Water, traveling, etc

Well, it is Saturday night so I thought I would get a little wild and crazy and write a blog entry. It is 7:00 right now and I am already halfway in my pjs but don’t think I am too lame because I am listening to the new Britney Spears song in honor of the weekend (shockingly Britney just doesn’t seem that talented sans drink in hand). Things have been up and down, sometimes I feel like I am 15 again with the way my mood changes every 7 seconds. I have warm and fuzzy happy moments and “what the hell am I doing here” moments. I haven’t had any moments yet when I have my suitcase packed and am headed for the nearest airport but I have definitely considered walking home just for something to do…Anyway, that’s my mental status in case you were wondering. Now more random stories:

Cold blooded killer

After hearing numerous accounts I have come to the conclusion that here in Honduras the number one killer/maimer/etc is cold water. I find this ironic given that hot showers are few and far between yet the population seems to be more or less flourishing. Therefore I will report the frightening cold water attacks I have heard about and let you decide for yourself whether or not you should fear the knob with the letter c on it.

• In Talanga, one of my friends reported that his host brother and mother chided him when he took a shower right after playing soccer. They informed him that an uncle had worked out and then taken a cold shower and his hand got stuck “asi” (frozen like a claw). Then his arthritis got worse and he died. This story was confirmed when Christine and I were talking to the host brother about how we ran before class. He asked us if we showered and we said yes of course. He then retold the hand-claw-death story. We did our best to hold in our laughter. Then he told us that if we had to shower, we absolutely should NOT use soap because after you work out your pores are open and the soap will clog up your pores, and if the cold water doesn’t kill you that certainly will. I have continued to do the cold shower/soap combo of death after working out and have thus far survived…I’ll keep you updated.

• In Zarabanda my family was eating soup. To be honest, I was not a really big fan of the soup because it was really salty. Therefore I was glad that I had a giant glass of juice to drink. I took a couple bites of soup and then went to take a sip of juice when my 6 year old host sister screamed “Nooooooooooooo” and lunged towards me slow-mo style. Never eat hot soup and then drink something cold. You will get sick and die.
• Here in Colo I was talking to the empleada (the woman who cooks and does laundry for my host mom) while she was ironing. We were talking about an upcoming wedding when suddenly she stopped ironing and looked at me very seriously and asked “Do you ever wash your hands after ironing?” I was slightly puzzled by this question and just sort of stammered, not really knowing how to reply (no, not intentionally?? Maybe I have?). She shook her head and said “Never, NEVER, wash your hands after ironing, because your hands are hot and water is cold. I did once and look!” and then showed me a giant cyst-ish bump on the back of her hand. The only thing that kept me from laughing was concern over the true nature of the bump.
  

Flooding

The tank of the toilet attached to my room leaks all the time. It is pretty much my fault because there is a switch I can flip which will ensure the toilet does not leak but I always forget to flip it, and 85% of the time it doesn’t leak if I don’t, it is the other 15% of the time that gets me. Therefore it is not uncommon for me to have to mop up the bathroom floor with my sweatpants (yes the same ones I used as a towel). It’s normally not a big deal but the other day I came home and there was significantly more water than normal so the sweatpants just were not going to cut it. I didn’t want to go get the mop because every time I don’t that my host dad tries to “fix” it, which just results in more water (and the true solution is just for me to stop being forgetful and flip the switch), so I had to get creative. The water was concentrated right by my shower (because the floor slants) and I would say there was about a 1 foot circle of water about a centimeter deep. I concluded that all I needed to do was somehow splash/scoop the water over the shower partition. I searched my room for something thin enough to bail out a centimeter and settled on the plastic cover of a training manual (sorry Ronaldo). I then proceeded to sit on my bathroom floor (the dry part) and scoop/splash water into my shower. I did this for a good 10 minutes. The conclusion? It worked, I am the MacGyver of flooding, I have way too much time on my hands, and I share things that are probably best kept to myself.

Suprise!

