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.