Another Cool Pocket

Since I’ve last posted, many pleasant things have happened.

First of all, I gave in and bought some expensive, yet quality, speakers. Right now, ironically (seriously, I have 20,000 songs and this one came on randomly) I am listening to “The Sound of Silence.” But it is loud enough to hear over the chickens, roosters, dogs, and neighbors. And I am happy.

Also, I (although am only 5’2”, finally hanged my hammock up and relaxed and read a brand new New Yorker that I picked up in the Peace Corps office this weekend in Tegucigalpa. It was a fabulous night. However, learning of John Updike’s death was quite powerful for me. Their tribute to his work and relationship with the journal was moving and totally Updike, as far I have read him. I especially am fond of this piece (taken from the February 9 & 16 issue of The New Yorker):

Cosmic Gall

Every second, hundreds of billions of these neutrinos pass through each square inch of out bodies, coming from above during the day and from below at night, when the sun is shining on the other side of the earth! –From “An Explanatory Statement on Elementary Particle Physics,” by M.A. Ruderman and A.H. Rosenfeld, in American Science.

Neutrinos, they are very small.

They have no charge and have no mass

And do not interact at all.

The earth is just a silly ball

To them, through which they simply pass,

Like dustmaids down a drafty hall

Or photons through a sheet of glass.

They snub the most exquisite gas,

Ignore the more substantial wall,

Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,

Insult the stallion in his stall,

And, scorning barriers of class,

Infiltrate you and me! Like tall

And painless guillotines, they fall

Down through our heads into the grass.

At night, they enter at Nepal

And pierce the lover and his lass

From underneath the bed—you call

It wonderful; I call it crass.”

--December 17, 1960

I believe I personally would call it wonderful. Especially since now my computer has single-handedly (or are the neutrinos mingling?) has decided to play “Let It Be,” which happens to be a song not only universal but also better than any session of therapy.

As far as work goes, I have been doing a lot of English teaching. We are going to be starting a program on Saturdays that covers the first half of a bachelor’s degree. The students who enroll (it is about 600 lempiras, or 30 dollars, twice a year) will either listen to the radio which broadcasts the lectures, or order the CDs if they cannot be by a radio during the designated hours. My job then, with this program is to tutor and to guide those who want to continue with their studies. This is great because a lot of the students matriculating have been in my other classes of EDUCATODOS, so I am learning how to teach English while they are learning to learn English. Also, while teaching young children in the States (ages 0-5) certainly is teaching, contrary to many notions that refer to this sort of job as “babysitting,” it is a much different thing to actually watch an adult who may or may not be able to read or write begin to learn.

This has solidified my belief that the power of literacy is the grandest key to the world.

In other news, I am currently awaiting the telescope from Dr. Pollock and the camera from Dad. I am very excited about receiving these two things, especially as the last few weekends have been so fabulously packed with new experiences that I’d really love pictures of. Though those have passed, I know there are more to come. Plus, our baseball tournament was moved yesterday to the 28^th of March, and so if the camera takes a little bit longer, I’ll still have it. Those kids have really worked hard. After a bad day when I really just want to go home, even though it is reasonably annoying, when the kids ask me excitedly when the next practice is, I am happy. These small things are starting to become more effective.

I am also beginning to prepare a Graduate school solicitude (application, yes, but in Spanish it is solicitud). The program I am most interested in is a Spanish masters degree at American University, with a concentration either in Politics, Language Teaching, Literature and Culture, or Linguistics/Language/Translation. I believe that the latter is the most interesting to me, but I know that my Spanish level needs to improve about 50 times if I am to do this. That being said, some resources I’ve been looking for are, first of all and most importantly, access to online journals such as JSTOR and Academic Search Premier, etc., as well as advanced-level Spanish grammar, literature, Doctoral theses, and any types of literature concerning the linguistic differences between Spanish and English, particularly the differences in intonation between the genders. This, to me, is fascinating. Either that, or I have no idea what it really means!

