amapala

this weekend was our first three day weekend, and the entire group was determined to make the most of it. the majority, including myself, chose to go to the island of Le Tigre, just off the southern coast of honduras. the island is very small, and is made out of a volcano. the tiny village there is called Amapala, and that was our destination. the adventure started as soon as we got to the bus station. no, that particular bus service was not running today. seriously? we went down the street, where we heard there was another station. as we were walking, a bus headed to Choluteca, the final stop of the bus route, passed us in the dirt road and offered to take us. weird. didn’t you need to reserve a seat or something? oh no. no seats on this ride. that’s right, 2 hours standing in the aisle on an old greyhound-style bus. i guess it was normal though. after a second bus (we got to sit for this one), we found ourselves on a misty cement pier, and although the night was a dark blue, we could make out lights on the opposite shore at the base of a huge cone-shaped lump. our boat was a glorified canoe (made out of metal, i think), with an outboard motor, large enough to fit about 15 people. the ocean was warm like a summer pool, and the splashes of water along with speed of the boat was perfect in the humid night. from the dock, we made our way through the quiet town to our hotel, where we had a late dinner and met some germans. before going to bed, though, my friend Karah and i couldn’t resist a midnight swim in the ocean, which at night was as black as ink. the next day, Karah and I got up at 5 a.m. to climb the volcano. the gate out of the hotel was locked, however, and there was barbed wire on top of the wall. strangely, we found a set of keys in the door of the kitchen and one of them opened the padlock. it was still dark, and we quickly realized that...we didn’t know how to get to the base of the mountain. we asked some fisherman who were already awake, but they said we needed a taxi to get there, and that we should wait until it was light, because there were dangerous animals. um. well we followed their pointed fingers to the center of town, where we saw a man sitting with some bags of bread on the corner of a church. we asked him how to get to the mountain, and he said we needed a car, but to follow him. um. but strangely, we did. he led us down the street, and stopped at a house. “aqui.” he opened the gate and started up a tiny, three wheeled vehicle, which we learned lately was an island taxi. for $1.50 he took us on a 5 minute drive to the base. it was very odd, but at least we were there. the climb was very steep and very consistently so. the hike itself was very pretty, but at the top. oh at the top. the central american coast spread out as far as we could see, El Salvador on the left, Honduras in the middle, and Nicaragua to the south, with tiny islands dotting the surface of the grey Pacific. on the top of the volcano lives a solitary watchman, who guards some kind of signal tower. his name was Walter Martinez and we chatted with him.

later that day, we took a truck taxi to Playa Negra, where the sand was black. i finished a book and got tanner and swam a little. there were two guys from Spain who we met there who were involved in development on the island. during the course of the afternoon, Karah and i went out scavenging for food, because we hadn’t eaten lunch after our volcanic conquest. we found a pulperia (which is a tiny convenience store which are everywhere here), hoping to find some fruit or chips or little breads or at least a coke. we saw some banana-like things, but they were plantains, which are not good raw. we made sure by asking the woman if one had to cook them to eat, and she said yes, but also that she would prepare them if we wanted. IF we wanted. oh yes we wanted. asking only $1.50, she made us fried plantains, scrambled eggs, a stack of tortillas, and “butter” which was like a thick sour cream, washed down with a bottle of pepsi. it was incredible. Karah and i feasted right there at a small table, which their family probably ate at, on her own dishes, with her kids giggling at us from outside the door and her pigs and chickens running all around the yard. it was so unexpected and unreal. but there it was.

on the way back to Tegucigalpa the next day, we had a good look at the rural setting which we had driven past in the dark. it reminded me a lot of Kenya actually: dry, sleepy, surviving. a people hesitantly stepping out by inches from their traditions into a developing world, a little bewildered and doing their best on $2 a day.

a dixie cupful

i feel that updating this blog is like trying to pour water into a dixie cup out of a water barrel.

yesterday was el dia de amor y amistad. i suppose they add the “amistad” (friendship) to be more inclusive, or less emphatic on eros. in latin american culture, though, i don’t know why they bother. an interesting piece of information is that most couples here are not married, but exist in a common law arrangement or free union. it lends a definite degree of fluidity to the state of affairs. there are an inordinate amount of single mothers, which no doubt adds to the poverty, desperation, and struggle that exists in honduras. i am not one for statistics, but to know that 70% of the population lives on $2 a day or less is...well, unimaginable. yesterday we visited a neighborhood called Nueva Suyapa, one of the poorest in the city. we went to talk to some of the women who lived there, who were a part of a group called Mujeres Valientes (Courageous Women) who been abused by their lovers and left to fend for themselves and their children. their determination in the face of the impossible circumstances of urban poverty was inspiring and challenging, and left me wondering why my burdens in this life have been so light, while others are given such heavy ones.

