Tuesday was my birthday, it's true, I enjoy telling people after the fact cause then they feel guilty and get me cooler presents. Ok, that's not true. I don't like telling people because I don't like to be the center of attention. Really, I don't! Luckily I escaped with few center of attention moments. The only really bad one was going to a small group that I go to for church. I just went last week for the first time and they invited me back for my birthday (but they didn't know it was my birthday). Of course on my birthday one of the only Hondurans in the entire world that knows it's my birthday shows up and announces it to everyone there! They all start telling me, "felicidades!" The Doctor and a couple people slip out quietly and come back five minutes later with my "birthday ice-cream." Then they all start singing, congratulating me, saying how "joven" I am, only 23! Then there were the comments of, "when are you getting married?" "Wait, you don't even have a girlfriend?" "We'll find one for you, don't worry! What about Isabel?!" I don't know how my birthday evolved from a church small group to a dating show so quickly. In the middle of everything I dismissed myself to "go to the bathroom," which is code for "stop staring at me everybody!" Oh man, that was not my favorite birthday moment in the world, but hey, it's makes for a good blog entry, right?:)
The good birthday surprise came the day after, Wednesday. I get a call from my friend Suly at 5 telling me to get back to my house as soon as possible. I thought...alright...is this some bit of urgent gossip? There's not much else urgent in town other than gossip and me needing to get dinner when I get hungry and grouchy. I show up at my house and who should be at my doorstep but Suly (kinder assistant at Mayatan), Eva (cleaning lady at Mayatan), and Eva's kid Jose Adelid (second grader at Mayatan)! They are holding a cake and start singing in Spanish, "We want cake now!" We go inside, eat some cake, I buy some coca-cola (what Honduran doesn't drink it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?), and we have some cake and relax for a little bit. It was so nice of them to buy me cake and I know they don't necessarily have money to throw around on cakes.
Sometimes I get bummed out because I don't feel like I fit in that well with neither the Honduran nor the American staff but then something like this happens and I think, I totally fit in with the Honduran staff! I'm excited to be staying down here next year because I think that I will be able to have closer friendships with my Honduran friends. Oh life in Copan...:)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Cirque de Copan
There was a circus in Copan several months ago that I meant to go to but never managed. Then I hear the other day that there’s another circus here in town. I jumped at the opportunity to check out a sweet Latin American traveling circus! It consisted mainly of clowns telling jokes making fun of each other, homosexuals, and gringos. It was all pretty well done though. The making fun of each other part was…whatever, at least it was just each other. Then the homosexuals part was when they did a lip sync impression of some Mexican singer who is apparently gay and they always impersonate him at circuses. The guy was so funny though! He was winking to guys in the crowd, going up to them and singing to them, tossing his handkerchief at them, etc. Luckily he never picked me out. Then came the dreaded line (in Spanish of course), “Are there any gringo’s here tonight out there?” I just about died because there was only about 200 people there so of course everybody could see the only person above 6 feet tall! There was an awkward pause in which I thought the whole world was staring at me until I saw one of the other clowns come out dressed as a gringo and carrying a suitcase. Whew! I was saved the pressure of being picked out from the crowd. I know I speak Spanish and all that, but even thinking about 200 Copanecos staring at me makes me want to turn tail and run. I hear that this circus was infinitely better than the last one… good thing I waited to see this one and not the last one.:)
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Brigada Medica
This past week a medical brigade came here to Copan from New York University in order to see as many patients from the area as they could to do some preventative treatment with them. I'm not sure the exact number of people, but I know that there were at least 240 children seen by the brigade, and I bet you upwards of over 1000 people total. I got to help out with translating and coordinating our students to help translate. It was so much fun! I have definitely decided that medical translating is the field for me, as long as I don't have to see the blood. A couple times I was called over to oral surgery where they were doing all the extractions and that was never my favorite part of the day. As long as I can stay with the screaming kids, the nervous adults, or the annoying patients trying to cut in line I'll be fine. But show me a little blood and I quit. Maybe medical translating is not for me...but I think it is...we'll see about that one...:)
Friday, March 21, 2008
Alfombras de Aserrín
The long loved Latin American sawdust carpet tradition reached Copan Ruinas for the first time (and thankfully not the last time) last year! So here I am, it’s 5:30 in the morning, I just pulled an all nighter to help build the carpets. It’s the most amazing and awesome process. We started at 6pm. Actually, I started at 7pm or so cause I was finishing watching the Honduras Olympic qualifier soccer match with Guatemala (Honduras won on penalties 6-5 and is in the Olympics!). So from 7pm to 5am I worked with only about 5 breaks for coffee and 10 breaks for the bathroom… coffee runs through ya, am I right?:)
Ok, so we first make a layer of sawdust over the cobblestone street, flatten it with 2x4’s, stomp it down on top of cardboard. Then lay down the cardboard molds over the top of the first layer…put colored sawdust on top of the original layer to make the picture, then press it down again with cardboard, and there you have it, beautiful sawdust carpets which will only last a couple hours until the procession and drunks destroy it. We had no problems with drunks destroying the carpet tonight, just drunks yelling at us, particularly any gringos helping (like me!). We had a couple of stupid dogs run through the middle of the sawdust carpets after we had finished parts of them, that was a very not-high-light of the evening. I already hate the dogs here, but they aren’t climbing up my list of most liked animals in the world quickly with behavior like that.:) At the start tourists were lined up all over the street to see what we were doing and taking pictures. Then they slowly left and we were left with like 50 people working on the carpets….slowly the numbers got less and less until at the end about 10 of us were left, maybe 15 or so. That was fun to be one of the last survivors, and I got an invitation to help next year (they said, “Hay que contratarlo el siguiente año también!” Which means, “we need to get him a contract next year!”). Ok, I’m going to go take pictures of our work now and hopefully later they will be put online. Hasta later gang!