So.

On February 19th, I found my first scorpion in the house. I managed to smash it with a few layers of books. I left it overnight and slept at my first host mother´s house. By the time I returned the next day, the ants had gotten a lot of it, but there was a lovely smear of guts, a bit blue in color, glistening in a beautiful chunk from under the shelled body. Sick.

That day I spent with my very closest friend in the community, also my counterpart in EDUCATODOS, watching ¨La Conejita en La Universidad,¨which I found out later is called something like Playboy Bunny goes to School. It was a total Legally Blonde rip-off, however, though I find this hard to admit.... I was very amused. In fact, I liked it so much that in the last two minutes I was quite disappointed that the disc began skipping and I missed who stood up and saved the sorority. Anyone wanna spoil this for all of us dying to watch the Bunny in the Sorority???

Over the weekend of February 21st I went to visit a fellow volunteer in San Luis. Like I put it earlier in some form, it was indeed invigorating. I felt the mountains on my back and the air in my hair and neck and it was fresh and it´s been chilly and quite fresco and just lovely. I felt the wind drop 10 degrees and saw the most gorgeous purple flowers and saw Esquias which is another cute town (though I only saw it from high up in the mountains)--however, San Luis really and truly is beautiful. They have a fabulous Reiken Library and though Charlie and I were almost mauled by a bull, we had a wonderful time. We even had some whiskey in our hot chocolate and watched an iridium reflection in the night sky. Charlie is from Minnesota and likes the Twins.

Spring traning started. Sweet! The Mets already lost. Awesome.

On the 22nd I felt very content. I began running again in the mornings with a librarian named Patty. We can run 8 vueltas (rounds) without stopping already and its only been a week. The dogs were barking later that day, but at least the TV was off.

I like how people say, in response to ¨cómo esta?¨ (how are you?), ¨Pues, estoy aqui.¨ (Well, I´m here.) Kind of like in English, but their intonation is generally happier.

It´s funny.. when I run in the campo (baseball/soccer field) in the mornings sometimes the little kids still yell, ¨Adios, Vinita!¨ who was the previous Peace Corps volunteer and quite opposite of me. Tall, pretty, black, athletic, thin... and people still think we`re cousins. They also often think that all gringos know one another.

I started on the 23rd translating for a fabulous Evangelical group from the States called ¨Book of Hope.¨ I could write for hours on how wonderful these visitors were, how open-minded, etc. Check out the website:

http://www.the1814project.com/

I really think they can help us to start some wonderful things in San Jerónimo. I think we can start a flea market on Saturdays which would really help the women especially who cannot find jobs. I realized something very important while the Evangelicals were here. I was translating a bit for them, from Spanish to English, from English to Spanish---yet, even though we have quite different beliefs, the language of God was one that the two groups shared. And there I was, in the midst, searching and searching for the right words. Que pesa!!!!

Back to recently. A few other volunteers and I were all randomly in the capital on Friday night and had a fabulous time. To be perfectly honest, I don´t remember a whole lot of it. There was a crazy awesome outside dance party, though. And all of a sudden I was a a really good dancer. Must have been the Imperial. We tried to go to a jazz concert but it was 60 lemps cover and packed full of cheles and gringos and extremely frou frou. So we went to Chili´s instead which is like, super fine dining. That was cool.

The best part of the weekend was watching the sunset on top of the Guadelupe II. Venus and the crescent moon were just asombroso.

I´d love to keep writing but I have a lot of work to do.

¨A change of weather is a moment to decide.¨ Mascott-

I listened to Mascott, Mazzy Star, and Kendra Smith last night. They compliment a hammock well.

Searching for some Silence?

