Sounds of the Night

Honduras is a noisy place. They don’t really have the same “respect” for quiet like we Americans do. There is usually someone in the neighborhood playing loud music, there’s people shouting, cars honking, dogs barking loudly, etc. Also, most Honduran homes have window slats (kept open except when it rains) to let air circulate through the house, so all the noise floats in. (Window slats are key when you don’t have air conditioner in the tropics.) When other volunteers come to our house they say we have a peaceful neighborhood, so you can just imagine.

The neighborhood behind ours on the hill is a neighborhood of “escasos recursos” they say here (scarce resources) and they’ve got more farm animals then you will find in our neighborhood. At night, about every 3 hours starting around 11ish, the farm animals get all stirred up and sing in chorus. Dogs, roosters and donkeys will bark, crow and hee-haw for like 10-15 minutes straight.

But Monday morning was the craziest night commotion yet, even beating the THOUSANDS (literally) of firecrackers that were set off here on Christmas Eve.

Javi and I were sound asleep in the wee-hours of the morning (around 4 am) when I awoke to the sound of a parade marching past our house. Yes, a full-on parade at 4 AM…..a school band with drums and xylophones, cars honking, a loud speaker. When I woke up I put my hand on Javi’s side of the bed, but he had moved to the “sofa” since he sometimes can’t sleep at night and needs to change his sleeping environment. I got up and went to find him, but when I looked at the "sofa" I couldn’t see him (it was dark and I was sleepy, after all). All of sudden, he bolts up from the "sofa" and starts running into the bedroom, head down, almost plowing me over. His eyes are wild. He was freaking out because he had just woken up and had yet to figure out what was going on. I’m shouting at him "ITS A PARADE!", trying to be heard over the noise (it was that loud!). They even gave us the courtesy of crossing by our house TWICE.

Of course, later in the day we were asking people what that hell that was all about. Some people didn’t think it was a big deal but there were a few people who thought it was kind of outrageous. Anyway, the consensus was that it was a school celebrating their anniversary.

WEIRD!

Classy Wedding Honduran Style

The director of the Programa Comayagua Colonial and our main counterpart, Ana Carolina, got married in Tegucigalpa this weekend. It was quite an affair, and one of the more fun weddings we've been to in awhile!

Here she is surrounded by some of the finer looking gentlemen of the PCC:


For the staff of the PCC, it was a big deal to be invited to a wedding like this one. It was a formal, elegant wedding in the capital (Ana comes from a well off family) and many middle class Hondurans just don't get to go to things like that. (Remember - like 65% of the country lives below the poverty line which is about $425 a month).

They obsessed FOREVER about what they were going to wear (for weeks before) and even started freaking us out!

I went and bought a sparkly little number for the event since I did not exactly plan on bringing a formal dress with me to peace corps. Here we are:

I've got a funny little side story about that dress. I bought it in a "boutique" store in downtown Comayagua. It was a new dress, with the price tag from the store that originally tried to sell it in the States, the price still in dollars. Things like that, that don't sell, are shipped off to places like Honduras, where they are bought and sold again. I paid about $20 for the dress, much lower than it origanally cost, and was feeling very proud of myself for having done so well.

Well, the waitress at our table at the wedding would put an end to that! When she came to our table to introduce herself as our server, she explained that she was new and was sorry if she made any mistakes. Well, later in the evening when she was bringing Javi and I our glasses of wine we ordered, she made one of the mistakes she was afraid of making.....she spilled an entire glass of wine down the back of my dress! Here is a picture of the aftermath (if you can see it):

So much for feeling well dressed among Tegucigalpa's finest! Oh well!!!

As a Latin wedding should, the party lasted late into the night. We tried to leave earlier with a few work friends, but the bride caught us and dragged us back. We ended up staying until the end and closing the place down. Here we are, the last table of probably at least 350 guests.

Oh, one more thing, we learned an important cultural lesson when we showed up for the wedding ceremony, which was scheduled for 7 pm. Nothing, not even weddings, start on time in Honduras. The gringos (we were the only ones) showed up at 7 on the dot, a little stressed about showing up at that hour. No worries! The only other people there were about 5 other family members! The actually ceremony did not start until 7:45. Sigh.....when will we learn?

But it was good times and much needed fun after a sort of so-so month.

Oh, you know, the usual

Wow! Long time, no write…. Sorry about that, but sometimes, there is nothing to say. Life has been, well you know, sort of normal these days. Even living in Honduras it eventually gets to that point. I figured enough somewhat interesting things had happened over the last month or so to constitute a blog entry, so here it goes.

What have we been up to? Well, we found out about a grant opportunity for the Vivero de Empresas program we helped start at the Escuela Taller, so we decided to go for it. $50,000 from the World Bank. We heard about it late, with only a week and a half to pull it together, but we did it and we were proud of the proposal we turned out. The day before we turned it in we worked about 12 hours each, until 1 am, which is not exactly the usual work hours we put in. It was fun and challenging, so even if we don’t get it, we can say we put in our best effort. But since we’ve turned it in, and returned to the normal pace, we’ve both felt sort of weird with out the deadlines and challenges of the project we just completed…..more ups and downs on this roller coaster.

Other things….

Remember this guy?

Well, he has somehow recovered from his skin disease and has grown most of his hair back. He looks so much better (and happy)! Its hard to believe its the same dog.

I’ve been planting a few things with seeds my mom sent me from home.

And theres been more of the usual other random stuff we deal with, like people at work or people we know asking us to get them visas to the States….and trying to explain that we can't exactly do that for them. Theres also been the usual flow of “piropos” of varying levels of vulgarity. (Remember, piropos literally mans “complements” here, but I like to interpret it as “sexual harassment by disgusting men on the street”). I laugh, sometimes I'm angry at them, sometimes I think its so sad that it has to be that way here. I have to deal with it for two years but the women who live here deal with it their whole lives and it becomes ingrained in their psyche....

On another subject, fruit is especially delicious right now with all the heat. Mangos, bananas, papayas (not my favorite, but available), berries, so many tasty things for SO cheap. We were given these beautiful bananas by one of our neighbors….

So, we are coming up on our one year anniversary in site. We have now crossed over the half way point of our time here, and have less time to go then we've spent here in Honduras. Sometimes it seems like not enough and sometimes it seems like ENOUGH and going home is SO far away......la vida hondurena.