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.