Quiet time is as rare as in Honduras as babies on motorcycles in the States. Even more rare, if you can believe it, in my house. Actually, it is never quiet in my house. I am hardly the one making any noise anymore, because my computer is on the verge of breaking (it has already had a major crash in the last couple of weeks and it is, sadly, getting very old… ahh, the twilight years of computerhood), and I rarely play music, and do not have TV. The noise, in fact, is all from my neighbors.

Imagine: a small house with two big houses on either side, bien pegados (literally, glued, but really just very close together). Each of the houses are about 2-3 feet apart. On the right side is a pulpería, which is a much-frequented small shop that sells candy, bread, coffee, cigarettes, soda, flour, beans, etc. They are open until 9pm. This family is simply made up of grandparents, one adult child, four grandchildren ages 1-6, one niece 3 years old, two sons who rarely come home but when they do, sleep in the small, usually empty house RIGHT behind the original little house (mine), and 2 “helpers,” (i.e. women who take care of the children and use my pila to wash clothes leaving no water for me). Imagine that you share your back yard and most private area—the pila—with all of these people. Imagine you had no idea you were sharing this space with them before moving in, because no one told you, and it was not obvious when you came to see the house. Oh, never mind the 6 chickens, 2 roosters, and 2 dogs who looove to bark that live in your backyard. You actually found a very sweet cat that you really liked and thought would keep you company but the dogs won’t stand for it. They wake you up about 5 times a night, and sometimes react to your SHHing but most of the time they just coax the roosters to go ahead and start their orchestra. The rooster orchestras wake you up at exactly 11pm, 2am, 3am, 4:30am, 6:30am, 7am and 8am if you get to sleep that long. Then they annoy you until you leave the house. And this isn’t just the neighbor’s fault. The gallos chant from all around the town. It just so happens that your rooster is the “gallo mas gallo” and happens to start the chorus about half the time as well as pipe in much more than 2 cents worth.

On the other side is a family of 3 adults, 4 children, and the neighborhood hangout for about 10 kids, ages 10-14. Also, many of your baseball team kids hang out here, and think it is hilarious to scream “DORA!!!” into your ‘window’ (comprised of 5 slabs of glass that turn if you want to let in air, which you do, but you can’t because then you literally have NO privacy) about 30 times a day. So, that being said, you are not used to this, right? So, what do you do? Call the police on the barking dogs, like dad at home? Threaten to move? But what house would you move into? There are no other options! Use your earplugs, of course! But you use them, already, and they just aren’t good very good. Turns out you can´t find any earplugs in Honduras. Just go ahead and buy a TV to drown out the noise? Waaay expensive. Buy speakers? But you already bought speakers… In Honduras… And they suck. Your computer actually sounds better.

In the States, the problem of personal responsibility in consumerism is usually challenged by consumer rights, word of mouth, and an often large, competitive field of supply and demand (though I don’t know how that’s going right now). I happen to believe, after spending some time here in Honduras, that we have managed to find a fairly nice balance there (just ignore the housing crisis for a moment). I never thought that a country could survive without any consumer rights or personal responsibility at all. Then again, am I using my bias that I grew up with to judge the situation? Of course I am. How to avoid that? Impossible. So now what?

No, really. I’d like some suggestions. If I could do something great in Peace Corps, it would be to teach about consumer rights. So, where would I start? The people, grassroots? Or the terribly mismanaged businesses and uneducated business owners who see no problem doing things the easy way?

As far as my town goes, I’m here, I’m in my house. It’s quite miserable, especially at night and in the mornings, but there’s not much I could do except kill all of the animals and duct tape the children’s mouths shut and smash the huge, expensive speakers some of the families manage to buy though we still don’t have clean water… But I am a Peace Corps volunteer, and so I don´t think about these things seriously.

