Flying solo

Written October 23, 2010

One of the hardest things for me to get used to here is how painfully aware of my gender I am. In the United States there are few things that point out gender differences, aside from sports teams. Here, even walking down the street makes you aware of being female. Something as simple as going to the store can elicit stares and comments from random men, and make you feel ridiculously small and helpless. Everything I do throughout the day is a painful reminder of the fact that I am the “weaker sex”.

Although I do not consider myself a feminist, this reality has been very difficult to deal with. Last weekend I decided that I needed to do something about feeling so helpless. I decided that it was a great idea to travel solo for our three day holiday weekend.

Pretty much all of the males I shared my plan with had the same concerned look on their face as they said, “Well, chances are you would be fine, but what if something happened?” I wasn’t planning on going very far, but it still required taking a 3 hour bus ride alone and staying by myself in the city of Comayagua. After a lot of deliberation I realized that the risk was worth it. I know the risks of something happen go up significantly if I am on my own, but I was really feeling the need to be independent and prove to myself that I was capable of traveling alone. It’s hard being 24 years old and go from being independent and accustomed to living on my own, to living with a family and not having any choice in what I eat, when I eat, when my clothes are washed, where I travel to, etc.

I left at 5 am on Saturday for the city of Santa Barbara with Amelia, Bret, Holly and Bryony. There we parted ways as they continued on to Tela, a beach town. After finding out that the bus left at 9 for Comayagua I went to grab breakfast. Upon returning to the bus station I was told that I was misinformed, and the direct bus for Comayagua had already left at 8:30, five minutes earlier. I ended up having to take a large passenger van, a rapidito, from Santa Barbara to the desvío, or intersection, at Pinto Solo. I got off and waited at a bus stop that was basically in the middle of nowhere, having no idea which bus I should take from there. I asked two women who were selling homemade food on the buses going by which one I needed to take. They said they would let me know when it passed. After about 20 minutes, one of them grabbed me by the hand, ran up to the side of the road with me and flagged down my bus.

Once I was on the extremely crowded bus I met a wonderful Honduras woman and her daughter who had moved to New Zealand seven years earlier. We had a lovely conversation about the differences between schools in Honduras, New Zealand and the United States. The rest of the bus ride was quite pleasant, and I arrived in Comayagua without any other setbacks.

I stayed in a really nice hotel near the center of town to make up for the fact that I would be staying alone. I spent 600 lempiras a night (about $30), which was way more than I’ve ever spent on a room here in Honduras, but breakfast was included, there was wireless internet, hot water, air conditioning and a comfortable bed, so it was well worth it.

Comayagua was a pretty city with a really nice parque central that had a very old Catholic Church on one side. I spent a lot of time just walking around and having coffee in a café near the church. They also had a huge grocery store, which was very overwhelming to walk into! I’m not used to having so much fresh produce, cereal choice, or really any choice whatsoever. The only cereal in La Unión is Corn Flakes. We have little fresh produce and no yogurt, wheat bread or peanut butter. I definitely spent way too much money, but it was well worth it.

Also, due to the internet access, I was able to research graduate schools and work on applications. I’ve decided to apply to Spanish Linguistics programs. I still have no idea what I will end up doing next year, but at least I will have the option of possibly going to grad school, if I get accepted. It’s just nice to have some options. Spanish Linguistics will be really difficult for me, because my Spanish abilities are still nowhere near where I need them to be, but I think getting an MA in Spanish would really help with that.

So after a lovely, relaxing weekend spent relaxing and recharging on my own, I headed back on Monday morning to La Unión. I had no trouble catching the correct bus, which would take me directly to Santa Barbara, where I would then take a bus to La Unión without having to wait alone by the side of the road. On the way to Santa Barbara the bus picked up a woman who was having an asthma attack. After a few minutes of her arrival we all realized that she was in desperate need of medical assistance. She could barely breath, and was starting to lose consciousness. Everyone on the bus was really concerned, and I started to realize that there was a very real chance that this woman could die on the bus. I quickly called Lauren, my roommate in Texas who is a nurse, for a quick refresher course on CPR after the woman lost consciousness again. Thankfully, I didn’t have to perform CPR because there was another passenger who took charge of the situation and cared for the woman, and after 15 very tense minutes an ambulance met the bus outside of Santa Barbara. The woman was quickly carried off the bus and into the ambulance. I’m not sure what ended up happening to her, but hopefully she is alright. It was a really scary situation that reminds me how readily available medical care is in the United States. Asthma attacks happen, but people have inhalers and can more easily get to the hospital. Things like that remind me that I am actually living in a third world country.

