Five Thanksgivings

Who knew that I would end up celebrating Thanksgiving FIVE TIMES here in Honduras!!! I guess when you can't be with your family, you have to make up for quality with quantity, but I will say that many of these celebrations were pretty high quality, too!!

#1 -- Thanksgiving at the Teacher Houses

We had a lovely potluck Thanksgiving on Saturday, November 21st at the teachers' houses... At the last minute we realized that no one had signed up to bring turkey, so someone ordered out for roast chicken :) Elisa's stuffing was pretty amazing, and Matt made some great mashed potatoes. I, of course, baked the pumpkin pies with a little help from Elena :) I even had a brandied pie filling recipe... mmmmm :) We enjoyed quite a bit of wine and ended up going dancing afterwards (not a usual Thanksgiving tradition, but hey...)

#2 -- Thanksgiving at the Military Base

On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to be able to experience the Thanksgiving dinner at one of the dining halls on the nearby military base (technically, the Americans rent the space from the Hondurans, and it is dually patrolled). Not everyone gets to go on base, and we got special permission because one of the ninth-graders' moms worked on base and requested for a bus of us to come. It was also odd to pay the dining hall cashiers only in dollars for our meal--Lempiras not accepted. The dining hall was all decked-out (see place-setting picture) and I got to teach some of the students words like "cornucopia." The food was actually pretty good (except the stuffing was like glue--Elisa's still wins. I had to explain to people that that wasn't the way it was supposed to be) It was really nice to see all the effort that the staff on base went through to make the soldiers feel like they were home again. We all felt really very welcomed and I, as an American, really appreciated all their hospitality. I met a very friendly woman from Wyoming who was stationed there and she pretty much couldn't believe that a) I was over 18 and b) that I just up and came to Honduras to teach. It was a little awkward, however, when she warned me very seriously, in front of all my Honduran, English-speaking students, to be safe and really watch out for myself. Um, watch out for all the sketchy Hondurans? That I'm sharing Thanksgiving with?? Oh, well.... Overall, we had a great time, and the parents that came really enjoyed themselves as well!

#3 -- Thanksgiving at School

Technically there were two smaller Thanksgiving celebrations at school... apparently, bilingual schools are the only "cultural" entities in Honduras to celebrate Thanksgiving, and they gave us only Friday off mostly due to the presence of the American teachers. For lunch on Thursday, the support staff decorated the library for us with fall-colored table cloths and gave us a meal of roast chicken, pasta salad and rice (not very Thankgsiving-y, but the decorations made up for it). They also made us little hats with colored feathers in them... awkward moment number two... isn't it a little offensive to still dress up like stereotypical "Indians" on Thanksgiving? But the entire school staff was so proud of themselves and all the work they had done that I didn't want to say anything. I didn't end up wearing my hat, and told other people to turn in backwards so it looked more like a turkey tail than an "Indian" headdress.

We also had a small "celebration" during the last period of the day on Thursday, which for me was 11th grade biology. I baked pumpkin cupcakes decorated with candy corn brought especially for me from the States (Thanks, Sheila!!! I owe a blog about your visit! YOU WIN!) and handed them out to my students only after they got up and said something they were thankful for. A lot of them thanked me for being an awesome teacher (AWWWW!!!) I got a little self-conscious and was like, "um, guys, don't feel obligated to say that," but they were like, "no, we really mean it!!!" So when I got up to say my piece, it went something like "I am so thankful for all of you guys, and I'm thankful for the interesting turn my life has taken in bringing me here... and ... oh my gosh I'm gonna cry..." and then I did a little :P Most people didn't notice (I hope) because they were eating their cupcakes and talking. But I really do love these students and I'm happy we got to share that time together.

#4 -- Thanksgiving out on the Town

Since I had already celebrated with 9th grade at the base and 11th grade in class, it was serendipitous that 10th grade chose to have their own Thanksgiving dinner out on the town at one of the nicest restaurants in town (full, amazing meal still about $5-6.50), La Casita. It was more a time for them to all relax together outside of school (and unfortunately not everyone came) than it was a traditional Thanksgiving celebration, but we did say a quick grace. I was happy that they invited Besi (their "homeroom teacher" while Mircia is out on maternity leave) and me (the 10th grade "assistant"). Besi also brought her 10-year-old son, Samuel (can you find him hidden among the 10th graders??) I had a good laugh because they spent most of the meal taking pictures of each other and looking at them on their cameras rather than actually having conversations or eating, but hey, they're 16...

