Honduras Low Down (1 of 2)

(I was just trying to write this all in one blog and realized it was getting to be around four pages.  In an effort to respect the overly busy American of my target audience, I will make these two posts.  You can thank me later and read each of these at your convenience!)

I have TONS of down time here in Honduras.  Believe me.  Today I felt successful because after sleeping in ‘til 9:30, watching old TV on my computer until 11:00 and finally leaving the house by 1:00, I was able to visit three people in the community and score an invite to the Lions Club meeting on Thursday.  Compare that to what I would call a successful day in the US and comparatively I did nothing.  (Side note: I’m hoping to form a “brotherhood” between the Lions club here in Guaimaca and at home in Ceres, CA.  My ultimate goal is to form a “sisterhood” between my hometown of Ceres and current hometown of Guaimaca.  According to Sister Cities International, linking organizations such as the Lions is a good starting point.)

With that delightful anecdote of my day, it’s safe to assume there’s not much to blog about in my present life.  Rather I’m going to elaborate a list that I’ve had going for some time now to share some cultural difference between the US and Honduras.

Don’t drink the water.  Such sage advice is essentially cliché for anyone traveling outside the US.  Who even drinks tap water in the US anymore?  Where I currently live, I don’t even have a sink.  (You know that if you saw my YouTube video “My Current Digs.”)  Suffice to say I have to bring my five gallons in from a safe source.  Guess what my safe source is?  Some underground spring located under the vacant lot behind the gas station across the street, which the locals claim has been tested and is 98% clean.  The craziest thing of all: it’s free!  About every two weeks when I need a refill, I simply carry my five gallon-er across the street, saddle it up to the nozzle, flip it to ‘on’ and fill ‘er up.  I’ve never gotten sick from it and we’ll see if I have any parasites at my 1-year of service mark in May when I journey to Tegucigalpa for medical check-ups.

This may be redundant for my faithful readers.  However, showering here is also quite an experience.  Water has one temperature: COLD.  Thankfully we’re just starting to come out of winter here, so the cold isn’t quite as COLD as it had been.  In the colder months here we had days where the high probably hovered around the mid- to upper 60s.  Taking an early morning shower in those days was painful and masochistic.  I couldn’t change my OCD American personal hygiene habits of daily cleanings of my ENTIRE body, to the frequent adopted arm pits, butt and “privates” and feet.  I mean after all, my knees, scalp and elbows would get jealous.  Gotta make sure they’re all equally loved, or uh, washed!  Anyway, in the HOT summer months the water isn’t COLD or even cold.  It’s fabulous and refreshing. 

Many products which we’re used to seeing in large, gallon size, plastic bottles in the US frequently come in small (one liter or less) bags.  Purified drinking water, bleach and milk are ones that have made my list.  Initially it’s a frustrating conundrum trying to drink your half liter of water in one long swallow, place the bag of bleach just-precariously-enough-so-it-doesn’t-spill, and fold the top of the milk bag over just right so it doesn’t spoil.  I’ve come to terms with all these things after being in country for nearly a year now.  You really do drink your water quickly or pour it into a bottle which you’ve got left over.  Same goes for the bleach – either have a big cleaning day and use it all up or find some random discarded bottle to store the remains.  The milk (usually) doesn’t spoil.  Just make sure to use it within five days of opening it!

For having poor plumbing, clogged toilets are very rarely an issue here.  After all, toilet paper doesn’t go in the toilet.  Nope, it is neatly (if you’re lucky) discarded in a trash can that is beside EVERY toilet in this country.  Many brands of toilet paper marketed here are scented and most people take trash out frequently.  I’m sure the prissiest Americans back home are thinking how gross that is and that it must stink.  Eh, you get used to it and it actually doesn’t, surprisingly.  Also, taking your trash out here isn’t like taking it to your big rolling bin beside the house which you place on the curb weekly.  No, no, no.  If you’re lucky to live in a city, like I do, there is trash pick up – minus the rolling bins.  Trash still goes on a weekly basis; however some poor city employees simply pick up the small pile in front of each home along the route.  For the po’ country folk the only way to rid your life of trash is to burn it.  Many homes here have a familiar black spot in the backyard where they burn their trash.  It does wonders for the air quality here.  That and all the vehicles that come from the US circa 1980 and would never pass SMOG in the US.  (I now understand why they made such a stink to double check that I didn’t have asthma before being accepted.)

