Yesterday was the perfect Saturday. I woke up early for a run in the mountains with my newfound running group of fellow women trainees. Las vistas from the top of the extremely steep dirt road are amazing. You can see all of Tegucigalpa from one side and all of Santa Lucia from the other. Grace, the 13 year-old host sister of Carmen (fellow trainee), accompanied us and it was so nice to talk with a kid! It’s just easier to ask kids questions when you don’t speak perfect Spanish! Once back home @ the beautiful Casa de Herrera, I showered in my electraducha (equals Hot water!) and set myself to studying outdoors on the patio. While sitting, basking, conjugating verbs, my host father, Wilfredo was squatting nearby meticulously hacking away at a coconut with a machete. His perseverance paid off and eventually he held a small, round, and very hairy little coconut. After the coconut was born, Wilfredo ran to the kitchen and back out again to present me with a small glass of coconut juice. I tasted it, with the same cautious sips that I drank the liver soup from anoche, and after two sips I thought…not bad, but could use some rum! (I don’t die from not consuming alcohol, but I’m not going to lie, I miss my after work glass of vino.)
After my delicious baleada lunch I met up with a fellow trainee, Brianna, to purchase minutes for my new Tigo cell phone. We left the pulparia and walked further into town where a local artisan shop with handicrafts kept a monkey and toucan as pets. Brianna felt bad for the prisoners and fed them some wheat crackers, and it was really sad. We left there and ran into Cynthia and Jennifer (more trainees) at a great little resto where they shared their delicious lunch with us. The nachos w/beans were amazing. Then Dan showed up with news about the near-by library and its local artist’s exhibit. So after lunch we went to discover the small local library. Courtney (yet another trainee) was there studying for a Spanish class assignment. I found a hilarious book entitled “Ojitos” about an octopus with 8 eyes that all saw different things in the world. The art exhibit at the top of the staircase did indeed have some really great pieces, and eerily the same kind of big freaky faces that I had painted what seems like as eons ago…Again, the vistas from the library art exhibit were amazing.
Once we departed from the library we grabbed some chocobananos, which are frozen bananas dipped in chocolate--cheap and good. Then Cynthia showed us her pad—room of blue walls, a bed with Spiderman sheets, and a sofa. After the quick visit we went to the only Coffee Shop in town for cappuccinos that put Starbucks to shame. (It only cost 12 limperas, which is under a dollar) I asked the women there if they had heard of Starbucks, they had not. Once the caffeine was sucked down we stopped by the park were some more trainees were hanging about, and then we all headed home to prepare for that night’s fiesta!
The fiesta involved all the host families and trainees en al centro de capacitation (which is basically our school house). The fiesta was fun. I felt time-warped into a surreal mix between a batmitzvah and a middle school dance. We are an interesting group. To everyone’s amusement I ended up dancing a traditional dance with a very old and pequeña woman who took me completely by surprise. I asked her if she liked to dance, and before I knew it, We were in the middle of the empty dance floor surrounded by everyone laughing. Her grasp and gestures reminded me of polka dancing in my grandmother Alberta’s kitchen. There are just certain touches and smells that are reserved for grandmothers dancing.
Today it’s my second Sunday here, and I spent it doing laundry and homework. I stopped by the café again to sketch, but ended up running into a bunch of fellow trainees, so I just hung around talking with everyone. Kristen was out of the hospital so that was a relief! Apparently she had Dengue Fever, which is not good! Luckily she is fine now thanks to her family’s and PC’s quick responses. It’s really nice to be so taken care of by others, and the community you form, and the way you blatantly need one another and ask for that support is refreshing. Everyone has a strength to offer, and not many are afraid to offer it up. And so I’ve returned home just as the rain was beginning to spoil the fruits of my laundering, and now I’m surrounded by my damp, but sweetly fragrant, and colorful panties.
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