Ok, so we first make a layer of sawdust over the cobblestone street, flatten it with 2x4’s, stomp it down on top of cardboard. Then lay down the cardboard molds over the top of the first layer…put colored sawdust on top of the original layer to make the picture, then press it down again with cardboard, and there you have it, beautiful sawdust carpets which will only last a couple hours until the procession and drunks destroy it. We had no problems with drunks destroying the carpet tonight, just drunks yelling at us, particularly any gringos helping (like me!). We had a couple of stupid dogs run through the middle of the sawdust carpets after we had finished parts of them, that was a very not-high-light of the evening. I already hate the dogs here, but they aren’t climbing up my list of most liked animals in the world quickly with behavior like that.:) At the start tourists were lined up all over the street to see what we were doing and taking pictures. Then they slowly left and we were left with like 50 people working on the carpets….slowly the numbers got less and less until at the end about 10 of us were left, maybe 15 or so. That was fun to be one of the last survivors, and I got an invitation to help next year (they said, “Hay que contratarlo el siguiente año también!” Which means, “we need to get him a contract next year!”). Ok, I’m going to go take pictures of our work now and hopefully later they will be put online. Hasta later gang!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Que Semana Macanuda
Just when I think that school is getting too routine and boring I have a week such as this that mixes things up and reminds me why I love life down here so much. Today, Maundy Thursday, I am going to be working on the sawdust carpets for the Easter parades. I’ve tried to go work with people to prepare the sawdust but have never been able to for a variety of reasons from forgetting, showing up late, them finishing early, or them canceling the meeting last second. Hopefully I have enough energy this evening to participate in the decorations. Last year people came up from the Catholic Church in Comayagua in order to teach and train people here in Copan on how to make the carpets. You should look up pictures of the sawdust carpets in Comayagua, there’s quite impressive.
In other news, last night I went out to Marisol’s just to say hello and her husband decided that I should witness what it used to be like with the Mayatan staff, so we should have a bonfire! We called up Tyler, changed everybody’s plans, and had a bonfire with marshmallows and hang out fun at their place. They used to have parties over at their house when the school was smaller. It’s grown from about 180 students to 280 in just a couple of years.
Funny story of the week… A drunk guy came up to Sam and I at the fair and asked (in Spanish), “where are you from?” Sam responded in a friendly manner, “the U.S.” The man proceeded to then go off about how he didn’t like the government, Sam defended it, they went back and forth a little bit. I tried to stay out of it because you could just smell the alcohol on this guy. Anyways, then he turns to me, “where are you from?” “Oh,” I responded, “I’m from here in Copan.” He responds with a confused look, “no, where are you from originally?” I just kind of smile and tell him, “I’m from Copan, born and raised 100% Copaneco.” He gets this look of confusion on his face, looks at Sam, looks back at me… “But you look like a Gringo.” This made me smile a little bit more but I just responded calmly, “I know, people tell me that a lot. I’m 100% Copaneco though.” Our drunken friend gets a bit smile on his face and says, “Que bueno!”
Moral of the story; alcohol makes you so dumb as to believe that a tall white guy, blond hair, American accent, and green eyes is from Honduras… so just stay away from alcohol.
In other news, last night I went out to Marisol’s just to say hello and her husband decided that I should witness what it used to be like with the Mayatan staff, so we should have a bonfire! We called up Tyler, changed everybody’s plans, and had a bonfire with marshmallows and hang out fun at their place. They used to have parties over at their house when the school was smaller. It’s grown from about 180 students to 280 in just a couple of years.
Funny story of the week… A drunk guy came up to Sam and I at the fair and asked (in Spanish), “where are you from?” Sam responded in a friendly manner, “the U.S.” The man proceeded to then go off about how he didn’t like the government, Sam defended it, they went back and forth a little bit. I tried to stay out of it because you could just smell the alcohol on this guy. Anyways, then he turns to me, “where are you from?” “Oh,” I responded, “I’m from here in Copan.” He responds with a confused look, “no, where are you from originally?” I just kind of smile and tell him, “I’m from Copan, born and raised 100% Copaneco.” He gets this look of confusion on his face, looks at Sam, looks back at me… “But you look like a Gringo.” This made me smile a little bit more but I just responded calmly, “I know, people tell me that a lot. I’m 100% Copaneco though.” Our drunken friend gets a bit smile on his face and says, “Que bueno!”