#5 -- Thanksgiving up on the Volcan

It was a wonderful surprise to be invited up to the farm where Karen, a teacher at the school, and her husband, Ed, live. I've heard that Karen's place is beautiful but it was certainly an amazing experience to find out for myself. This was definitely the most traditional Thansgiving celebration of the bunch, complete with a day of relaxing and watching movies, and taking "digestive walks" around the grounds. Karen lives up on the "volcan" and grows coffee, pineapple, bananas, among other things, and has quite a menagerie of animals! You can see the aviary in this picture where she has 3 parrots who are delightfully noisy :P I also enjoyed playing with her cat, her 4 dogs, and one amazing KINKAJU!!!! It's kind of like a lemur... with a big long tongue and hands that feel like human hands. She was so sweet. It was such a wonderfully restful day, and one that I really needed (sometimes you feel all cooped up in the city, and it was nice to feel some "wide open spaces" to quote the Dixie Chicks).

I am so thankful for all the blessings I have recieved and all the wonderful experiences I have had here so far in Honduras. I hope Thanksgiving was fabulous for my mom and dad, all my friends and their families this year. :)

a little taste of fall...

Right now, we are in the "cold season" here in Honduras. This means that it gets down to about 60 degrees and all the Hondurans bust out down coats and ski hats. :) I think it's rather refreshing--slightly overcast days, finally pulling out more than just a flat sheet to sleep with at night, and enjoying not being covered in sweat on the walk into school. Everyone thinks I'm crazy because I still walk around in short sleeves, enjoying the cool breezes! There have only been a few cold spells of 60 degrees over the last two months, so mostly we enjoy it being ~80. I personally love it because it's my favorite in-between weather. I absolutely love fall and am sad when i miss it, so any kind of fall-like weather is more than welcome in my book!!

To help celebrate fall, my roommates put on a Halloween party at our house and we had a lot of fun with the makeshift costumes we came up with. I was waffling about whether or not I would even have a costume, because I couldn't think of anything good and just wanted to bake stuff and be done with it. I remember going clothes shopping with my friend Elisa a few weeks before Halloween and seeing a black and yellow striped dress. At the time, I was like, hahaha, that dress looks like a BEE!! Who would buy that??? Later, finding myself in a pinch for a Halloween costume, it looked like one of the least-heinous options. I bought the dress and made some antenna out of a headband, pompoms, and pipe cleaners :) Elisa ended up going as a flower, so our favorite party trick was "pollination." These costumes also helped us get into one of the discotecas with no cover the next night. AWESOME!! There is also a classic picture of our fellow teacher, Matt, dressed as the sterotypical American tourist. That's a Spanish dictionary in his hands, and not pictured are his black socks and sandals :)

Our school has been "funny" about celebrating fall holidays as well. All the doors were decked out with fall-colored leaves (even though those are never seen here in Central America) because most of our workbooks and decorations come from US sources. Our conservative-Christian principal outlawed the celebration of Halloween at our school, even though it is not a Christian school. As it turns out, and was explained by another member of the administration, Hondurans don't really have an accurate picture of what Halloween is like in the US. The way he put it, "if you ask an American kid to draw a picture of Halloween, he would probably draw a pumpkin, a happy-looking witch, and candy. If you ask a Honduran kid to draw a picture of Halloween, he'll draw what he has seen on TV--chainsaws, murder, etc." Because there is a lot of petty crime in Honduras, trick-or-treating would pretty much never fly here. It's such big part of the American holiday and what makes it "nice" and "wholesome" for kids, but people hardly have a concept of that here. Anyway, we tried to celebrate it as best we could on our own time, and even brought facepaint for those who didn't dress up.

oh, that language barrier :P

I would like to think that I'm pretty good at Spanish, but one thing that always throws a curve ball at you are the regional expressions and meanings of words. One of my favorite examples that my friend Lily and I laugh about it that in Cuba, "coger la guagua" means to take the bus. Pronounced exactly the same, but with a dangerously different meaning in Bolivia is "coger la wawa" which means to f*ck the little girl. Ooops. I also was VERY glad that before I went to the Dominican Republic, I read in my guidebook that when asking for a bag for one's purchases, you should always use the word "funda" instead of the elsewhere-commonly-used "bolsa," because otherwise you would be asking for a scrotum. Also highly awkward.