I won’t be able to move out. I am coping with this. Some of my friends and the mayor all know that I’d like a different house, and that having 20 screaming kids outside of my house and blasting music until 11 o’clock at night is not my idea of a good working environment, and they know I’d love to have my own backyard and am willing to sacrifice living in the best part of town in a nice house for this, yet, the point of view remains so different. My privacy, something so sacred to us in the States, along with my quiet time, my bubble baths, my peace of mind, are all gone. Where to find them? It is almost like learning a new language. Coming here, my mind was constantly preoccupied—how will I speak with my host family? How will I communicate? How do I say “bite the dust” in Spanish?! (it’s morda el polvo.. the phrase is the same, it turns out!) And with time, I learned. Now, though I am by no means fluent, I can communicate. I can go to Comayagua by myself and have a conversation with a single mother about her life and where she grew up. I can yell at the kid outside my house to please, for the love of God, stop banging the goddamned spoon on the goddamned bowl right outside my window while I am trying to write a blog entry. And, OJALÁ, with time, I will learn to find solace in the noisy, anxious place that I call my home.

Ten Things I´ve Learned Since My Last Post

10. Cameras are things that you know are great, but you just don’t know how great until you see a really beautiful bird visiting your friend in Rio Negro and you can’t snap a shot.
9. You should never leave your water turned on and leave for a meeting at the library and then go to your old host family’s house for dinner and leave your door locked so that even your landlord can’t open it... Even if your water NEVER comes after 5 in the afternoon… But at least you left your computer on a chair and not on the floor!!!
8. You may be surprised at how you secretly like that cracker with peanut butter and barbeque sauce on it… And the worst part is, peanut butter and barbeque sauce aren’t even that cheap. You could have just eaten plantains and beans… but for some strange reason…. ?
7. Taking vitamins might be stupid, and it might be placebo effect completely, but you feel a lot better.
6. Your friend who is on a raw diet in a foreign country might be crazy, but she looks great and seems very energetic. You might even try it though you do NOT want anymore parasites… Bleached vegetables, anyone? Or bean and barbeque sauce sandwiches?
5. Your baseball team will listen to a visiting male and show respect to him because he has played baseball his whole life and knows much more than you. They also will be much more well-behaved when a male community leader comes to do dynamicas with them. But, you will be surprised that they all tell you that they much prefer when it is just you and the kids. You also might find yourself thinking, “My kids could really win this tournament… !!!”
4. You will not cry in front of your baseball team when a fastball smacks your leg. In fact, you will laugh it off and avoid limping for 2 hours and nurse your hard, throbbing, bright purple green red bruise when you get home.
3. You will be amazed at the beauty of a full moon, no matter that they come once a month.
2. You will accidentally say yes to a project that consists of translating 250 surveys for the Evangelical church by Friday. You will, of course, not be paid.
1. Your former astronomy professor, Dr. Pollock of Appalachian State University, will both shock and amaze you when he responds more promptly than anyone from the U.S. has to your e-mail requesting any information of how to get resources to teach Astronomy, seeing is 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. You will cry just a tiny bit in your library when you realize that he is going to send your town a telescope so that they can see the sky. You cannot wait to show them the moon. If you can show them the rings of Saturn, as Dr. Pollock put it, they may either make you their queen or burn you at the stake. Either way, we’re making progress, right?

some fotos

these are just some fotos i have on my USB, which i had left in an internet cafe on a sunday in comayagua only to actually STILL BE THERE on tuesday after when i realized that i had left it.
there are still some very good people in the world.

so, now that i have no camera, i will be uploading old fotos, until i buy a disposable but that will take a while. so for now i will continually upload fotos that i may or may not have already uploaded.... sorry about that. :)

((by the way, the camera story is very unglamorous. i went to la tigra national park with a couple of friends, which was gorgeous. we hiked and camped for 2 days and 2 nights. i dropped my camera during this trip and now it says "lens error" whenever i try to turn it on. it has been a long time coming. i also lost a very valuable earring to the tiger... very sad. very, very sad.))

