Prom shopping, mass, and awkward goldfish

Giovanni, Rosa, Emily and Me in Tegus

My little friend who lives in my closet

    This week has been sleepy. Last Saturday there was another Tallier project at school, but I didn't end up going because my family was going to Tegus to look for a prom dress for Rosa. My host mom, Rosa's Aunt, Rosa's little cousin Emily and Giovanni and I went to a few stores and Rosa picked out a beautiful pale green satin floor length gown. Here, if you want to buy clothes of even considerably good quality, you have to go to Tegucigalpa. I was coached to tell the shop owners that we're from Tegus if they ask because apparently if you tell them you're from outside they show you the worst dresses-- haha! Tegus really is like a whole different country. 
    Even though you can find good clothes in Tegus from American and European brands, the prices are outrageous. They charge at least twice as much for any given article of clothing, and they hang cheap fashion chain brands like Forever 21 and H&M in boutiques along with designer. I'm going to Rosa's Prom, too because it's not really a dance but more like a formal graduation party. I didn't realize until after our shopping trip that I'm supposed to buy a formal dress too-- I thought one I brought was nice enough, but I showed it to my host mom and she said it wasn't. Shoot. Item # 345,678 I really should have packed...hopefully we'll go to Tegus again sometime in the next three weeks because the thought of trying to buy a formal dress in Comayagua makes me shudder. This experience is really making me realize what a diva I am.
    Another event coming up is the mothers day celebration at our school...I'm a senior, and apparently we're the entertainment. We're all supposed to either sing or dance...everyone's dancing, but I'm white and I can't dance, so that's not happening. Everyone wants me to sing-- I don't really get stage fright singing in public, but the main problem is that I have no idea what to sing. It's so hard to find a song that's good for mother's day. Also, it's hard finding opportunities to practice since I feel self-conscious about the fact that the whole neighborhood can hear our household activity. Not that the neighbors don't deserve it for blasting their mariachi music late into the evening, but still. I could always play the Bewildered Exchange Student Card and get out of it. 
    Today I got to experience my very first Catholic mass, which was slightly more exciting than Lab class. We just sung and prayed and chanted things. I was scolded very publicly for not singing along, but I was like, "I don't know the words, dude, what you gonna do?" Actually I just smiled awkwardly like I didn't understand and the service went on. There was wine and bread present, like at protestant communions, but instead of everyone taking some like we do, only the priest drank the wine and ate the bread. Haha. Okay. 
    The only other abnormality in my week was having to talk in front of my class today. El director, Senor Carlos, decided that I should take a turn doing the morning chapel like everyone else, but he decided instead of having me talk about God he wanted me to give a speech about myself "to practice my spanish". My classmates Mirta, Kevin M, and Nicol teased me about it all week, saying "Remember, Kaiti, on friday you have tu momento religioso" with an evil glint in their eye, and then laughing like the voyeuristic fools they are when I squirmed with dread and discomfort. Awesome. I just babbled about my hometown, my family, and my school for a minute and I must have made a lot of mistakes because everyone kept laughing. Afterwards I asked if anyone had any questions, but they just stared at me like a bunch of awkward goldfish. Ugh. 
   I still haven't had my compañeras over to swim, because every time we plan something, a test or something comes up and they have to study. Most of the people I talk to are from the other class, Secretarios, and they have to study even more than my class does! Most of them rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep a night.
    Tomorrow I have another school project, my class is doing some sort of volunteer work. I'm not really excited about going to school on Saturday (again) at 7:30 in the morning, but at least it will be a much-needed opportunity to hang out with my classmates. 

Barriers

Juanca's birthday! He's so adorable.

Let's see, what have I been up to? I haven't been doing much, just going to school and church on the weekends. This weekend I also went to watch people from my church play futbol and Saturday...what did I even do Saturday? How can I not remember three days ago? I think I'm going senile.

Today AFS called me to ask if I wanted to switch grades or schools because I guess my host mama complained to them because my classes are impossibly hard (programming? calculus? computer repair?!) and I said no, just because I've already been where I am for six weeks and I don't want to start all over again, it's hard enough making friends as it is. I wish I had thought to talk to AFS about it a month ago, but I wasn't even aware that switching schools was an option. I'm really having a hard time seeing how I'm going to get any credit for all these classes I doubt I can pass, even though AFS is doing their best to see that I do, so it's looking like I might be stuck in high school a little longer than planned. Oh well, I guess the important thing is really that I'm making friends and learning spanish.

