Mi Dia

Most mornings I wake up at 6 am with the sun streaming in through my windows and this very high pitched shrill bird (who may or may not have a nest inside my room it sounds so loud) going off on its ‘Good Morning World’ mating ritual routine. I splash some water on my face, brush my teeth and get dressed. I head to the kitchen and Keyla either cooks me something delicious or if there is milk I have some cereal. I grab my bag, say goodbye to Keyla and the baby and walk to my office, which is right around the corner. A crazy man, who hangs out by this little water hole, screams random things (that even if I could understand Spanish perfectly wouldn’t make sense) and greets me. He hangs out there and offers to wash the taxis that speed past for 40 limps. I usually get the office before Jose Luis, but on the odd occasion he beats me to it. We do work in the office, usually preparing for a conference, focus group type meeting, or paper work for the past week’s events. Jose Luis goes home for lunch at about 1pm and it is not uncommon to have a two or two and a half hour lunch break. Sometimes I go home for lunch (if I have bought apples), and other times I stop by a pulperia for a Baleada, enchilada or something equally as tasty…and cheap. For about 10-50 Limps ($0.50 - $2.50 Cdn) you can have a delicious meal. On days when we are not traveling to Catacamus, Silca, Salama, or even Tegucigalpa (which is an entire day trip) I walk into town (about 30 minutes to the center) to meet up with one of my Spanish tutors who works at a resource center near the central park. On this walk I get yelled at…roughly 13-18 times, with varying aggressiveness and sleaziness. Wherever I walk there is a chorus of “Adios” that follows. Sometimes they say “bye” which doesn’t really translate well. People say “adios” like we would say “how’s it going,” “have a great day”, but keep walking to where we are going, so when they translated it to English and say “bye” it just doesn’t really fit—however it is entertaining to see a bunch of children chirping “Bye, bye, bye, bye” like a little flock of birds whenever I pass. I say adios, unless the comments are coming from a sleeze-ball, in that case I have been practicing my very annoyed death stare which I grace them with…although I’m not sure how intimidating I end up looking… but one can hope. I practice with her for two to three hours and then start to head back out of town. Sometimes I wander around, buy fruit, or sit at central park and watch people on the street—however when I do this, I usually have more people watching me, and people fighting each other over who will sit next to me on the bench, although they never talk to me…just sit beside me, smiling at their friends because they are sitting by the white girl. Most days I stop at the beauty salon Keyla works at and chat with her and the lady she works with. Sometimes I stick around until 6:00pm (when it is too dark for me to walk home alone) and I walk home with Keyla. We take a different route than I usually do which is nice, and even if I can’t participate in the conversation as much as I would like it is comforting to listen to her and her co-worker talk back and forth like people my age. Sometimes we stop and get Baditas (not sure of the spelling on that one), which are coconut and milk popsicles that some lady sells out of her window—they are delicious. We get home and I (usually) help prepare dinner, or work in my room on reports or translating documents for my personal use. We eat dinner (usually at 7:00 pm) together as a family, after dinner I play with the baby or Darien, talk with Keyla, Claudia, and Sylvia, and then go to my room at around 8:30 or 9:00pm. Sometimes I read, journal, or write blogs that I will post later and sometimes I pass out cold. Nothing I do is physically demanding (not even close), but sometimes my brain is so exhausted that I am pretty much K.O.’d. Sylvia and Keyla ask me if I am sad here from time to time, and I do my best to explain that generally I love it here and I love staying with their family, but during the week my brain gets destroyed by working so hard to keep up in Spanish, studying Spanish, trying to understand these new (to me) forestry laws and terminology, and also it’s an emotionally demanding job with some really sad themes. I’m not sure they believe me, but that’s what I try to get across.

On the days where we are traveling I don’t get to see my Spanish tutor, but I have another one that comes over to the house after dinner to work on grammar so those are usually the days I have him over—if I am not too tired…because my brain is useless if I am tired. On the days when we travel to Tegucigalpa Jose Luis picks me up at my casa at 5:30am and we head into the city. It takes about 2 hours to get to the outskirts but almost another full 2 hours to get to our office because traffic is so congested. When we work out of that office I talk with Sandra and help her with administrative stuff and sort of just fill in wherever I am needed.

The weekends mix things up a bit. On Saturday I usually sleep in till 8:00am. We drop Keyla and the baby off at work and go to the supermarket or the market place to get fresh vegetables, and the carnaceria to get meat. We head home and start cooking lunch. Usually we have guests (whether it is friends or family) for Saturday lunch. We bring Keyla lunch and come back home. Saturday is water day, when we get to do laundry, wash the windows and take a ‘real’ shower…which just means without taking a bucket shower with water from the pila. I read or practice Spanish, and try to keep Darien busy for at least a little while. We go pick up Keyla and the baby at 6:00pm, come home and make dinner. Sometimes I go over to my friend’s apartment (which is nearby but he comes to pick me up if it’s after dark because the road I live on is very dangerous for gringa’s to walk on alone after dark—three of the female volunteers for CECOM have been robbed or assaulted while walking home along the road after dark) and there are usually a couple of people there. We talk, sing karaoke (that someone has on their computer) or sometimes watch a movie that someone has downloaded. Sunday’s I sleep in till 8:00am. We have coffee y pan for breakfast. Sometimes I run errands with Sylvia, and we make lunch. After lunch the family heads to Jutiquila to visit the cousins, aunts and uncles. I usually tag along. Keyla’s eleven-year-old sister is infatuated with me, and I try to teach her English words and get her to help me practice Spanish. After it gets dark, we head back home and cook dinner. I hang out with the family a bit, and then we all go to bed.