this week we are in valle de angeles for re-connect. re-connect is something that each group has (municipal development, youth development, small business, water and sanitation, health/hiv/aids awareness and protected area management) once a year and those who have been in country for a year make presentations on their work while those who have only been in site for a short time discuss their adjustment process. it seems like it will be a nice week to RE-CONNECT with old friends as well as have a normal schedule--something i have genuinely missed since training. however, things are all about to pick up.

one thing i have noticed in my town is that there is an apparent need, or desire, rather, for a small business training. there is also what we call "chocolate water" when it rains, which is usually often however we are entering the dry season, and since i live in the edge of a valley and the bottom of a mountain all of the run-off from above comes down and chocolatizes the water. sometimes it is gray. so, taht being said, i think that while i came here for youth development, i can focus a lot of my projects over the next 20 months on how to make things and sell them and also talk to the municipality about how to get the water working better. fortunately i can also utilize other volunteers from those respective projects for ideas, because i honestly do not know anything about either business or water and sanitation besides the fact that other people usually take care of those things and i utilize them.

soo, i'm doing well, feeling healthy, readjusting OK, etc. i'll probably be able to update this blog a bit over the following week as i will have access to internet.


the pictures, however, after uploading for the last 10 minutes, just errored. i'll see if i can repost.

more thoughts born of culture shock

More thoughts borne of culture shock.

“High battlements of thought; habits that had seemed durable as stone went down like shadows at the touch of another mind and left a naked sky and fresh stars thinking on it.” – Virginia Woolf




Those sentimental moments, like, “don’t you remember the time..(fill in any dumb, hilarious, intuitively terrible situation such as ordering 9 subway sandwiches while tripping; any drunk mishap like breaking the roof when Obama won; any devastating, intensely exciting moment involving more than yourself) have to be taken with pure happiness and without any nostalgic longing, for you have had them. You will have more, perhaps you just aren’t passed that part of the trip,
And then you realize, you must have passed it without even knowing. Because you tore that roof down in another country for your new President and you even heard him talk in English. And you were so lucky being at the pulse of your country in a time so alive and ready for change with just … no idea where to start.
“The first days are the hardest days.”
When you remember that you could have been in a great hotel in Arlington on January 20, 2009, but by similar circumstances of the world and of time you are in that other country again, celebrating in Spanish with those who applaud a change you helped create with an absentee vote… When you remember that from the moment you made your way through DC by some uncontrollable circumstance and learned the F streets and K streets and M streets that you discovered,
Oh, God, I could live here. I could go to graduate school here.
And you wanted to, so badly.
And you even met a man that happened to seem almost everything you could have asked for but the timing wasn’t there and since he’s now upgraded to a 2009 version, he will certainly find some other complementary person before your two years out is over. But that’s OK, too, because through him you saw that one day your road can end where all the other roads follow—Montevideo. Y aunque probablemente lo habres hecho este viaje sin un muchacho, ya habras aprendido que tendra que ser buenos hombres con buenas intenciones y tal vez un espacio para ti cuando ya habres estado lista a regresar a tu pais.
But you’re not there yet, and while the lack of academia is trying your mental desire for stimulation, you can learn to learn … through other means…
How to talk to parents of a different country in a different language in a way that builds trust. How to trust giving your money to those you don’t know well but you know their brother and son and so you know that they’ll do the best they can for you. How to talk with honesty but not crudely (unless your vivid perception of time and space calls for vulgarity).