So about making friends...it's hard. Shocking, right? There are the obvious problems of the language and social barriers, and then there's that underlying barely-tangible cultural barrier. There's a disconnect between the way I think and behave as a result of my culture and the way Hondurans think and behave as a result of their culture, and sometimes that makes it feel impossible to communicate. I feel like there have been some times when I've accidentally offended or snubbed people simply because of a miscommunication. I have to be very conscious of appearing friendly because Hondurans are friendly in ways that Americans are not. For instance, in Honduras, it's impolite to walk past a person, stranger or friend, without saying "hola" or "adios" or "buenos". "Here we at least say Adios, Kaiti!" lectured Nicol when I responded to an "adios" with a smile and a wave. Also, Hondurans are really into cheek kissing-- everyone. Family, friends, strangers, teachers. I love cheek kissing but it's another one of those things that stresses me out because I don't really understand it.

I was warned, before I came here, that Hondurans are a very non-confrontational people. I thought that was a rather bizarre generalization, so I sort of blew it off, but it's true. If people want to say something to you...they don't just say it to you. I've noticed that in general, controversial issues aren't really addressed or discussed openly...people here are very religious, but often more so in appearance than in practice. I'm a very direct and open person, so that's another thing that's hard to get used to.

In some ways, though, Hondurans are less polite than Americans. I noticed that kids at school love to jokingly address each other as "Vo'Imbecil!" ("Yo imbecil?" "No, el otro imbecil!"..."Vo'Imbecil!") and "Maje!" Black kids are nearly always referred to as "Negro!" which sounds horribly offensive to my American ears but it's the norm here. Black kids are also teased about their skin ("Your skin's so dark, your mama must have left you in the oven when you were little!") which is hilarious because often the teasers are every bit as dark as the "black" kids. In fact, often I don't even know someone is "black" until I hear "Hey, Negro!" and see them turn their head. They're all pretty mixed.

People are just referred to by their physical attributes in general...kids with curly hair are called "curly", kids with pale skin are teased for being "gringo", kids with pimples are addressed as "pimples!". I've also heard hey gordo! Which is like, hey fat guy! That would not go down well in America.

Also, every Honduran's favorite English word is "fuck", which is hilariously incongruent with their politeness. Lost at Uno-- fuck! Stubbed my toe-- fuck! Dropped my pencil-- fuck! At school, no less-- I wince every time I hear it. They must not understand its poignancy in the English language. They love the n-word, too, which I can't even type.

Mainly I'm just trying to focus on making friends. I wouldn't have said I'm a shy person a month ago but it's amazing what being completely uprooted and replanted can do for what you think you know about yourself. I'm finding that I really have to take making friends into my own hands, if I sit around waiting for people to talk to me it is absolutely never going to happen. Mostly I find people are intimidated by my presence or just apathetic. Some comments have led me to think that people here are incredibly willing to believe that I consider myself superior to them because I am "gringa", which is of course completely not the case. I guess people are just shy sometimes. They do talk to me on facebook-- I've had a few people message me on facebook telling me I should talk to more people. One guy who was completely unresponsive to my attempts at real life conversation later FBed me to say he was sorry, and that he had been nervous. I said you're nervous, dude? I'm fresh off the plane living in a country full of people I don't know who speak a language I don't speak haha it's fine we'll talk tomorrow :) Haha. I guess highschool's the same everywhere. I've been trying more and more to make extra-extra-effort. I started out with inviting a few girls I eat lunch with over to come over and swim this weekend and I can't wait!

There are a lot of ways in which I really like the cultural differences here.

Hondurans are very friendly and generous. They love to share. Yesterday, for instance, my religion teacher invited me and a few of his other students into his office during recreo just to chat and share a giant omelette he had brought in foil wrap. Often you'll see people splitting tiny meals sixteen ways, pulling candies or cookies or entire plates of chicken fajitas out of their little purses, which I think is pretty sweet. Personal property isn't really a thing here, what you have, you share, even if it's not much.