On Monday I talked to the director of the colegio about when I would start giving English classes to the sixth graders. He said that he was going to talk to their teacher and then he would let me know but he thought probably the beginning of next week. I was fine with that and headed home for lunch. I went back to the colegio after lunch, to do some more sitting/tetris playing on my phone. At around 2:30 two girls walked into my office and informed me they were there for my English class which started at 3:00. Oh? I was unaware. Luckily, while I was sitting in the office that morning I planned an English lesson so I decided to just roll with it and give the class. We sat around and waited for more kids to show up. I was getting my papers in order when I realized that they were taking pictures of me on their cell phone. Sort of awkward. Then they started drawing in a notebook and shyly brought it up to show me. It said “Sara es mi mejor amiga” and had little hearts around it. I won’t lie; it was a warm and fuzzy moment. At around 3:15 it became apparent that they were the only two students coming so we had a pretty relaxed class. We agreed that they would come back the next day and try to get more of their classmates to come with them. The next day only one of the girls came. This made my lesson, which involved lots of games and partner activities, kind of worthless but I did my best. The next day no one came. Class fail. I am trying again this week.

Not long enough to name:

• A teacher at the colegio came to visit me last weekend because she wanted to introduce me to her daughters. We chatted for a while and then she gave me three apples as a present. It was another warm and fuzzy moment.

• My host mom brought me up a drink the other day because it was cold outside. It was hot milk, sugar, and chunks of squash. I did not like it. The drink was warm and fuzzy but the moment was not.

Learning

I finally got around to getting my Spanish tutor. I really like her (I plan on tricking her into being my friend). However, I have noticed that a lot of people don’t really understand that some things cross the language barrier. For example, she explained both commas and paragraphs to me. Then she went on to explain nouns, adjectives, and verbs. I am slowly trying to make her realize that although I talk like a 2 year old, I do know things. On a similar note, today I was looking through the town phone book and my host mom said “Those on the left are called numbers, do you know how to read numbers?” yes. This was followed by “Is your tutor teaching you the alphabet?” no, got it covered. I was really confused by the abc question considering she has seen me reading Cien Horas con Fidel (100 Hours with Fidel), an 800 page tome donated to me by the director of the colegio. It is not my first choice of reading material but I need to practice so I am slowly moving through it, a process which would be incredibly difficult without a basic knowledge of alphabetic principles. I miss occasionally being mistaken for intelligent.. or at least not being mistaken for a 2 year old.

Traveling

Friday I went into the “big city” with my host family. Going to the “city” involves a 4 hour ride (one way) over a road made largely of boulders, slightly smaller boulders, rocks that were once boulders, and mud (to give you an better idea of the road, it is only 45 miles from here to La Esperanza, so it takes 4 hours to go 45 miles…Jess would die of impatience). We got up at 4:30 in order to make it there and back at a decent hour. I spent the ride there trying to press myself up against the door because the guy (friend of my host dad) sitting next to me was falling asleep on me (still not good with the whole personal space/other people touching me thing). When we finally got there we had breakfast, which was relatively uneventful if you overlooked my 6 year old host brother bathing himself in mantequilla (Hondurans eat mantequilla with everything, it’s sorta a sour cream mayonnaise combo) and refried beans, which I did easily as he does it at every meal. Then we went to banks, markets, etc. We went to a “fast” food restaurant for lunch. My host dad spilled his orange soda all over his fried chicken and fries and then casually shrugged it off and continued eating (I think I would have thrown in the towel). We ran a few more errands, collecting people that needed a ride to Colo along the way. Then my host dad bought a motorcycle (don’t worry peace corps, I will never ever ride said motorcycle). He loaded it into the back of the pickup and we prepared to leave. At this point Colo-bound party included my host mom and dad, a host brother, me, one of my counterparts, 7 other people, a motorcycle, and various sacks of fruits, vegetables, etc. We wedged 6 people into the actual car part and then 6 sat in the bed of the pickup with the motorcycle. Sacks of various goods were shoved in any other available space. My host brother did his part in conserving space by wearing the new (giant) motorcycle helmet all the way home (gotta love 6 year olds). Due to the 4:30 wake up and the fact that I was sitting in the middle, I was very grouchy by the time I got home and am convinced that had my host brother not provided the comic relief by looking like a bobble head doll I would have blown.

• Side note: the full grown motorcycle is for my 12 year old host brother, who still looks like he is about 9. Scary. Even scarier: today he was driving the pickup truck in (fast) circles around the soccer field while his 4 year old sister was sitting on a water tank in the back, holding on to the roof and the 6 year old was hanging on the outside of the truck bed. I almost had a heart attack.