Just Another Day - Part 2

March 20th, 2011

Since my five readers seemed to enjoy my last post about an average Peace Corps day, I thought I would continue with that today.

It’s 8:05PM. Estoy rendida. I’m exhausted. My eyes are red and they hurt. It amazes me how a boring week of teacher strikes can turn into a crazy weekend of work.

I think in both Spanish and English now. It’s hard not to constantly sprinkle in Spanish as I write. However, I’m too tired to splice apart the Spanish from the English in my head and I don’t have the patience to explain each Spanish word. So sorry. Welcome to my messy brain.

I woke up at 6:00AM to feed my new puppy (who’s name is officially Pongo), to give the chickens maicillo, and to wash my clothes. By 8:00 I rushed to finish washing so I could eat a few baleadas and take off for my aunt’s house down the mountain. A bunch of kids from the family wanted to go swimming in the poza. We arrived at my aunt’s house but had to wait until my cousin finished washing her clothes to leave for the poza. When we arrived another group was just starting to swim. They were really friendly and we chatted while we swam. They even bought us a bottle of Coca Cola. It took my sister and my primas an extra hour to enter the water because they were too embarrassed to swim in front of strangers. Así es rural Honduras.

We left around 1:00 for my aunt’s house to eat lunch. Our new friends invited us to play a game of fútbol nearby but since we didn’t have cell phone reception we couldn’t call Mimi to find out if she would give the girls permission. Instead we ate chicken and rice followed by trigo en leche, bathed, and left with my Grandpa Fidel for the long walk home. Don Fidel came all the way down the mountain just to pick us up. He’s such a great guy. It’s pretty far to our house too. At least 30 minutes nonstop walking up steep hills. We got back to the house around 2:30.

When we got home I showered using my new hot water shower head that my uncle installed while I was out swimming. I paid him 50 Lempiras ($2.50) to install it. It was fantastic to have hot water. I got ready and left for my counterpart, Doña Dora’s house.

She had sent word down the mountain on Saturday that she wanted to talk with me. However, when I went to see her on Saturday she wasn’t there. Así es la vida Hondureña. On the walk up I passed my friend Miriam’s house. She has a cute little 7-month old named Justin (I like to call him Justin Bieber) and her mom is super friendly. So I stopped to chat for an hour or so. There were some other ladies there who I had never met so I asked all about their lives and children and they got a kick out of the fact that Kari sounds like the Spanish word for cavity. I explained to them that I prefer Karina for that reason. Then, since at least 5 drunks had already passed the house they walked me the rest of the way to Doña Dora’s house.

Doña Dora informed me that we had finally gotten word that our seamstress classes would be starting. So naturally, in a last-minute-Honduran-rush she sent me out to sign-up 15 women who want to take a 4 month long, 5-day a week, sewing class.

I left her house en carrera to search out my 15 women. I had already talked with 7 who were interested but had to go to each individual house to get their names and identification numbers. That meant walking up and down our barrio several times. I went to about 20 houses and I found 10 women by the time it got dark. After dark (6:00 PM) I don’t walk around outside our little group of houses and certainly not by myself.

I usually like to visit houses for a few hours to chat and eat. However, since I was limited on time I tried to keep to business. It sucked. I hate visiting houses without actually visiting. It feels so cheap and I think it’s kinda rude.

After the sun set I went back to my house and ate tacos with cabbage and tomato as we watched Daddy Daycare in Spanish. I spent an hour putting away my clothes, cleaning up my room, and packing my clothes for my trip tomorrow to Teguz.

Around 9:30 tonight I’ll wash my face, brush my teeth, scrub my feet (they get filthy), put lotion on my split heel, turn on the fan, and go to bed.

So that’s that. Just another day. Sorry if the Spanish-English stew doesn’t make sense. Sometimes the garble that comes out my brain only makes sense to me.