Hondurans have very strong family values. They prioritize their families and they are always loyal. Divorce rates are very low. University students are likely to live at home with their parents, "on-campus housing" is not a thing. My host mom has a niece who regularly steals money and the most random household items from them-- clothes, sketchbooks, underwear-- haha! yet she is still welcome to stay whenever she wants because she is family. I guess that goes back to the personal property thing, too.

Some Hondurans have pointed out to me that Americans are obsessed with time. "What is it with Americans and lists?" asked Kevin. "You Americans are always making lists." I think Americans make lists because in general they are very goal-oriented and efficient-- Hondurans, not so much. Hondurans take their time doing whatever it is that they are doing, they relax and enjoy life and are often not concerned with huge accomplishments. Kevin and I arrived at the conclusion that sometimes making lists is bad because your goals can get in the way of other things that are more important.

AFS has a motto: "It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different". I'm finding in many ways that is true.

PS. Does anyone know how to disable that tag-autocorrect on blogspot that corrects all your tags to tags you used in former posts? It's making me want to scream.

Camping

This week has been loads of fun. On Monday Rosa and I chilled and went to the mall. I saw a lot of amusing things, like misspelled English phrases and knock-off forever 21 dresses (Forever 21 is a knock-off brand). I couldn’t have bought much even if I had wanted to because there are only three sizes at the mall in Comayagua: Small, Small, Smaller. Ok, so they call them small, medium and large, but what lies! Now I understand why everyone in Comayagua wears such tight clothes! However, I did manage to squeeze into a XL cookie monster t-shirt-- please, no comments about the irony-- and I bought some ridiculous blue suede strappy heels because they were really cheap. I tried them on in the store and I could see clear over the heads of everyone throughout the mall. Hmm, maybe I’ll wait til I get back to America to wear the ridiculous strappy heels.

On Tuesday Rosa and I were off to camp with the youth group. We got up early to go to the church and piled into the pack of a truck with 30-something other kids to head off to our camping grounds, which actually turned out to be Giovanni’s huge backyard-- haha! The trip was really fun. There were a lot of sermons and there was a lot of singing, and the youth group split into three groups that competed against each other in a bunch of silly games. I got the opportunity to get to know some of the girls from our church, which made me really happy.

The only part of the camping trip that wasn’t any fun was the actual camping part. The night of our trip it rained for, like, the first time in Honduran history, getting our tents and beds soaking wet, and it was actually cold, the one time I didn’t have access to the sweater I felt stupid for packing. Although we did our best to dry our blankets by the fire, that night was not very comfortable.

On Thursday, our family headed to Tegus to stay at the grandparent’s house with Gracia and her family. For two days we all watched soccer, slept, and ate and ate and ate. Rosa’s Abuelita can really cook! We ate tamales, pancitos, soup, and best of all, fijoles, guajada, and tortillas all day long. I think her tortillas were the best I’ve tried yet. She made two kinds: “new corn” tortillas and regular “maza” tortillas. I am officially obsessed with tortillas (which is funny, because my attitude upon arrival approached apathy) and I know that I will never again be satisfied with those rubbery store-bought things I called tortillas in my former life, so I’ve been bugging everybody about my desire to learn the ways of the tortilla. To my delight, la abuelita endeavored to teach me how they are crafted. She was making regular maza tortillas, which simply contain maza and water, unlike baleada tortillas which contain flour, egg, and salt. First, she took a small lump of the dough on her hand. Then, she rolled it into a small, smooth ball. Then she took it between the tips of her fingers and the flat part of her left and and used her right hand and fingers to spin it, applying the slightest amount of pressure with her fingers and the surface below her thumb until the ball was slightly flatter. Then, she placed the dough on a circle of plastic wrap and the tortilla disappeared between a whirlwind of hand and emerged a beautiful, perfectly even white circle. She pealed the plastic wrap off and stuck it on the tortilla-cooker-pan-thingy. Then I was supposed to do the same. Well, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I followed the motions and although I heard no words from the tortilla master, Gracia was satisfied with my work. “Perfect!” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “You should be proud, most Americans can’t make tortillas.” Maybe the tortillas can feel my love.

