So, as I mentioned, we went to Tegucigalpa, the capital, for Thanksgiving. The school was originally going to put together a little farm weekend getaway for us, but the road was washed out (excuses, excuses…), so they basically paid for us to spend four days in the big city. Hopefully, we'll make it out to the farm another time, but we weren't too let down in the change of plans because the city meant restaurants, movies, and grocery stores. Tegucigalpa is about 150 miles away by road, which sounds like it should be a simple trip, but of course, that wouldn't have made for a noteworthy experience. We had 14 people in a van with all of our bags on top, and we left town around 6 am after taking a mototaxi down the mountain to catch the van. We left the paved road 20 minutes later (the highway right around Gracias seems to be one of the nicest stretches in the country), and must have stopped to yell out the window and ask for directions to the next town on our mental maps at least 15 times after that. The road washes out so often that most of the so-called "highway" looks like a permanent construction site. We came to several forks that looked equally attractive, but after trying one, we'd find out that it led to just a dirt hill or a deep pit. We made a stop about halfway for some comida tipica, and then we knew we were getting closer to the city because we started seeing fast food restaurants. The American fast food places here are pretty much the same as they are in the States, except that most of them are HUGE and all gussied up. Going out for fast food is a treat for most city people, and the prices are higher than they are at home, too. The food is the same, though, except for the addition of some bean/egg/tortilla/plantain concoction at each place. We did see a mariachi band hanging out with Ronald McDonald at one place, which, from what I remember, doesn't happen back home.
We spent a few hours just walking around near our hotel and sitting with some friends at a coffee shop chain (kind of like Honduran Starbucks). It felt so surreal to be in this place because it seemed like we were back in the States. The mall and chain restaurants are such a far cry from our rural landscape that it didn't seem possible that we could still be in the same country. That night, we went to the fanciest Thanksgiving dinner I've ever been to. One of the administrators from the rich Tegucigalpa Abundant Life school hosted, and most people were wearing suits and dresses. The house was very posh, and they had obviously hired a party planner to make elaborate centerpieces out of real fruit and leaves, decorate the tables with gold chargers and glittery leaf coasters, and do the lighting scheme and background music and all. The food was very authentic Thanksgiving, though, complete with marshmallow fruit salad, which I've always found a bit odd, but it just went to show that they had pulled out all the stops. Their house, and most Honduran houses, had such a great design that blended both indoor and outdoor space. Sometimes in houses here, you actually forget whether you are outside or inside, or you can't really decide even if you think about it because the distinction is not really important here. Lots of rooms in houses are covered but there aren't really any walls or there aren't any screens, or there could be a high wall around but no ceiling, or you're sitting in a garden but it's more or less just another room in the house. I wish that the weather back home made this kind of design possible, but it's just not practical when it gets down below freezing for months at a time. I've gotten so used to being connected to the outside, though, with our pane-less windows and the courtyard with the mountain view at school, and then our porch/carport and screen-only windows at home. It's going to be an adjustment going home in a couple of weeks and hiding out in the always-68 degree-houses except when going in between buildings and the car.
Anyway, to say that we enjoyed our meal would be like saying that pie is alright. All of us foreign teachers wolfed down the cheese and nuts immediately upon arrival (we don't get those things here in Gracias), and then shamelessly stuffed ourselves, in keeping with Thanksgiving tradition. We Americans do not take our holiday feasting lightly. After our meal, the driver that the school hired to take us around the city for the weekend brought us up to a high viewpoint for a look at the city at night. It's not beautiful during the day, and it's not like a big city with skyscrapers—it really feels more like just a really huge, sprawled-out town in the mountains. At night, though, the city is just a lot of lights spread out without pattern all over the valley and climbing up onto the surrounding mountains:
On our way back to the hotel, we passed by a train made out of some cars and other assorted vehicles with Christmas lights strung out connecting them together. It was called the "Kobs Express" and apparently takes its passengers to the nearest "Kobs" (an ice cream store chain). It was kind of a mixture of a kids' train at the mall, and a college campus "safe ride" kind of arrangement.
The next morning, some of the school administrators showed us around the organization's headquarters complex. We saw the big school there, the TV station, radio station, church, and they even took us to their hearing and eye clinic. We hadn't really known much about Abundant Life, the organization that bought the school we work at here, but it was good to open our eyes to all the good that they do in Honduras. They have a nightly AA meeting in their church facility, and nothing seems excessive or wasteful—they just make the most of what they have. In other areas of the country, they also have an orphanage and an elderly care facility. It's rare to have an organized Honduran group that is working successfully toward social improvement in their own country. They do not get many donations or volunteers from wealthier countries, and although some of their top administrators have a lot of money, most of them seem to have acquired their wealth before becoming involved with the organization, and it's admirable that they want to do some good with their money. While we were at the eye clinic, I mentioned that I needed a new pair of glasses, and they gave me a free eye exam and a pair of nice new glasses that cost about a quarter of what they would have back home. Ah, American health care. I was really impressed with the doctor, the optical shop, and not just the eye care but the whole organization in general.