Honduras Low Down (2 of 2)

Basic manners between the two cultures are different too and I’ll admit; I miss the American ones and sometimes the Honduran ones bug me.  Typical American manners include forming lines and waiting patiently.  Well, for a culture where people show up to meetings an hour (or more) late, they sure are in a hurry when in the stores.  Here the loudest and pushiest gets served first.  My large American personal space is frequently invaded.  I’ve learned boxing out techniques and use my backpack (which I wear on a near daily basis) as a buffer zone.  Cell phones and talking during meetings are also not frowned upon.  Well, I feel there is the tiniest, tiny bit of progress being made on this, but nothing at all like the bad manners it is considered in the US.  Put my cell phone on vibrate, but why?  Not take a call during the meeting?  Please, why would I make someone think I’m busy?!  The ringing phones, calls being taken in (not) hushed (enough) voices and no one saying anything about how distracting this is severely annoys me.  Admittedly, I’ve taken this culture difference to my advantage.  In a boring meeting I will gladly take a call from a PC friend and not feel a least bit of guilt. 

Honduran manners which are not practiced in the US, while friendly in their intent, also annoy me at times (because of my American culture).  When someone enters a full room, be it late, invited, welcome or not they will loudly say, “Good _____ (insert time of day here.)”  Everyone in the room will say it back.  OK, so imagine if you will being in a meeting with a dozen people having already commenced and in come three people late.  Instead of trying to quietly and politely find a seat they will not simultaneously, but one by one say “Good morning.”  The dozen people in the meeting will stop what they’re doing and greet them.  See what I mean?  It’s with the best of intentions of being polite, but with my American background it drives me nuts and makes me yearn for timeliness, coldness and being guilted into silence.  Same goes with eating.  I’ll be eating out (which I do nearly every meal right now, for not having a kitchen where I rent) and people who enter will say, “Buen provecho.”  It’s incredibly nice to be wished a good meal by a stranger, but if I’ve got my mouth full of food and have to throw out a “gracias”, it can be inconvenient.  Oh sheesh, I just realized how dumb it is to complain about this stuff.  Oh well, I went through all the work to write it, not editing it out! :)  The last Honduran manner is the greatest.  Anytime you visit someone’s home you will be offered something.  In the US it rarely goes beyond something to drink.  Here, you aren’t offered water, because it’s cheap and people like to show off their “affluence” and their ability to buy coffee or soda.  After being brought a glass of something (many times without being asked whether it’s desired or not) you’ll be given something to eat: bread, cookies, etc.  Basically, if it’s got carbs you’ll be given it!  If you also happen to visit around meal time, you’re getting a free meal.  The other day I visited my soon to be landlady around 8:30AM and she gave me coffee and bread.  After that I paid a visit to my friend who was recently laid off from the Mayor’s office.  She happened to be cooking breakfast for her son, so naturally she had to cook for me too.  Mind you I had actually eaten breakfast that day and without having asked if I was hungry, she sat a plate in front of me and said, “Buen provecho”.  I love the generosity and it’s always from the people who seem to have the least to give.  Sometimes I just wish I could turn it down.

There are many more pick-ups on the road here.  The reasoning being you can cram more people into the bed of a truck than you ever could in a four door sedan.  Duh, why on earth buy a four door sedan where you can cram maybe seven to eight people when you can buy a pick-up and have up to twenty people in the bed?  Yes, that is the reasoning behind buying a car vs. pick-up here.

Because people here have very little personal space, they often don’t realize that they deserve more respect.  For example, when traveling on buses, the seats will quickly fill up.  Rather than denying anyone a ride, people will fill the aisle and be forced to squeeze together as tightly as possible.  The ridiculous part of this is that, standing people have to pay the same fare and people let themselves be yelled at by the bus “helper” to move back and stand back to back in the aisle to make more room for more people.  Whenever I climb aboard a standing room only bus I refuse to cram myself into ridiculously small places.  I’m sure they think I’m a rude American, but I merely realize I don’t deserve to be smashed into someone’s back for two hours while paying the same rate as someone seated comfortably.  Now, if only I could teach this to the locals, or better yet teach the bus companies better business policies.

Despite a lack of safety laws in the sense of an overcrowded bus, there is a helmet law for motorcycles.  Is it enforced?  Um, kinda.  I see people on motorcycles all the time without helmets.  There are those that wear normal motorcycle helmets that would actually protect them in the event of an accident.  Then there are those, which are still abiding by the law, which wear hard hats or bicycle helmets while riding their motorcycles.  I’ve never read the law, so I don’t know if that counts or not.  However, it’s just a little ridiculous to see and I just pray I never seen a motorcycle accident in which the driver was wearing a hard hat.  “Red Asphalt” in Driver’s Ed was bad enough.  I don’t need a live version.