That even though you are working in Youth Development, you, too, are a youth, and are developing with those you’ve come to stimulate intellectually, to integrate interpersonal skills, to be leaders so that when you leave, you’ll know they won’t forget... to grow.
Some days will be harder than others. Some days you’ll feel lonely. And some days you’ll even feel fat. And some days the food will leave you a bit lacking. And some days you’ll want to sleep a bit later because in your dreams you still see the best of your friends and family or dreams of cities with clean streets and different-colored people speaking in many different languages. And some days you’ll forget that your body is your friend, and you won’t take care of it correctly. Other days you will be too hard on it. And through those days you’ll find a balance.
Some days you won’t know how on earth to teach in a second language the intricacies of your own, and you’ll be especially flabbergasted by the correlations of meaning in completely different translations. You’ll see yourself changing every day. Some days you’ll want to spend only with the children, watching their cognitive development just as you did in your own country, y en vez de esta preocupacion que no haya tenido muchos recursos y tampoco los libros que encontraba aja en otro pais, ellos estan aprendiendo, por ejemplo, como saludar, como jugar, como hablar en este mundo. Y en algunas caras de los ninos vas a ver que hay un deseo interminable de entender el mundo, y tu, y tus costumbres, y pensamientos.
Other days questions will fill your mind and you’ll want to drink coffee with the adults and ask them how it is that they have come to raise their children, and you'll find out about the duendes and how here, leprchauns wear red and rape little girls... and how it is for a woman in Honduras, and without judgment.
You’ll find that talking of the latest Cormac McCarthy book is not so important, but rather how the town will adopt and change in the next ten years, how they want to change in the next 5 years, and why. And how they make those delicious tamales.
And one day they’ll ask you who was Albert Einstein and why do you have a picture of him on your wall and wasn’t he an inventor? and what did he invent and you’ll find it invigorating and challenging to explain that he invented the nuclear bomb but inadvertently because E=Mc2 is a bit hard still even in English to explain perfectly.
And when the kids don’t believe that we can see Venus, even though in your mind, there it is, and how beautiful, you will find the ignorance not saddening, but actually quite beautiful itself. And you’ll wish that Peace Corps would donate a telescope. Because you’d love to put them a bit closer to such a fascinating part of our universe, God or no god.
Some nights will be hard (el cante de los gallos), some days will be long (baseball practice, kindergarten lesson, English classes, project with municipality, visit to the health center, JUNTA meeting with the library), and some unexpected things can be stressful (like realizing 2 minutes ago that you left your USB memory in an internet café in Comayagua… surely it’s gone and they are not cheap and you’ll need one).
But when you get to your house and look around, you’ll be inexplicably happy. This is your small house where the water only runs cold, there’s no television, no oven, no washer or drier, and many times no water or electricity at all. But it’s yours, and this town that sometimes drives you nuts for the trash on the ground and the starving homeless dogs reproducing to make god-knows-what combination comes next, is your town for 2 years. And you start to love your mismatched curtains and time to read, and though it’s taxing to read with so much noise, you can do it, and perhaps even get more from the book than you thought. And when they play the reggaeton you hate you can listen to it and strain to understand the words, and that is learning a language. And you will notice the parallels of humanity that run through the lives of those around you. And you will let them do you favors, not because you’re white or more privileged but because they are your friends and family of a different horse. And you’ll find comfort in a box of peanut M&Ms your aunt sent you and a small note from your grandmother via e-mail and a scent from your Christmas box that reminds you of home and pictures of you with big buildings in big cities that you’ll go back to some day. And music.
And instead of considering your time here a challenge to be met, you’ll see more clearly that it an opportunity to … aprovechar.

And, then, things will proceed more vividly, and for one night the dogs won’t wake you up even once, and you’ll have a slow morning because your meeting facilitators called you to say that they are tired, too, and that we can start later. So you’ll make your coffee and smell the burning trash and it will remind you instead of its terrible effects of the scent of bad marijuana, and that will make you smile and remember a few certain people who are probably taking advantage of what ever situation they’ve come across this dark, warm night in January. And you’ll think of how cold they are and feel quite comfortable that you, too, will see snow again.
You’re on a road, you decide. And you’ll like it more and more as it goes on. And you’ll apply to a graduate school in Washington DC because you fell so in love with it, and whether you get in or not won’t matter, because you know that after this is experience the winds won’t carry you where you can’t handle it.
And you’ll miss sex and ex-boyfriends but nighttime solitude will be comforted in books and music and writing blog material for the next day where you’ll be looking for a new USB memory.
You’ll take a quiet life, a life of linguistics, observation, being there as a resource, and most importantly, talking, of common goals that know no real language nor culture. And for this, you will go to sleep, and dream of wonderful things, without country, borders, time, or judgment.






