Written on Monday, September 2/ Saturday, September 7
Wow. What another jam-packed week. It is now Monday and I’m finally getting around to writing
my blog from last week. I know that this one will be long too. I hope that you
find my thoughts and experiences interesting and that I’m not just rambling on.
I know the first couple of weeks were more thematic but I found it’s easier to
capture my thoughts by days now that I have more things to do than I did in the
first couple of weeks. Hope you
enjoy this one! This week I was super productive and started to feel like I was
actually accomplishing something.
Sunday, August 25- Sunday started out how all Sundays
do- slow. I can’t say I minded
that much. It is nice to sleep in and be a little lazy. After the two super
busy weeks, I was looking forward to a day of writing some emails and watching
a little TV. It must have been
something in the water but five pregnant women in labor came into the
clinic. I have to say that I had
been itching to see a birth. In
Honduras, there aren’t restrictions like there are in the US, which does work
to my advantage at times! In this case, it was fantastic. Daira had her turno (direct translation
is a turn but really it used on call) and she had promised she would call when
one of the women was due to start pushing. That she did.
Around 2:00, I threw on a borrowed scrub top (yes I did feel a little
more official with one on). Betty,
one of the nurses showed how me to put on all of the gear- apron, mask with a
little plastic sheet to cover my nose (mine kept fogging up and I kept having
to wipe it off with my finger), booties, and gloves. I forgot to get a picture of myself in this getup but next
time I will certainly make it happen.
I looked ridiculous. When I
entered the room, I was quite confused.
For a split second, I thought that the woman (who was actually just a
girl of seventeen years) was an American or at least a foreigner. She was BLONDE! A blonde Honduran; her
hair was even lighter than mine.
It really threw me for a loop.
While I will spare you all the gory details of the birth, I will tell
you that witnessing a birth was such an experience. After watching, I’m not necessarily looking forward to my
own but…. Yes there were lots of gross bodily fluids, but when the baby girl
finally was born, I almost cried.
I held the baby and helped take her stats. She was so beautiful and it was almost too much to realize
that the girl was now a part of the world when she hadn’t been just a few
minutes before. I mean I know that
the baby had been in utero before that but I just seemed so surreal when she
wasn’t anymore. I’m not sure if I
can really explain it well enough but it was indeed an emotional experience. I felt very privileged to have been
there with this girl during her time.
The only downer was that she was seventeen on her second baby. I
wondered what kind of a life that baby would have. It’s not to say that I thought that she wasn’t fit to be a
mom. I had no room to say
whether or not this was true but I felt as if someone or something had failed
her. Did she choose to have that baby? Was it planned? I sort of hated that my brain was
clouded with these thoughts after such a profound experience. It was indeed all
I expected and more. I couldn’t
wait to see another.
Monday, August 26- Monday wan’t a bad day
either. I started the day by
finally making it to the school in Santa Lucia to sit in on Profe Rene’s sixth
grade class.
Profe Rene is a great man. He owns the little office supplies store right next to the
clinic, is the sixth grade teacher, AND he is the head of the comité (ie: town
hall). Basically he functions as our mayor because Freddy the real one, doesn’t
do much of anything but secure kickbacks for himself and drink himself into a
stupor (despite the fact that Santa Lucia is a dry municipality). During recess, I sat with Profe Rene as
he explained more about the comité and the daily lives of the residents
of Santa Lucia. I especially
enjoyed his class on science because they talked about global warming and
natural disasters.
It became the day of teachers because in the afternoon I
went to visit Profe Luis. We had
our little chat (as we always do) and the best thing happened- he decided to
start up his teen club again. We
picked the date we would start and I had a skip in my step as I walked back to
the clinic. One of the best parts
of my job is working with him.
It’s hard to imagine two better people in the community than Profe Rene
and Profe Luis. It pains me that
they aren’t others like them. (I
even tried to convince Profe Luis to run for mayor in the election in Novmber. He said the only way to win against the
current mayor is to pay people off and he refuses to do that.) While Santa Lucia wouldn’t be a place
that anyone would list on the top ten best cities to live in Honduras, I put it
on my list solely because I get to spend time with people like Profe Rene and
Profe Luis.