Besides cooking, we also took a walk around the beautiful “rio”, which is more like a creek, and took a little trip to the nearby town to buy toilet-unclogging-supplies, where I got a glimpse at what the rest of Honduras was doing during Semana Santa week. I saw tons of beautiful alfombras, ornate carpets decorating the street formed from dyed sawdust that picture bible scenes, and people walking around with statues and crosses and things, and even a casket containing an intensely creepy mannequin Jesus. Fascinating. I know they do reenactments of Jesus’s crucifixion, too, because a classmate showed me a video during lab class (she was Mary, she proudly announced). It was so realistic it was a little hard to watch. That’s pretty much all I got to see of the Semana Santa traditions because my family is evangelical, so they consider many of the catholic traditions to be pagan.

On Saturday we were off to the city to do some shopping, but first we went to Valle de Angeles, a pretty little tourist town bordering the city where I first stayed at orientation. We walked around a bit and looked at some interesting knick-knack stores, then headed off to eat a lunch of pupusas at a “pupuseria” and to do some shopping at the mall in Tegus. When I stepped into the shopping mall, I could hardly believe I was still in Honduras. The mall was huge and filled with American and European stores like Zara and Aldo and even designer brands. We shopped around a bit and then went to “Café Americano”, which is like the Honduran Starbucks, where I was ecstatic to see real actual espresso. After that, we headed back to the quaint town of Comayagua. I have another three days of vacation until school starts!

I took a ton of pictures this week, so I put them on facebook and for those of you creepers who aren't friends with me on facebook (hi, creepers!), I made a photobucket for you guys right here:

http://s1154.photobucket.com/albums/p521/blogginghonduras/

Or add me on facebook right here:

http://www.facebook.com/kaiti.pritchett

Semana Santa has begun

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It is officially Semana Santa! No school this week, YES! It's amazing what a relief that is to me considering I don't really do anything at school anyway. I think I'm going to get another vacation week in a few months for something called "student's week", whatever that is. They like vacations here! Woohoo!

One of the things I like about it being Semana Santa week is that everyone's so happy. At school on Friday the mood was palpably joyful, and Rosa has been giggly all weekend. It makes sense because they are all students who have been working really hard.

On Saturday Rosa and Giovanni and I went on a little road trip to La Paz, a little little town outside of this little town. We met up with some of Rosa's friends and somehow managed to cram eight people inside of one five-seater car, but that's completely normal here. (You should see my school "bus"! It's actually a van but at times there are twice as many people as seats). We drove around a bit, went to one of the girl's house who had lots of pets and literally dozens of birds, and we went to the park and ate ice cream and drank soda and acted silly. I didn't do much but watch and giggle at all of them because they were all so fun. Then Rosa and Giovanni and I went home and went to church.

On Sunday we went to church again, and then we went to Giovanni's huge house to swim in his pool. And then we got dressed and went on an adventure looking for Guajada cheese. Rosa has been telling me about Guajada cheese-- it's her favorite thing ever. She told me it's softer than The Honduran Cheese and it tastes better. So we drove to somebody's house and Giovanni asked them if they had Guajada, but they didn't, so we drove to Giovanni's grandparents house, and behold, they had a huge tub of it! We stood in the kitchen while the lady finished making it and then they gave us a baggie of it. We went back to Giovanni's and had a dinner of Guajada, beans, rice, and tortillas. Mmm! I didn't like the Guajada better than Honduran Cheese, but then again, I didn't love The Honduran Cheese when I first tried it and now I do, so I guess it's just one of those types of things you have to get used to.

Then Giovanni and Rosa started a movie, but I fell asleep before the opening credits, so I sorta missed out on that.

And today is monday! I just ate pancakes (which are here what we'd call crepes) and watched the last half of Finding Nemo and now I guess we'll probably spend the day doing mostly nothing. Tomorrow we're going on a camping trip with the church youth, so I'm excited for that!

My pictures have been pretty lame so I'm going to be trying to take more and better ones. I always feel like such a tourist pulling out my camera, but I essentially am a tourist so I don't know why this bothers me. I know I'll regret it later if I don't take enough!