“They are vulgar facts and you will not be the first man with such a page to his credit or discredit; but after all you will have enjoyed yourself, and you will not forget this, though you will be remembering other things, other days, you will have to remember them: days near, far, pushed toward forgetfulness.” –Carlos Fuentes

Sunday Mornings

Oh, Yeah…

You Know You’re In Honduras When…

• You have to “go through customs” which means giving your piece of paper that you filled out on the airplane to two ladies who neglect to even look at it because they’re too busy talking about how fat their boss is.
• You go to the one rotating luggage circle where you wait for 3-15 minutes before your luggage comes out… wet.
• People are very surprised when you speak Spanish, and then proceed to talk far too fast for you to understand, making you look like an idiot.
• Your one dollar bill is worth a hell of a lot more.
• You catch a ride on the local bus where you are smushed between the driver and a very interesting-smelling woman who cries when the driver plays “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Conner. All of this makes you feel very comfortable, in a strange way.
• You find yourself sweeping the floor 4 times a day. At least.
• You are awoken 5 or 6 times by dogs and roosters, and then at 5:30 in the morning to the sound of the neighbor drilling or chopping wood, and then at 6:30 to the sound of the other neighbor blasting “Imagine” by John Lennon, followed by “What’s Going On” by Four Non Blondes. At this point it is time to wake up.
• You buy a hammock because it is very pretty for 350 lempiras only to find it is for children… It LOOKED bigger in the store!
• Everyone invites you to dinner. You choose to go to your old host mother’s house. She sneaks you a sip of church wine.
• Your name is called while your walking down the street, and even though you wondered if they had forgotten you, the baseball team is there in full the morning after your arrival, ready to practice.
• Your old host mother is so ecstatic that you are back that you feel like somehow this place became home.
• You haggle down prices. They don’t like this because you are obviously from the States. Better bring a Honduran next time.
• The milk has a strange taste of baby powder and fake vanilla.
• You absolutely will not brush your teeth with the water again. Nor will you eat that damned chicken… even though it smells so good…
• You want 3 cups of coffee again. But when you make it it’s a strange gray color. When your counterpart makes it, you could drink the whole pot.
• You give up on playing your own music because you can barely hear yourself thinking. Just when you’ve had too much, the neighbor plays “Hey Jude,” followed by “The Sound of Silence,” and you feel like an idiot for being angry.
• Your pace and patience come down to a comfortable level.
• You no longer surf Facebook for 2 hours aimlessly. That shit costs money!
• You are desensitized again after seeing, one after the other while taking the bus, a little girl climbing onto a motorcycle, a mother changing her baby’s diaper on the side of the street, a pregnant dog being hit with a stick, and a man with his belly hanging out of his cut-off shirt.
• You are followed in the market by a man wearing only boxers with a fake gun saying “Quisiera estar en su traso” and “Por que la noche es obscura?” as you decide better to come back another day.
• On your way out you pass a boy who thinks it’s funny to point HIS fake gun and shoot… at you. “Muera, gringa!” You laugh.
• You debate the entire morning on Sunday whether or not to go to church. You really don’t want to, but what will they think?
• Now your neighbor is playing “Yesterday.” You find yourself wanting to tell him what the words mean. You find yourself accepting that the Beatles must just be so goddamned good that the words don’t even matter. This is a wonderful moment.
• You know that you can walk around at lunchtime and be fed.
• You know that it doesn’t matter what happened and how long you were gone, that even if they don’t mean it, you’ll be taken care of. Because in Honduras, where all the things you thought were important (hot showers, good public transportation, responsibility, clean water, trash cans, etc.) are not, all the things you didn’t even know were important (family, being together, eating together, playing jokes on random neighbors until 1 in the morning, etc.) remind you that life can be a whole lot ... different.