We saw a movie that afternoon—The Hunting Game—it was alright, but the best part was just going to a movie theater and seeing a movie in English. Most of the movies they get here are action/adventure or scary ones in English with Spanish subtitles, or kids' movies that are dubbed in Spanish. After the movie, it felt as if we'd just walk out of the theater and out into the parking lot and get into our Honda and go home to our apartment in Beverly, but we snapped back to reality when we passed by the "Kobs Express" again and the big lighted up Jesus statue on a hill right above an even bigger Coca-Cola sign (like the Hollywood sign) that became our navigational landmark in the city:
The next day, we headed for some towns outside of the city, which were pretty, but more like our everyday surroundings here than anything else. I guess at this point, we aren't the usual tourists. We did buy our fair share of souvenirs, though, and we'll see how many make it home in one piece to give away for Christmas. We also went downtown, and walked through some historic areas where the buildings printed on the money here stand. It's an interesting view to be able to just see uninhabited mountains as a backdrop to a big city:
We also walked through some seedier areas, and turned around after we crossed a bridge that apparently led to a rougher neighborhood. The discrepancy in the distribution of wealth in the city is ridiculous, but I guess most cities are like that to some extent. About half the people that live in Tegucigalpa don't even have electricity or reliable plumbing, and then there are those like the house we went to for Thanksgiving that could easily be featured in some architectural or interior design magazines in the States. Here are some of the buildings right downtown, intermixed with shops and fancy government buildings:
We didn't do a lot more sightseeing in Tegucigalpa, but we did do a lot of eating. We had Japanese food, good pizza, subs, iced coffee, ice cream, and we went crazy at some grocery stores. We found pesto, cheese, plain yogurt, and even Ghirdelli brownie mix. We got a big fruitcake wrapped up in Christmas bows as a favor from the Thanksgiving dinner, and even though we quickly re-gifted it when we went to another little get-together in the city, we somehow ended up eating the whole thing by the end of the night. We all just sat up on this rooftop that looked out over the city and felt full and relaxed and strangely urban:
The trip home was much like the trip there, with scattered butterfly-in-the-stomach moments sitting in back when we'd hit the extra-deep, unexpected potholes. Aaron did get some nice shots out the window, though:
We got home in time for dinner, and spent the next couple days trying to recover and get back to normal at school. This last part has been challenging lately, with the long break approaching, and with our administration telling us to not focus on the curriculum, but rather to just work on the Christmas program. I wouldn't mind this so much except that this is not your typical school concert or play. We are having a group of drama students from the Tegucigalpa megachurch/school come and perform, while our kids act as background dancers. We don't get to make up the dances; this has been done by people in Tegucigalpa and put onto a DVD that we had to learn with our kids. This was even more of a letdown compared with what one of the other AL schools is doing for their program: spoof songs and dances (think Weird Al) with a Christmas theme. The teacher we talked to was supposed to have his class dress as fighter pilots and sing/dance to "Manger Zone" (Originally "Danger Zone"). It's ridiculous, obviously, but at least it's not supposed to be taken seriously, and it'd be fun! As for our extravaganza, each class has spent at least one class period every day since Thanksgiving working on their dance. My class is combined with the notoriously wild second graders (not that mine are angels on their own, either) for a total of 29 kids dancing to about an 8 minute song that I only know half the words for. Wrangling them for each practice session definitely takes both of us teachers, and most of the dance suggestions and critique on our part goes something like, "Stop running!" "No maracas right now!" "Stop touching him!" or "Hey, come back!"
We had a half day practice at the church auditorium in town where we'll be performing, and we have more tomorrow through Friday. Before we had the first practice day, we had a staff meeting to discuss what and where this would be happening. Someone naively asked for the address. There are no road names or numbers in town. I don't really know how people get their mail—we just get ours because there are so few Gringos around that we're easy to identify. Explaining the location of the church took at least 3 or 4 drawings on the board, about a dozen landmarks thrown out in reference, such as "the big market," "the big speaker store," and "the Garage of Flavor (Garaje del Sabor)." The discussion lasted a good 25 or 30 minutes, and after draining our attention spans, we were satisfied with the only directions for the practice given as "We will have snack rotations." A few of the highlights from practice day:
-Seeing what the kids brought from home for snacktime. One 45ish pound kid brought a hamburger, jello, candy, and a pint-and-a-half size peach nectar, which must have had at least 75 grams of sugar alone.
-One of the other foreign teachers was stung by a scorpion. This was obviously not a good highlight, but we did find out that unless you are allergic, it's just like getting a terrible bee sting that we hear burns like fire.
-Playing rock, paper, scissors, doing yoga moves with my kids, having my eyes covered and trying to guess whose grimy hands were on my face (usually I didn't know the kid's name because they were in another class), and watching Aaron's kids do tryouts for an air guitar solo that he's supposed to have in his dance. 4 hours of chaos and no one was hurt!