Many times when eating at a friend’s house my plate won’t have any utensils set beside it – just a stack of corn tortillas.  Here you eat with your hands and use pieces of tortilla to pick up your food from rice and beans, to avocado and eggs.  The Hondurans are real experts at knowing how to measure their tortilla allotment to food on plate ratio and will finish perfectly the last few beans on the plate with the last piece of tortilla.  I, however, do not have years of practice and frequently require many more tortillas or simply have to ask for a fork.  (Although there’s been times where I’ve eaten my plate surplus with my fingers.)  It brings up the subject of different manners again, but instead of over thinking it, I just go with it and enjoy the chance to feel a little kiddish again.

There you have it.  A list of some of the biggest differences I experience here.  Luckily, it’s nothing that bad.  My patience has definitely grown thick (as opposed to thin) and I frequently remind myself that I will experience crazy culture shock when I go home too. 

Stay tuned for updates on my latest work projects coming soon!

Hasta la proxima vez…

Una Navidad Hondureña

Christmas in Honduras isn’t much like Christmas in the US.  Well ok, families get together to eat and celebrate, but that’s about the only similarity I noticed.

Most big Christmas celebrations here happen on Christmas Eve.  Leading up to the big holiday I wasn’t asked what I was doing for Christmas but rather the 24^th.  It was most annoying having to tell multiple people, that no, I wasn’t going home for the holidays and explained that yes, the other two volunteers who live nearby were indeed in the States.  Oh well, 2012 I’ll be home for Christmas!

I left my site on the 23^rd because I wasn’t sure that the buses would run on the 24^th and people had told me it’s better to get there early.  Arriving to my first host family’s house is always exciting because we’re all super excited to see each other.  (They’re the only family I ever had a real bond with.)  Waking up the morning of the 24^th everyone gets down to work.  There’s the house to clean and all the typical Christmas dishes to be made: tamales, torejas and rompopo.

Rompopo is eggnog and torejas are very similar to French toast, so I won’t go into detail on the elaboration of those things.  However, Honduran tamales are much different (and better, in my opinion) than Mexican tamales that many may be familiar with.  The first step of the process begins with the mixing of the masa.  This is a mixture of a corn meal like substance, spices and seasonings and water.

The masa with water, pre-cooked.

The masa with seasonings and spices.  This would be the green masa.

The masa fully cooked and ready. 

As the masa is cooking the banana leaves, used to encase the tamales, are boiled so that they are malleable and clean.

Banana leaves boiling away - note the small stove which is wood burning.

Whilst the masa is cooking and the leaves are boiling, they prep the meat – in this case pork.  (They are sometimes made with other meat or chicken, but pork is special for Christmas.)

My host dad, Victor, cleaning and prepping the meat in the same pila where dishes and clothes are washed and also where teeth are brushed.

After the masa is cooked, it’s time to prepare the rice and potato mixture.

Rice and potatoes cooking next to the chicharrones (pig skin).

After thoroughly and meticulously wiping down each banana leaf (done by yours truly), it’s time to assemble the tamales.  First place a generous dollop each of the red masa on the cleaned banana leaf.  Followed by a spoonful of the rice and potato mixture.  Plop down a piece of the pork.  Sprinkle on a few raisins and finish it off with a dollop of the green masa. Voila, you now have a raw tamale!

My host mom, Merlin, showing off her yummy creations.

With the raw tamale you fold the banana leaf so that it’s well covered.  Then tie it up so it doesn’t come undone while cooking.  Throw them in a huge pot to boil.  To what extent I didn’t find out.  

All the pots boiling away on the stove top.

Once they are done cooking you can unwrap the banana leaf, add some hot shot if you so choose and enjoy!

Christmas tamale - ready to eat!

 

After all the food is prepped everyone has time to shower and get ready for the family to come over.  The big tradition here is to stay up ‘til midnight and run around hugging and kissing everyone as you wish them Merry Christmas a la New Year’s Eve.

Until the clock strikes 12:00 there is eating and, of course, dancing.  No Honduran party is complete without dancing!  Put on the reggaeton hits of 2010 and you’re ready.  Now, the music is not my favorite and I really miss having good conversation and playing games at parties, but you know when in Tegucigalpa…

To the littlest girls...

To the grown ladies...and the awkward gringa dancing solo.  Haha!

And that’s about it.  The point is to stay up as late as you can and just dance.  I think we made it to about 3:00AM. 

December 25 no one wakes up to presents.  There really aren’t presents here.  Everyone just buys what they need for themselves or their families and use it in the month of December.  I gotta say, the not gifting thing is kinda sad. 

So, that’s about it – my Honduran Christmas.  Surrounding myself with the people I love here helped take away the sting of not being able to spend the holiday at home with my own family.  It was also nice to call Christmas Day to the States and talk with everyone who was gathered for Christmas. 

I’m not sure what next Christmas will be like, but if I have to be here in Honduras again, it won’t be so bad.  At least, now I know the ropes!

Hasta la proxima vez…