I had a funny moment like that here in Honduras the other day, but it wasn't quite as bad. Locally, people will often use the verb "andar" (to walk) in place of "tener" (to have) such as "Andas lapiz?" (Do you have a pencil?) or "No ando pisto" (meaning, I don't have any money, another fun Honduran slang word). The situation is as follows: I was in a cab and, for whatever reason, it is notororiously hard to be able to get any large amount of change from any sort of vendor here. Since I only had a 100 lempira bill (about $5), and a taxi ride only costs 20, I generally try to make sure folks have change on them. Also, instead of using the word "cambio" (change) for small bills here, people often say "suelto" (like "loose" bills). So, thinking I would finally start trying out the more Honduran grammatical constructions... instead of saying "Tiene cambio?" (Do you have change?) I said, "Anda suelto?" The guy was one of these older, good-natured chatty guys, so his immediate response was "A veces, pero creo que a mi mujer no le gusta." (Sometimes, but I don't think my wife likes it very much) HA! Oh man, that'll teach me for trying something new :P It was just funny how "Do you have change?" could also be taken as "Do you run around like a bachelor?" (soltero, meaning "single," or suelto essentially means loose or released) HA!

Anyway, hopefully I will begin to incorporate more hondurenismos a little more seamlessly into my speech in the coming months :P

Honduras is going to the WORLD CUP!!

This week is the first quarter final exams week at school and while I haven't had to teach at all, I've been swamped with test writing and grading. I thought I would take a break and go watch the Honduras-El Salvador game in the central park last night. This cute little restaurant next to the church projects it on a screen outside and folks can hang out and enjoy the fresh air instead of watching it at a bar.

Well, things were sort of uneventful until the second half when Honduras scored a goal against El Salvador... Woohooo!! I will say that even though El Salvador was our rival in the match, I'm still in love with one of their players, Alexander Escobar (he's the one on the left). There's just something about that hair... Anyway just winning against El Salvador didn't guarantee Honduras a place in the World Cup. Costa Rica would have to lose against the US or at least tie, and then Honduras would be in. Basically after we scored that goal, it wasn't up to us anymore--we had done all we could. So as Honduras's kickass goalie kept doing what he does best, the rest of us were trying to tune into snippets from the US-Costa Rica game, conveniently being played at the exact same time (I'm proud to say that some of my friends were in the stands of that game as it was being played in DC!!) Soon, the score was Costa Rica 2, US 1 (up from 0!). We kept praying that a) El Salvador wouldn't score a goal and b) that the US would tie it up. By literally a miracle from God, the US sunk another goal with, what... 2 minutes remaining?? 2 seconds? Something like that. Immediately the streets bursted with shouts of joy... "Empataron!! Empataron!! Vamos al Mundial!!" (They tied! We're going to the World Cup!!).

High on the energy, but knowing that it was getting late and we had to get up a 5am for school the next day, we caught a cab home. I changed into my PJs and watched the afterglow on TV with my roommates. Just as I was about to get into bed, I heard the silly, campy little music that comes across all the radio and TV stations right before the President or the Government is about to make a nation-wide announcement. (I recognized it because it was pretty much on 5 times a day during the curfew/political crisis a few weeks ago). The President came on and declared the next day a NATIONAL HOLIDAY in celebration of Honduras getting into the World Cup. Why is that a big deal? Because the last time Honduras went was in 1982. That's the year I was born, people!!

So being freed of our commitments for the next day, we changed back into our Seleccion jerseys and hit the streets. There were pickup trucks full of kids and fans and flags screaming and literally rejoicing (such a cheesy word but so appropriate here!). Because the US was the one that really decided our fate, everyone on the street was like "Gracias a los Gringos!!!" and was receiving us like champions (wow, I think that might be the ONLY time that happens, especially since we were trying to keep our heads down on Saturday during the US-Honduras game!). We just loved waving and cheering to all the passing cars and groups of fans. Fireworks were being set off in the streets of Comayagua, and even bigger ones were being set off in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. It was euphoric.

Again, just to emphasize how important soccer is in Honduras, "wars" have been fought over it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

and here is an article from last week talking about the importance of soccer to the national psychii especially in politically troubled times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/sports/soccer/05soccer.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

I will have to say, this is pretty much the first time I have ever even remotely cared about sports in my entire life. It's hard not to get caught up in the spirit of things here. Viva Honduras!!!

