café are incredible little restaurants, so my friends and I have now dedicated Tuesdays as downtown days, and we make a good time of it. Our Honduran friend knows some English and wants to practice it, and those of us who are not fluent (i.e. anybody in my circle of friends who is not my roommate) want to practice Spanish , so we have decided to give each other free language lessons over dinner. I think we may also start our own little book club, which would also be amazing.

I am getting much more used to the pace of things, which does take a little getting used to. Like I’ve said before, it’s a little hard coming from the U.S. where I have had my own personal transportation to go and get the things that I need. So…about the stores. Quite different than I was expecting. They all seem to have just a little bit of everything, and they really aren’t all that big to begin with. For example, the grocery store will have regular food (but maybe only one or two brands or flavors per item) and they may be sharing an aisle with suitcases, lamps, and perhaps CD’s or 8 cans of spray paint. So, if you have anything specific in mind, it could take a long time to find it. Also, for a lot of items, they must be imported from the U.S. so they will definitely be more expensive, like lamps. I bring up lamps because I was looking for one for so long, and it took forever because each store would have maybe 1 or 2 styles, they would be expensive because they are imported from the U.S. (even though you can tell they have a Wal-Mart sticker that may read $19.97 and end up costing the equivalent to $25 dollars in lempiras.), and more often than not they would be very highly decorated with gilded gold and ruffled lampshades. I looked around during my first week or so in Tegus, and I had one day where I just officially felt overwhelmed with everything. I did not understand Spanish, all the salespeople were coming up and asking me for help and could not understand what I was trying to say, and I did not have hardly any money for everything because it is difficult to get to the one bank in the city that could exchange my dollars (which I had plenty of) into Lempiras (which I did not have much of). I was with a group of teachers in this shopping center, and one of the other ones saw me sitting on a bench with I guess a look on my face that read something like “My brain is ceasing all functions immediately,” and as kindly and sweetly as possible she said that she had heard I was looking for a lamp and told me she had an extra one in her apartment that she would give me. And it is not gold, and does not have ruffles, lace, or tassels on the lampshade. I think God knew I needed some sort of angel at that moment so that I wouldn’t hide in my room and stare at my wall.

Other than that one short lived moment, I have loved every second here. Even when the busitos break down halfway up the mountain and we have to get transferred to another one that will be there in 30 minutes, or when you cannot use the money you have because nobody can make change for you, even when all you have is the equivalent to a $10 or $20 bill. Because even though things like that might be frustrating, they are so small on the scale of life and I am able to experience things everyday that just make me smile…like my 5 year olds coming up to me and saying things in English that they wouldn‘t have been able to the previous day, or finding those picture perfect moments on the streets like children and puppies in the market or totally awesome buildings. Even though the air is dirty in the city, you can’t help but take deep breaths and draw in those cityscapes with the green mountain backdrops.

Another thing that is so funny that I absolutely love is the lack of Muzak in any buildings. For those of you not familiar with Muzak, I think it was first thought up as a torture device by the Russians that consisted of terrible elevator music put on a loop to be played repeatedly throughout the day in dentist offices and malls. However, nothing in Honduras is quiet and not over the top, so the stores will either have huge boom boxes playing salsa or meringue music, and many of them will even have DJ’s (popular in larger stores) that will play salsa or random songs that you have not heard in years (i.e. vintage Madonna or random Styx…like Mr. Roboto playing while you’re shopping for your toothpaste) at very loud volumes. Some even hire dancers for the doorway. It really cracks me up.

I was able to go to a huge Christian music festival, and I will use this to illustrate what I mean by over the top. Not only were there like 15 bands performing, but they also had tons of dancers everywhere, a marching band that would randomly start playing with the band on stage, guys walking around and dancing on stilts, an army of motorcycles that would randomly circle the stage, and a laser light show. Now, I have been to plenty of concerts where they have tons of things going on, like rock climbing walls and do-it-yourself Jackson Pollock-esque art areas, but these sort of things were designated for different areas of the concert fairgrounds. For this concert, everyone was definitely in one sitting area looking at one stage and looking at the other 7 things that were going on simultaneously. This seems to carry on through all areas of life, whether it be concerts, lamps, clothing, shoes,….the minimalist movement has not made it here yet, and will probably be highly rejected when and if it ever does come.

One thing that is very exciting is that I can see myself making progress and becoming bolder with my Spanish. I have found a couple of people that I can feel comfortable practicing around, and it means putting your pride aside and just going for it, even if you do use the wrong word and end up saying “I am pregnant” instead of “I am embarrassed,” which was my intention. (That was even more embarrassing because just previous to the pregnant statement I had said something dumb and was trying to recover with “I am embarrassed”…that didn’t go as planned either). I am also understanding quite a bit…much more than I can speak, which is nice. I can go to church now and understand the basics of the message. I can listen to stories and get humor and jokes, which is good, because I used to just laugh when people were talking to me as some sort of a nervous reaction and now the laughing is actually appropriate and timely.

Things are going well. Tomorrow will mark 1 month since I’ve been here, and the time has flown by. It does not feel like it has been any more than 2 weeks, and I am having a great time. I will be going to El Salvador on the 15th because we have a three-day weekend for Central American independence day. Another stamp on the passport, and a chance to swim in an ocean I have never been to before. I’ll let you know how that goes when I get back. I should hopefully be able to get my internet working soon, but in the meanwhile I have saved everyone’s emails they have sent and I do promise to reply to them. Really. But to leave you on this, here are some pictures that I have taken of just random stuff.

I love you all, and your words of encouragement make my day.