Trabajo Social

 

  I had a great weekend. The volunteer work turned out to be really fun. We started out our day by piling into very Honduran-styled transportation-- the back of a giant truck.  If I thought riding in a car with a seatbelt in a country with no speed limits, no regard for traffic rules, and an incredibly low amount of actual roads was scary, this was terrifying. But it was a fun kind of terrifying, with everybody screaming and laughing and falling over each other, and it was a pretty good way to get woken up. I tried to avoid doing the math about the statistic probability of my earthly termination.
    We rode to a little town outside of Comayagua, and we went to a school where we were expected to take down the stone wall surrounding the school. I got the feeling I wasn’t expected to do much--they didn’t even put me in a group! But I was excited about having something to work hard at for once. I am a hard worker and I wanted to prove that just because I am a “rubia” gringa who doesn’t understand Spanish or anything at school doesn’t mean that I am a lazy useless blob! So I surprised everyone by working my very hardest. Some people actually got mad at me because I made them look lazy, so people kept taking my shovel and forcing me to take breaks. They kept complaining that I was making them work even though I never said anything! “Tranquila, Kaiti!” they whined.  “Descansase.”
    At lunch I reunited with Kenia, Sonia, Merlin, and Prins, the girls I had hung out with at the Convivencia. I love them so much! They’re all really silly and they make me laugh so hard. We got on the topic of dancing, and I told them that they need to teach me because I am a gringa and I absolutely cannot dance. I showed them “gringa dancing” which was like a really bad imitation of snookie-meets-lady gaga, and they got a kick out of it. Then Merlin stood up and tried to show me how to dance, but Jorge, one of the boys from the other class, took over. He told me to imitate what his feet did, so I did, and everyone told me that I did good but I needed to move my butt more. So I moved my butt and everyone was like “perfect!” Wow, um, that’s it? There were cameras present, so there is probably photographic evidence of this experience somewhere on the internet. Great.
    So I rode in the back of a truck, worked all day, and danced during lunch break-- it was a very Honduran day! I’m still sore (and it’s Tuesday!) but it was a great day and it was definitely worth it.
    On Sunday we went to church and to Giovanni’s house to watch movies. We watched Rango and Puss in Boots and went to his Aunt’s house for dinner. In retrospect I probably seemed grumpy because I was so tired that I didn’t really talk all day, but it was a good day. I love Giovanni’s family, they’re nice and they make me feel at home. Monday I went to school and I had today off for some sort of holiday. I’ve just been relaxing and I went to lunch with Sra Ortega, Rosa, Giovanni, and Rosa’s uncle. We were going to go to a Tilapia restaurant but we had a kind of funny experience there. Everyone there was hammered and singing Karaoke really loudly. My host mom asked the waitress for a menu, and she was like “we don’t have one”. She asked, well, what do you have then? And the waitress said “Tilapia”…and then she left and didn’t take our order. What, was she waiting for us to decide? Haha. So we ended up going to Carne Asada.

Oh yeah, and this is the menu at "Wendy's". Funny.

School tomorrow!!!

In Honduras, everything is hot. The days are hot, the nights are hot, the food is hot, the coffee is hot, the people are hot. But the showers are consistently, inexplicably freezing COLD! At orientation they warned me that I probably wouldn't have hot water, but luckily, the water here is room-temperature, at best, warmer than it was at the hotel. The days here are so hot that I don't mind too much, but it's just another thing to get used to.

Yesterday I tried my hand at using the Pila for the first time. The Pila is a rather brilliant clothes-washing contraption designed to use the smalled amount of soap, energy, and water as possible. Since the plumbing in Central America is inconsistent, the basin stores clean water and it has a bumpy board you can scrub your clothes on, and drainage around the sides. You pour water on to your clothes, scrub some soap on, and then as soon as you pour more water on it washes all the soap and dirt off of the board and you can squeeze it dry and hang it on the line. As I washed my clothes, I tried to think Honduran thoughts and not be bothered by the fact that a turtle lives in my source of clean water and my delicates will be hanging on a clothesline, flapping in the wind for all the world to see. I felt very cool and eco-friendly, and I'm started to think that those hemp-wearing, can-recycling, dreadlock-rocking hippies in Bellingham are all hypocrites and they should move to Honduras and see what green really looks like.

When Sra Ortega came home we had a dinner of cheese-filled tortillas and what appeared to be pickled onions and peppers and cabbage or something, and it was really good. I think they were called Popusas? Something like that. I also found out that I will, indeed, be attending Instituto Marista La Immaculada, and today my host mama was kind enough to take some time off of work to take me to the bank, and to coffee, and to buy some things that I need for my uniform. I had been kind of excited to get a uniform, because it saves me from having to decide what to wear, but my uniform is absolutely heinous. All of the uniforms that I have seen around town have been pretty cute: blue or beige pleated knee-length skirts, high socks, mary-janes, but mine consists of a below-the-knee brown skirt, a white blouse, white ankle socks, and black pleather oxfords. For PE I have to wear a white t-shirt and long brown shorts made out of the same material as the skirt. Blech. I got two skirts, two shirts, two blouses, two undershirts, two pairs of socks, a pair of shorts, and shoes for under $1300 lempiras, which is less than $65US, so yeah, stuff here is cheap. I'm still glad I have a uniform and everybody at the school will be dressed in the same horrible outfit I'll be dressed in, so I suppose it's a silly thing to be vain about.

Tomorrow I start school! I'll be wearing jeans for the first week or so until my skirt is done being made, but maybe I'll put up a picture of my uniform when I have it. Maybe.