Here are some of Aaron's kids hamming it up off-stage during some of the plentiful down time:
Friday is the big performance night, so we'll have just 3 more days of class after that! The program is being broadcasted internationally on some Christian Spanish channel, so if you have a cable or satellite package with a lot of channels that you have never watched for more than 3 seconds, you might be able to see us at some point! Not sure about what the channel is called, but I'm guessing it will be aired sometime between 1 and 5 am on a weekday.
Besides the program, though, we've been able to do a few Christmasy things. We've taught our kids lots of Christmas carols, decorated our classrooms, done a little Christmas shopping, and been around lots of trees and lights in town. We went over to our friends' house for dinner the other night and even had some homemade eggnog. They make a really good milk-cinnamon-rice punch for Christmas here, too, which I hope to learn to make. Most of our neighbors are fattening up their chickens for their big meal in a couple of weeks, and they make tamales and go to church, but it's not as big of a commercial holiday as it is in the States. I don't think anyone wishes for snow, either. I have to say, I get a little satisfaction from listening to the Chicago and Boston NPR stations and hearing the weather there, and then going outside in my t-shirt for a walk down to the river or a nap in the hammock.
Lately, we've been to town more than usual. We had practice down there Friday last week, so we got our grocery shopping done a day early and hiked home under a bright moon. We did have a brush with danger on our way, though! We got to our friend/pulperia (tiny convenience store out of someone's house) owner, Jesus's house, and he stopped us for a chat. Some guys drove by in a pickup, and then stopped a few feet beyond the house. We weren't sure what was going on, but after a minute, Jesus asked us if we wanted to see a huge snake on the road where we had just walked. We went down to where the pickup was stopped, and there was indeed a HUGE snake lying in the road! It was probably there when we walked by, and we hadn't even seen it! The guys in the pickup had apparently stopped and thrown rocks at it to kill it because it's so deadly. I'm not sure why they didn't just run over it in the car, but I guess someone was a pretty good shot, and then they just pitched it over the rock wall and went on their way. Jesus told us that if we had been bitten, we "would have immediately died." Needless to say, we kept our eyes peeled the rest of the way home.
On Saturday, we took a day trip to La Campa, a picturesque little town just 10 miles away from Gracias. We'd been there once before, but some friends wanted to go, and we figured it'd be fun to go again, take a little hike, and get some more pottery. There's only one bus per day, and we didn't even know when it left, so we just walked along the road a little ways and got lucky within a couple of minutes when a missionary van picked us up and gave us a ride there. We walked along the river there and into the canyon a little ways once we got there. The rocks were carved out in such beautiful patterns, and they were all studded with fossils.
Here's a picture at the river:
We went to a little pottery museum to see how the Lenca people make the pottery, just out of a mixture of the dirt found in the area. They just fire them in a bonfire, and they've been making them the same way for generations. Some people use a wheel now, but for the most part, they haven't changed in their design or function. La Campa is so quiet that it's hard to tell if anyone is really there. We did manage to find the one restaurant in town, though, and it was one of the nicest settings we've eaten in. Like most of the comedors, we had to confirm with them that there was actually food available, to which the answer was, "yes, tacos," but the patio and the quiet breeze and views were beautiful.
Here's a view from a church overlooking the town:
And here's a man napping and sunning himself in a pile of beans...proof that there is life in La Campa, however quiet it may be.
We got lucky on the way home, too—we only waited for 5 minutes or so before a pickup stopped for us and brought us back to Gracias on the winding road around Celaque, the mountain that's our home.
One of the pictures taken from the jalon (pickup) ride...you can see one of the classy cow stickers in the window and and mountain ahead. It was NOT easy to take pictures in the back of a truck on a bumpy road! The driver was nice, though, and handed back some pixie stick sugar in a plastic orange for us to eat/have blown all over our faces in the wind.
We ended up staying in town late (haha, 8:30 is late for us here!), so a friend's parents who were in town lent us their truck to drive home for the night. It was so weird to ride in a truck with just us, and I hadn't worn a seatbelt since the plane ride in August!
Sunday we brought the car back, and continued our lucky transportation streak. A friend offered us her horses since they needed to go back to Villa Verde, where she keeps them and where we live. They weren't fast horses by any means, but it was a nice change of pace, and it's amazing how different the same scenery looks from just a few feet higher, when you can see over stone walls and don't have to watch the ruts and rocks under your feet. Our friend's dog followed us home, too, since she loves barking at the horses, and so it was nice to have a dog on loan for the night.
That just about brings everything up to date! If you've made it through the whole entry, congrats and thanks! Just one more week of classes, a few days at the beach, and then we'll be home! We'll be in Chicago until the 28th, then a quick stop in Indianapolis, down to Virginia for some time down there, and then up to Boston for a couple of days before we fly back here to start back up (after having a bug massacre to reclaim our house!). We miss you and think about our friends and family all the time. Hope you are enjoying everything that comes with the holidays, and maybe we'll see you soon!!