i am becoming more accustomed to life here. my spanish is improving at a surprising pace. i’ve only studied it formally for two years in high school (which was about 5 years ago), and then off and on during short trips to latin america, but i never really practiced it or learned new grammar or anything. it is such an important key to getting along in a culture, though. i’m able to talk to my family here, get directions on the street, order food, and understand instructions. i don’t know how long it would take to become “fluent” but i hope i’ll keep improving back in california and so maybe someday i will be. also, the Queen of la Casa (my two year old sister) has become quite attached to me lately. i am not a “two year old” kind of person by nature, and at first her crying and spoiledness was hard to enjoy. but she has learned my name now, or a portion of it, and calls me “esi.” at first she would call me “aki” because jackie was the student from last year, or “ali” because that was the student from january. but now i am esi and i must supply her with a papel and a zapi (“lapiz” which is a pencil) so she can do homework with me and i must draw a gato and i must sit and watch “a high school musical” 98 times per week. yes, your majesty, i will do those things because you are so cute. absolute power corrupts absolutely.

we have been given spanish tutors that are in high school or slightly older, to help us learn and to give us a chance to make friends with some honduran. my tutor is a 19-year old girl named Líjia. she is pretty and kind, very shy and understated. she is studying computer science at college and lives in Nueva Suyapa. we meet with the tutors on monday at the university, which is in the middle of the city, and on wednesdays in Nueva Suyapa, where they all live. this past saturday we took them to AGAFAM, which is like the state fair of honduras, and gave me flashbacks of the Grape Festival. yesterday at Nueva Suyapa we played a game of fútbol, gringos vs. hondureños, the height of injustice. even though we did slightly outnumber them, our feeble and aggressive attempts at the sport were no match against their graceful skill, which i hypothesize is a genetic trait of all iberian descendents. the score was decently even until the end, when they decided to actually play. it was such a good time, though.

the first week

wow, well, there has been a lot transpiring since i last wrote. i think all the students here, including myself, feel that we’ve been here for months, when it hasn’t even been a week. not in the way that it’s been a drag and time is passing slowly, but there has just been so much to take in and accept as our own. i am extremely happy though. each day holds many new things and we just take ‘em as they come. after such a slow-paced christmas break, though, i sometimes miss having time to relax. so here are some highlights from the past week:
-the first day of class: this was on friday. i have spanish from 8:30 – 11:30 and a development class from 12:30 – 2:30 each day. this month in development we are studying the history, people, and general context of honduras, which has been great. i am in the intermediate spanish class, and i’m keeping up really well. i can understand everything the teacher says in spanish, given that she choses pretty simple words most of the time.
-downtown scavenger hunt: on saturday morning we split into teams of three people and went on a scavenger hunt in downtown tegucigalpa. we had gone down there on thursday with the professors, but now we had to find our own way! it was fantastic. the hunt ended uptown at La Basilica de Suyapa, (the Virgin de Suyapa is the patron saint of honduras), where a festival was taking place to celebrate her. after we all met up there, some girls and i went to Tacos Tados, our new favorite place to eat, where i got a meal of two tostados for $1.25, including a bottle of coke. unreal. another example of how inexpensive food is here, i ate lunch today for about 75 cents (a wheat roll, some cheese, and a large banana), and the cheese was 70% of that. water can be bought in a sealed plastic bag (so fun!) for 5 cents. how am i going to go back to living in southern california?
-retreat: from sunday afternoon to monday afternoon, we went up to a national forest called La Tigra. it was up in the mountains just outside of tegucigalpa. it was so nice to get out of the noisy city and up to cool of the forest. we took turns telling our life stories to the group. i had been talking to and getting to know a lot of the students before, but now they took on a whole new clarity and dimension. when i met them all at the airport, they seemed really similar, but now i can see that they are all very different. this program does attract an interesting type of person though. for instance, no one is really obnoxious, which is a rarity, if you have ever been in any number of small groups. we think that this is because people who are interested in development and willing to live in honduras can’t be too self-centered or insensitive to other people. we’ll see though. we’ve only been together for a week. on monday morning we hiked up to a waterfall. the hike was beautiful, and the waterfall was cool, but some of us were not satisfied until we had climbed to the TOP of the waterfall. so four of us basically trailblazed up through the forest/jungle for about 40 minutes. it was pretty steep, sometimes vertical, and the waterfall was nowhere in sight (or sound) but the further we went the more we wanted to make sure this climb was worth it. finally we made our way to what we thought was the top, but which was actually about 50 feet above the top we had seen from the base. there was a beautiful little waterfall and pool of clear water, and below we could see the frothy head of the main falls. the way down the hill was faster and much more fun. when we could, we would grab tree vines and repel down the muddy slope, but otherwise we would support ourselves from small tree to small tree, letting gravity swing us down, hoping the next tree was the mossy kind, or bamboo, and not the kind with thorns on the trunk. it was the most exhilarating thing i’ve done in a long while.
mm, this is a lot. and not even the half of it all. more to come later, and hopefully i can get some pictures on here. much love,

jessica.