The other day I had a chat with Jose Luis (my co-worker) about what my goals were for this internship, and what his goals were. We talked for a long time and I think I will have three main objectives, along with continuing to help with the advocacy, conferences, and administrative stuff:
1) Doing research and conducting interviews on the impacts of the illegal deforestation in Olancho by conducting interviews and facilitating focus groups with members of MAO in the different communities they live in.
2) Photo documenting the devastation by getting to go to areas of varying degradation ranging from untouched to completely deforested, and
3) Facilitating a workshop for the Youth Environmental group in Salama (if it goes well possibly other schools), to discuss the environmental issues they are facing in a more interactive way, and to look for ideas that they have that they can implement now. Also to discuss recycling and see if it is a project that can be introduced to their schools.

Of course I need to get better at my Spanish in order to do this, but I hope with the help of some other people I will be able to get the second and third one done, and then possibly find someone who wants to be my translator for the interviews because even if my Spanish gets to the point where I feel comfortable with it, I do not want to misunderstand someone while collecting information for research. Those are my goals for now…they will likely change fifteen more times (at least) before coming to fruition…O NGO’s, how I love thee.

Yesterday I did laundry and then sat in the yard reading my book (‘The Fountainhead’—which I recommend) and catching some sun—which was awesome because even though I’m in a country that is always sunny, I don’t get as much sun as you would think. At about one thirty we headed to Jutiquila to visit the family. We sat and talked for a while. They were cooking meat over the fire and we hadn’t had lunch so we ate. Estefani, Luis David, and Gerson took me for a walk through the Aldea. They showed me their homes; all the places they thought were ‘bonita’ and took me a little river they were proud of. I let them take pictures with my camera and it was cool to see the places where they live that they were most proud of. On the way back Luis David disappeared into a tree and started throwing oranges down at us. When we got back to the house they skinned them and we sat on the steps eating our oranges. The last time I had come to visit they had told me they wanted to learn English… so I tried. I started with teaching them the alphabet and having them repeat after me. We practiced for nearly three hours, and then I gave them homework to practice the ABC’s, and spelling their names. They are smart kids and they were dedicated enough to sit on the steps with me for all that time while their cousins and friends were running around screaming and yelling so I give them huge props, and hopefully by the time I leave they can feel like they have learned something.

I realized something about myself while by being continually surrounded by a swarm of children who are all want my attention. I never choose to give my attention to the kids that come barreling towards you begging for your attention, screaming, pulling and pushing, ensuring that they are the center of attention. That’s the obvious response, and that’s why I don’t do it. I always see the kid hanging back, at the edge of the group. Not because they are shy, but because they can wait, and don’t have to be the center of attention. I choose the calm child who is waiting for me to notice them because they are waiting and I don’t want to disappoint them. I think this is partially because I find the first type of kids obnoxious and rude, and I refuse to support that kind of behavior—ask my sister, and partially because I am that kid—now (not when I was actually young—hypocritically I was a lot more melodramatic—somewhat theatrical —when I was a kid). I hate asking for things from people, I don’t like putting myself in the center of attention (although I can handle it well—if its someone else who puts me there—on the behalf of a group of people, a concept or for a cause) and I don’t like drawing people’s attention to me (by begging for it) unless they have chosen to give it to me.

Last night without fail, my Malaria pills delivered noteworthy dreams, this time assisted by being startled awake by four gun shots at four o’clock in the morning. I don’t know about you, but it really got my heart going and for a split second my brain went nuts and I wasn’t sure of what was going on…‘Where am I—what’s going on?’ ‘Is my family okay?’ ‘How did someone get inside the gate?’ ‘What should I do now—go check on them, or hide?’ Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, like my own personal gunfire. A split second later I had it sorted out, but my heart was still racing. I tried to fall back asleep and this time I found myself on the dirt road that my house is on. It was dark; there was no one on the streets, no cars passing by, and no sounds in the distance. I walked slowly—almost floating—down the road and I remember feeling apprehensive and threatened, knowing that it was a dream but that I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Every so often I would see the glimmer of headlights through the dust, and I would search for an alley to run into, a driveway to hide in, until the lights were coming from all directions and I was stuck—like a deer in headlights—unsure of which way to run, trapped by uncertainty and fear. Not a good dream. Not one that I want to have again.

Breath deep, the World is Beautiful
Delaney C.