Moral of the story; alcohol makes you so dumb as to believe that a tall white guy, blond hair, American accent, and green eyes is from Honduras… so just stay away from alcohol.
Friday, March 14, 2008
La Santa Semana Santa
It's that time of the year when everything feels wonderful. Children laugh and smile once again, teachers smile brighter than Christmas break as the weather is now warmer, and the reason for all the smiles is the lack of classes happening for another week!:) That's the good news, it's Semana Santa (week before Easter) and we get the entire week off for vacation! Unfortunately the Copan fair falls on the same week and so we don't get two vacations, just the one. However, it's from now until Monday after Easter, then back to school on Tuesday. Today I wandered out to the fair for a little while and hung out with two of my friends and it's always funny to walk around with Catrachos (Hondurans) here because people are used to Gringos, but not Gringos that hang out with Catrachos I feel like. So I had lots of calls to me and random stupid things that people said.
The fair is very much so geared towards high school aged kids and younger but it looks pretty fun. Not so much tonight cause I'd just had dinner and didn't feel like the rides were a good idea to go on. However, I'm going back to that pirate ship! It's the kind that goes way up high on either side but not all the way around. I like that one, no upside-down-ness.:) There's a couple other fun rides, a ferris wheel, shooting games, fishing games, and some other booths of random darts and such. It's like any fair in the US, except somebody died there last week and it's still going on... I suppose that's a little different than the states in which the place would be shut down faster than the person died.:)
This week break I think that I'm going to just be relaxing around town and hanging out. Maybe I'll go to the river for a little while and hang out down there, go over to a couple profe's houses, visit Eva's mom's house again to make baleadas up there with her, and then...um... relax!:)
The fair is very much so geared towards high school aged kids and younger but it looks pretty fun. Not so much tonight cause I'd just had dinner and didn't feel like the rides were a good idea to go on. However, I'm going back to that pirate ship! It's the kind that goes way up high on either side but not all the way around. I like that one, no upside-down-ness.:) There's a couple other fun rides, a ferris wheel, shooting games, fishing games, and some other booths of random darts and such. It's like any fair in the US, except somebody died there last week and it's still going on... I suppose that's a little different than the states in which the place would be shut down faster than the person died.:)
This week break I think that I'm going to just be relaxing around town and hanging out. Maybe I'll go to the river for a little while and hang out down there, go over to a couple profe's houses, visit Eva's mom's house again to make baleadas up there with her, and then...um... relax!:)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Pobre Savio...
Unas lagrimas me curaron de le perdida. We went to San Pedro yesterday with a big group of teachers to see a soccer game and hang out at the mall there for a little while. The mall was not my favorite part, but I survived and we got some window shopping in as well as a Quiznos sandwich that cost me an arm and a leg. We got to the soccer stadium like 2 hours early so we played cards and just hung out. I had a blast of a time at the soccer game despite the fact that "my team" lost. Real Espana and Deportes Savio were the two teams, Real Espana is from San Pedro and Deportes Savio is from the Copan department, so of course I had to root for Savio. One of my ninth grade students also came along with her mom and since they were supporting Savio I had no other choice but to choose them.:) It was a really good game but Savio did anything but dominate, they were lucky to only be losing 3-1 when we left half way through the second period.
I've begun to realize that so many days here my life involves school (Monday-Friday), planning for school (Monday-Sunday), grading for school (Monday - Sunday), and then relaxing on Friday and Saturday evening. My life is so dependent upon school. I've been looking into the possibility of staying around here next year...if I weren't teaching I think that I might start to get bored. I guess that I'd have to go get a bunch of friends or something, that's a novel concept. It's hard though, because it's so built into the city around here that the Mayatan teachers come for a year, teach, enjoy, and then leave at the end of the year. I think that if I were to come back another year that I would be able to enjoy some actual friendships...although I would be that awkward exchange student that only the really nice and friendly people hang out with because only they have the patience to talk to me. What's wrong with that though?:)
I've begun to realize that so many days here my life involves school (Monday-Friday), planning for school (Monday-Sunday), grading for school (Monday - Sunday), and then relaxing on Friday and Saturday evening. My life is so dependent upon school. I've been looking into the possibility of staying around here next year...if I weren't teaching I think that I might start to get bored. I guess that I'd have to go get a bunch of friends or something, that's a novel concept. It's hard though, because it's so built into the city around here that the Mayatan teachers come for a year, teach, enjoy, and then leave at the end of the year. I think that if I were to come back another year that I would be able to enjoy some actual friendships...although I would be that awkward exchange student that only the really nice and friendly people hang out with because only they have the patience to talk to me. What's wrong with that though?:)
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