Tuesday, August 27- Tuesday is pancake day so, in my
opinion, Tuesdays always start out great.
I stuffed a few pancakes in my mouth before heading off to Magdalena to
check out my very first club de jovenes (teen club). It wasn’t anything too exciting.
There were seven kids. Wendy, the health promoter, gave them a charla, which
the kids didn’t seem to mind. I
think it is because this is really what they are used to. I was itching for them to have a more
engaging activity. I talked with
Wendy and Gladys (the two health promoters) about trying to go a different
route. They seemed excited about
the prospect and were willing to give it a shot. Hopefully we can make something happen!
My afternoon was just as satisfying. StoS has just started a partnership
with a high school in Kentucky to work with the Yo Puedo program. In fact, I am
one of the first people to work with the school so I spent an hour chatting
with the Spanish teacher at this all girls’ high school. Her energy renewed mine and we had
things rolling before the end the call was even half over. It was exciting to have someone just as
I excited as I was about working with the young girls in the community
here. We decided that we would
start a big sister/ little sister writing campaign as well as a fundraiser for
a retreat. It would host one girl
from each of the Yo Puedo programs to be held in Santa Lucia in October. I am really looking forward to this
event and I think the girls will love the sleepover and the opportunity to meet
other girls from the frontier and it will be a way for me to get a better grasp
on how the girls feel about the program and what we need to do to improve
it.
Wednesday/ Thursday, August 28/29- Wednesday didn’t
start off so great. I boarded the 7am bus to spend time with Profe Iris and
Sonia in Camasca. About half way into the ride, I remembered that it was my
mom’s birthday and that I should text her to send my best wishes that was until
I lost my phone. I reached in my
pocket and it wasn’t there. I
looked everywhere but couldn’t find it.
I even had someone call it several times. And it was off- ie: I think it fell out of my pocket and
someone picked it up. Casuality #1 of Honduras.
When I got to Camasca, I had a meeting with Sonia, Director
of Yo Puedo program. After
reviewing the details of my call from the day before, it was only ten minutes
before we were hard at work planning details and writing proposals. Sonia and I were at it all day and our
energy just seemed to grow. It seemed like the ideas that Stacey and I came up
with were well-received. I felt on
top of the world.
Had dinner with Edu, this guy from Barcelona who was volunteering in Camasca for a few weeks,
and Andrew at Profe Iris’ house.
Edu gave his personal history and quite an oration on the financial and
political situation in Spain. I have to say that I loved every minute of it. It is times like these where I feel
like I’m really able to make headway in learning Spanish. I spoke for an hour
about taxes and loans. Edu was an interesting character and I sincerely enjoyed
hearing his story over a beautifully prepared meal of fish (though the fish had
mad bones so it was little difficult to eat!). I stayed at Profe Iris’ house in her spare room and was
awoken around 5am by the multitude of animals that roamed her yard. Thursday I spent at the bilingual
school and was back to Santa Lucia at the end of the day to rejuvenate and
catch some soundless sleep.
Friday, August 30- Friday was a slow day. The rains came to greet us for the
entire day, which had meant that it was not only a slow day for me but for
nearly everybody. This worked to
our advantage because Friday was the despedida (going away party) for Victoria-
one of the permanent doctors in the clinic who also happened to be my neighbor
upstairs. Daira, a fantastic
illustrator, made a card before she ran off for the day and I spent an hour in
the library coloring it. Something
that struck me was how hard it was to find just the right color for the little
make-believe picture of Victoria.
There was no color for her skin.
It wasn’t quite the “peach” (aka the color that I used to call skin
color before I realized that it was politically incorrect to do so) that they
include in the box nor was the brown quite it either. I ended up spending twenty minutes digging through the
crayon box testing color combinations together. I know you are all expecting it but here it is- It really
made me aware of the privilege that I have being a person with white skin (a
gringa in Honduras, which happens not to be a derogatory term like it is in
places in Mexico.) I wondered what it would be like to not have a color in the
Crayola box for me. The same thing
struck me when I went to find a color for her hair. It wasn’t quite black and it wasn’t quite brown so I sat
again trying to find what color combination of blacks and browns made the picture
most Victoria-like. It
seemed so insignificant and silly but I wondered what would have happened if I
had colored her peach. I ran the
scenarios over and over in my head.
