Happy Hanukkah to me! Better late then never, as the special jew-package from my loving sister did not arrive until the day after the last night of Hanukkah…so my celebration was a bit delayed, but celebrate I did. (I even crafted dreidels out of paper, which is actually the second time I had to do such, the first time was that one Hanukkah I spent in the Mid-Pyrenees of France…la sigh…) I shared the little candle-lit menorah show and chocolate coins with two different families I have grown close to here in Cabañas—paper dreidel was a big hit!
Ever since I reluctantly designed the town’s central parque nativity scene I’ve been spending a lot of time explaining Judaism to coworkers and families. (The fact that those of the Jewish faith do believe in God has been punto #1 I’ve tried to put straight.) I feel like I need to go back to Hebrew school to answer all of their specific questions about the Jews and Jesus. I guess that’s what google is for….
The nativity scene is a really big deal here, and I can now say with pride that I’ve painted, glittered, and put to bed a baby Jesus. The constructing of the nativity scene was actually fun, since everyone from the muni helped and it was like a big arts and crafts project, which I have a soft-spot for in my little jewish heart.
During the real Festival of Lights I was mostly in transit due to a date w/the HPV vaccine. The trip to Teguc and back went pretty smooth—aunque largo, it’s do-able, as long as you have the mind set to be spending the entire day en ruta, which isn’t hard to do with a good book or an ipod fully charged. I arrived in Teguc with a splitting headache and just in time to get my lovely HPV shot. Peace Corps put me up in hotel Guadelope II where a couple other PCVs were staying for their Last Night in country…their 2 yrs was up! We dined at Quiznos b/c the main blvd. of Teguc looks like a section of the US Highway with every fast food joint with-in a 2-mile stretch. These big US chains don’t pay taxes to the Hondu government as part of an incentive for them to bring their golden arches and double-stuffed crusts to the developing world—as if there weren’t already enough malnutrition problems without the bigmac.
I was back into my sweet little cabañas after 3.5 days of travel, it felt like I’d been gone so long, and I was all smiles to be back—I set straight to scrubbing clothes in the pila, oh the pila—what was I like when I didn’t even know you existed?
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These past two weeks since Worlds AIDS Day I’ve continued my work with the Unidad Tecnica in executing the Asambleas Comunitarias. I’ve been transferring all the information from the meetings into excel documents to try and keep things organized and accessible for our future work. I’ve been typing every name of every inhabitant living in the aldeas, along with their number of identity and their role in the community—thus learning all the peculiar family names. Hondurans typically have two first names and two last names from both parents, that’s four names per-person. (For example: José Gilberto Valle Cruz. Or para una chica: Maria del Carmen Aguilar Pacheco.) Another list I’ve been creating consists of all the projects that the communities are requesting ERP funding for from the Municipalidad. The majority of pueblos want electricity, better water systems, usable roads, improved housing, bonos for single mothers and senior citizens, a kindergarden, a soccer field, pilas, better fogones (wood-burning stoves), and a machine to grind corn. If the proposals are drafted and the funds come through, these projects are all real possibilities. I will be eager to see if this ERP process will work or not. If the money will truly find its way to our tranquilo municipio…
Going up into the mountains and meeting the people who live without la luz everyday is one of those parts of my life here that change the way I see and think. Today we went up to two of the higher altitude comunidades: la Cumbre San Juan and Nueva Esperanza. I got to test out my ears’ progress in recognizing Honduran family names while I assisted in the lista de participantes…I recognized Aguilar, which is one I wouldn’t have known before, so that is progress, right?
The careterra was so feo up there from the rain and lodo that we had to ditch the truck and continue on horseback. (We tend to ditch the truck a lot when it’s raining) It was freezing—a wet misting cloud-surrounded day and for that, yo tengo el gripe en la garganta. The people who gathered in the meetings wore their frayed neon beach blankets and knit caps, and the large unlit cement building where the meeting took place felt like one dark, giant freezer.
I was thinking as I walked home from la Elma’s after showing her family my menorah and how to play dreidel, how easy it is to forget yourself here, and forget that riding horses in the frescita mountain ranges of Central America amidst the lush green coffee fields, is not a normal day, or would never have been a normal day back in the states. This kind of work doesn’t exist there…I don’t think. I like being constantly out of the office, not having a desk, no cubes. Yet I enjoy the times when I can sit and type away on my clean white Mac and create order out of the chaos, or rather invent a system, find the patterns, catch-on to the cycle, break it?
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Today my host dad showed up to the casa with a big ol’porker in-tow…that means blood will be a-flowing in the pila the day before Christmas…Last week it was a cow. An entire cow was skinned and cut and sawed and stuffed into the fridge. You couldn’t open it without a chunk falling out….I had to evacuate the tomatoes! Good thing it’s a family of men who grilled it, boiled it, and roasted it up; thus, ate it up in a mere couple of days, else the lack of electricity would’ve been a slight problem…
Speaking of the bloody—I saw my first cock fight (first and last). The cock owners actually lick the bloody heads of their roosters in between rounds. They stick the entire bloody feathered-cabeza in their mouths to clean it off. It’s not pretty, and the blood and violence and such is just not worth whatever slight entertainment value might come from the animal abuse. Though I have to admit it reminded me of boxing, and then of gladiators and the human enthusiasm for fights till the death. Why is blood so bad? Yet, why is fighting applauded? There is something very self-destructive in it all. In each peck, cluck cluck.
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Tonight on Canal Doce: Ernesto Grande’s evil twin Ernesto Bolo terrorizes the town of Cabañas!
It seems our local t.v. guy is an alcoholic. He was always a bit eccentric, verbose, loco—but now, he is a drunken menace, and the town is abuzz with Ernesto bashing. He showed up at our house nearly every night last week asking for my host sister’s hand in marriage, that is after he asked for some café and a tortilla toasted with queso. My host dad could barely get the guy to leave; the kids and I hid in our rooms. The next night, he asked for my hand in marriage, that was after he pleaded for comida y cafécito again. This time, we just didn’t open the door. A few people now have him on video being bolo-of-the-month on their cell phones. Everyone in town seems to have their own Ernesto-encounter to share. This is my first real taste of how powerful chisme (gossip) is in a small town. I predict much Enersto Bolo chisme this Christmas eve as the families gather to eat their chickens and hams and the niños set off firecrackers till dawn…Pop pop pop*
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