Tela--The North Coast part 2

Also part of my Independence Day vacation, some friends and I went up to the beach town of Tela. It's considerably smaller and sleepier than La Ceiba, but that makes it less dirty and more charming :) There is a nice little beachfront paseo (concrete "boardwalk") and several really cute little restaurants. Tela, like Ceiba, is a nice jumping off point for touring national parks and tiny Garifuna villages, which I'll talk about in my next post :)

In Tela, we simply enjoyed the palm trees, the sunshine, and the tasty comida costeña (coastal cuisine). Besides lots of wonderful fresh fish and seafood, we especially enjoyed a little Italian place right on the beach that was quite authentic, as it was run by a retired Italian couple. We pretty much wanted to eat there every night because it was so good, but decided against in for the sake of trying everything the town had to offer. Too bad, because I ended up wasting a day being sick on whatever I had at the other restaurant!!

A garifuna woman selling fresh agua de coco (also called "agua de pipa") Hack with a machete, stick a straw in it, and call it a nice snack :) While Garifuna men mostly earn a living fishing, the women sell coconut products (such as yummy pan de coco and empanadas de coco) and offer to do hair braiding.

Enjoying a tropical sunset :)

Museo de la Mariposas--La Ceiba

This is the first of several catch-up posts from my trip to the North Coast of Honduras over the Independence holidays about a month ago. We had 4 days off and we enjoyed them by getting out of town to explore the beaches and the coastal cities. La Ceiba is one of the larger cities on the North Coast and is known as la Novia de Honduras--Honduras's girlfriend or sweetheart, since it is loved by the Honduran people. They probably love it because people here like to PARTY!! While La Ceiba is not particularly known for its beaches, it does have a series of really nice nightclubs and bars that are all right on the beach--or have their own sea walls. You can lean over the railing of the outdoor decks and watch the waves roll in. I enjoyed the bars at the beach in the Dominican Republic more because they actually had nice swaths of beach to lounge on, but even just being close to the water is enough to make your night.

My favorite part of being in La Ceiba was going to El Museo de las Mariposas (The Butterfly Museum). A true DC girl spoiled by the Smithsonian Institute, I sniff out the museums anywhere I go, and I was excited to find something on natural history as well. The museum is run by an American ex-pat from Ohio who taught school for many years here in Honduras. He gives talks to school groups, and there are rumors of the 10th grade parents wanting to organize a trip to Ceiba... I might just get my students in there yet!

The museum wasn't just butterflies, and I learned quite a lot about central american and worldwide insects. One fascinating yet dangerous thing I learned about was the "kissing bug," in the assassin bug family that transmits a parasite responsible for Chagas disease.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagas_disease

Getting up close and personal with a live Hercules beetle :) Don't worry, they don't bite. He was happily sucking on a piece of papaya before we met.

There was also an insect unlike any I had ever seen before--the "peanut head bug." The elongated, lumpy part of its head is actually hollow, so essentially a predator could take a bite out of the insect's head with all its vital organs still intact.

I was also pleased to purchase lots of educational materials for the school there. I think it's important that the kids at our school learn more about what's available in their own country. Since it's a bilingual school, many of our textbooks are from North America and talk about things for which Hondurans don't have much context (one of my students asked me about fall and snow the other day). I thought it was GREAT that the butterfly museum had big color posters of different insects that were native to Honduras, and I bought a bunch of them. I also got a CD of birdcalls of Honduras and a CD-ROM of orchids of Honduras. It seems that folks are very familiar with the national symbols of Honduras (white-tailed deer, orchid, etc) but they don't seem to know much beyond that, so I think we will have fun learning about all this country has to offer together.

Feria Turistica de Comayagua

Today in the central plaza of Comayagua, the first annual "Tourism Fair" took place. It wasn't huge, but it was fun to see different expos, many from hotels in the area, and several artesans from around the country. I spoke with one man from Santa Rosa de Copán who had never been to Comayagua before, so he got his own tourist experience as he sold souveniers from his town. We also were treated to some traditional dances from Honduras (I've seen several of these at school so far, and we still have the school-wide "folk festival" coming up in November!). Enjoy the photos of the plaza and the artesanía!

Ladies and gents in their traditional folk-dance costumes

Beautifully colored basketry :)














Marimba-shaped souveniers, commemorating traditional Honduran instruments :)