Would she had even noticed or cared? It wasn’t for me to say so I just did my best and moved
on. After agonizing over crayon
colors, I figured it was time to get to work.
That was until Lizeth came in. She’s a student at the local colegio and comes in for help
with English sometimes. I hate to
say that when I saw her I was a little flustered but I sat down with her
nonetheless and helped her with her work.
She had a test coming up so we went over some of the test material and
afterwards she handed me a page that she had to read to the class. Now, there are some sounds that don’t
translate from Spanish very well- like the ch/sh and g sounds. We practiced over and over, saying
certain words ten or fifteen times.
It took the energy right out of me. We struggled through a whole page of elegantly written text
about Honduras in a travel magazine. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what it
meant but by the end, she was pronouncing those words left and right. I felt proud to see her doing well and
actually looked forward to her next visit!
The evening was the despedida for Victoria- one of our
permanent doctors who was going off to more schooling. She was a great doctor and an even
better friend. We wanted to
celebrate her so we planned a little party. Maria, our chef, made a great
dinner with carne asada and potatoes, avocado, cheese. It was the works. Flor, Daira, and I decided to order a
cake as well from the bakery in Magdalena. And the two of them also bought a piñata, which Daira and I
transformed from just a beach ball into a cute little monster-like
creature. The night was
great. We all ate dinner together
and afterwards, many of the others went around sharing memories and kind words
for Victoria. And in typical
Honduran fashion, the lights went out so we had some of her party in the
dark. Thankfully they returned just
in time for cake (which Hondurans insist must be consumed with Coke… weird?)
and the piñata.
Saturday/Sunday (August 31 and September 1)- I woke
up early to catch the 7am bus to Camasca so I could hitch a ride with Andrew
and Edu in a car that was leaving from there. This trip to La Esperanza was quite different than the
last. My weekend previously had
been relaxing- catching up on TV, spending time eating at good restaurants, and
catching up with friends and family on FaceTime. This time when I went to La Esperanza, I went with the
guys. Andrew, from Camasca, and
Edu from Barcelona. I showed the
boys the creperia that I had gone to with Kate and Scott weeks before and we
all shared the afternoon there (seriously it was almost half the afternoon
because Honduran service is SO slow) and We went to Rinchon Lenca for
dinner. I had a hamburger and
French fries (A HAMBURGER AND FRENCH FRIES!!) and afterwards we went upstairs
for karaoke. Doing karaoke in
Honduras was certainly not on my list of things to check off but it was fun.
They had both English and Spanish songs and I bobbed along to the beat of all
of them. When we finished, it
seemed as if we had scared everyone off because we were the only patrons there. We didn’t care. We were off to another club where
Elmer, the son of the principal from Camasca tried to teach me how to
dance. I had a little liquid
courage but I’m pretty sure that I still was a horrible dancer. Actually I know
I was a horrible dancer. We
finished up at the infamous club El Fogon and after it closed, we went up to La
Gruta to see the lights from the city.
Looking back, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea for all of us to
climb the steep steps to the makeshift shrine grotto thing but it was worth it
when we reached the top and saw the landscape of the city in lights.
On Sunday, we went to the market and the grocery store
before heading back in Elmer’s car. I caught the bus from Camasca when we
arrived. Because there is only one
bus, I met Flor when I hopped on.
We chatted and caught up as we were on our way. I was ready for a shower
and some food when we arrived but of course there was no electricity. Instead,
I tried my hand at the Chinese restaurant with some fried rice and showered in
the dark (in the cold water) before retreating to my room. I read a bit before heading off to
sleep to greet the new week. I was ready for whatever the world would throw my
way.
I know you all said it and I know you are all shaking your
heads saying “I told you so”. You
were all right; I just needed time.
After this week, I feel like I’m on the right trajectory and all of my
complaining and whining and being upset and frustrated and and and… Maybe it wasn’t
all necessary. Patience is a
virtue. I guess I just haven’t learned how to virtuous. I’m trying. So this week, try something
you aren’t good at. You may
surprise yourself :)
I would say until next week but it will probably be another
another week before I churn out another blog. So instead I’ll just say, until
next time-
Becca
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