After such an eventful bus ride, I was happy to get onto the bus to La Unión and get home. Long story short, despite missing my bus on the way there and almost having to perform CPR on the return trip, I had a very relaxing and successful solo trip. It’s not something I want to make a habit of, but it was a nice thing to prove to myself. And Dad, if you’re reading this, please don’t kill me.

Some Pictures

So for those of you who don't believe that electric showers exist, this is my shower. And yes, those are wires sticking out behind it. And yes, we do get shocked on a regular basis. However, I'm just happy to have indoor showers and hot water.

This is the view of our town from the school. We live in paradise. La Unión has about 4,000 people, so it's a pretty small town.

This is the view from my classroom. Pretty fantastic.

We went to the Mayan ruins in Copan. They were not nearly as large as the ruins in Palenque, Mexico, but they were still pretty spectacular.

This is a picture of the main plaza in Copan.


Here are some pictures of my students when we went to a small town outside of La Unión in October for Children's Day. They organized games and brought candy for about 40 elementary students at the school. This is how Honduran field trips are done. Imagine taking students in the bed of your truck in the United States. The lawyers would love it.

This is how we hang piñatas in Honduras. That's a cement floor. And a student at the top.

These are a few of the students who went with me. We did face painting and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Hopefully I will be able to update with more pictures soon! I miss you all!

The President

Written October 8th, 2010

Today marks my two-month anniversary of being in Honduras. In order to mark such a momentous occasion, the President of Honduras came to La Unión. He actually came to hand out money, but a girl can dream, right?

I knew a few days ahead of time that he was coming, but this morning our principal told us that we would be taking the entire school to town sometime between 11 and 12 to hear Pepe speak. Of course, this being Honduras, there was no plan to speak of. Around 11:30 we were told that the kids should get their lunches to put in the classroom and then we were walking into town. The 7^th, 8^th and 9^th graders were to hold the hands of 2 elementary schoolers as we walked the 25 minutes to where the president would be speaking. No lists of which students were at school, who was paired with who, alerting the parents of what was going on, no plan, nothing. If you are a teacher you can only imagine how hard it was to just let this happen. But it did.

So we all walked into town, all of the high schoolers and teachers with two younger children in tow. We waited for about 30 minutes, and, finally, Pepe showed up in his helicopter. He landed in a field and then had a few Suburbans to drive him and his posse to where he would be speaking. The Honduras “Secret Service” and military were everywhere. When he finally arrived, he walked into the crowd of, supposedly, 2,000 people. I shook his hand, he asked why I was in La Unión, I told him I was teaching and that Vida Abundante is a fantastic school. Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal. Be jealous. It was pretty cool though, and it’s funny that I met the President of Honduras and I can’t foresee meeting our President anytime soon. It was pretty neat.

After he greeted people and the pastor of Vida Abundante Church and the Catholic Church in town both opened the ceremony some of our students led the crowd in singing the national hymn of Honduras. After that we decided it was time to take off, because the 1^st and 2^nd graders were getting really restless and hungry. So we started the long walk back, and I somehow picked up an extra child along the way. We decided it would be fun to let the kids go to the field where the helicopters had landed, which was also really cool. One of our students got to go into the President’s helicopter and sit in his chair. One of the pilots was really great with the kids and was asking them about their grades, what they wanted to do when they grew up, and even talked to some of our high schoolers about how most of the officers in the army have bachelors and masters degrees. He told them about the importance of studying, and even gave his email address to the older kids who were interested in becoming pilots. I couldn’t have asked for a better teachable moment.

Upon returning to school with three tired and hungry 2^nd graders hanging off of me, we ate lunch, and it was just utter chaos for the rest of the day. We only had time for one more class period, and luckily I don’t have classes the last two periods on Fridays. So, the day was pretty short and chaotic, but really great. I think that it’s funny, because none of this would have happened in the United States, but everything worked out fine. I can’t even imagine a student being allowed to hop into Air Force One just to sit in the President’s seat. I must say, it was a pretty awesome Friday.