I think that if you’re thinking about doing the Peace Corps or some other travel/work experience, the best advice is to forget the words “good,” “bad,” “better,” and “worse.” You’ll probably hear them a lot, but the most important is looking at another culture without judgment. Just looking at it for what it is, because you really don’t know what is “better” or “worse,” even though, especially at first, you may be quite partial to hot showers, clean water, and quiet mornings. There´s something to be said for blaring ¨Hey Jude¨at 6 am, having to pay attention to which water to use, having to bathe from a cold bucket, and feeling at home in a whole other place.

the heart of saturday night.

..."Magic of the melancholy tear in your eye.

Makes it kind of quiver down in the core

'Cause you're dreamin' of them Saturdays that came before

And now you're stumblin'

You're stumblin' onto the heart of Saturday night

Well you gassed her up

And you're behind the wheel

With your arm around your sweet one

In your

Oldsmobile

Barrellin' down the boulevard,

You're lookin' for the heart of Saturday night..."

"Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town
Set 'em up, we'll be knockin' em down.
You wear a dress, baby, and I'll wear a tie.
We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky
All your scribbled lovedreams, are lost or thrown away,
Here amidst the shuffle of an overflowing day
Our love needs a transfusion so let's shoot it full of wine
Fishin' for a good time starts with throwin'in your line."

..."So please call me, baby
Wherever you are
It's too cold to be out walking in the streets
We do crazy things when we're wounded
Everyone's a bit insane
I don't want you catching your death of cold
Out walking in the rain...
Life's so different than it is in your dreams..."

..."I'm leavin' my fam'ly
Leavin' all my friends
My body's at home
But my heart's in the wind
Where the clouds are like headlines
On a new front page sky
My tears are salt water
And the moon's full and high
And I know Martin Eden's
Gonna be proud of me
And many before me
Who've been called by the sea
To be up in the crow's nest
Singin' my say
Shiver me Timbers
Cause I'm a-sailin' away

And the fog's liftin'
And the sand's shiftin'
I'm driftin' on out
Ol' Captain Ahab
He ain't got nothin' on me, now.
So swallow me, don't follow me
I'm trav'lin' alone
Blue water's my daughter
'n I'm gonna skip like a stone

And the fog's liftin'
And the sand's shiftin'
I'm driftin' on out
Ol' Captain Ahab
He ain't got nothin' on me
So come and swallow me, follow me
I'm trav'lin' alone
Blue water's my daughter
'n I'm gonna skip like a stone

And I'm leavin' my family
Leavin' all my friends
My body's at home
But my heart's in the wind
Where the clouds are like headlines
Upon a new front page sky
And shiver me timbers
Cause I'm a-sailin' away."

"And the moon's a silver slipper
It's pouring champagne stars
Broadway's like a serpent
Pulling shiny top-down cars
Laramer is teeming
With that undulating beat
And some Bonneville is screaming
It's way wilder down the street

Hearts flutter and race
The moon's on the wane
Tarts mutter their dream hopes
The night will ordain
Come schemers and dancers
Cherry delight
As a Cleveland-bound Greyhound
And it cuts throught the night

And I've hawked all my yesterdays
Don't try and change my tune
'Cause I thought I heard a saxophone
I'm drunk on the moon."

My last two nights in DC have been great. Went out to eat last night and saw Slumdog Millionaire tonight, which actively managed to make me feel great about heading back to post and question myself as to what projects I'll be working on all at the same time. But really, it was a great movie and I recommend it.

I also highly recommend "The Heart of Saturday Night" by Tom Waits, especially if you've never heard it, but most especially for a time when you're either leaving something or starting something new. Or in love, of course. Just a couple last DC pics, and I'll be posting from Honduras next!