02 Noviembre 2010
Día de Muerte

I have always had a sort of morbid obsession with cemeteries and death. I’m not sure when it started but it was intensified when I took Death and Concepts of the Future in my first year—a course discussing how different cultures react to death and ‘afterlife’—and today I had the opportunity to participate in the Día de Muerte with my family. The Día de Muerte is a two day festival that celebrates those who have died and left this world. On November 1st is the Día de Muerte for children and on November 2nd is the Día de Muerte for adults. Central park is filled with merchants selling beautiful rich colored flowers, and plastic ornamental disks. Silvia bought an assortment of flowers and then we arranged them at the house.

When we got to the cemetery there were people selling food and children running around laughing and screaming. Not the typical somber and heavy atmosphere one would expect at a cemetery plagued by grey and black granite in a grid like pattern with dark eerie tombstones marking the place of loved ones decaying under the ground…but that’s not what was waiting for us inside the cemetery. Marvelous tombas covered in bright coloured tiles, pastel coloured coffins, upright artistically designed wrought iron crosses, vibrant flowers and ornamental discs displayed on ever grave and tomb. Children were running over and around graves laughing and playing, families sitting with loved ones (from the past and the present) talking, smiling and laughing. With no grid like order to the graves they seemed to fit together intricately, like a puzzle I did not know the rules to yet in a haphazard but beautifully elaborate way. This was not a day to be sad and mourn the dead, but rather a day to celebrate life and a part of life being—death. How revolutionary and uplifting, not to mention a much healthier way to deal with death. Instead of mourning and wallowing, crying about the loss of a life, the selfish grieving, the focus being on the one who has been left behind on this cruel life...the focus is on the loved one who is no longer here, on their life, and their great journey; of remembrance and of hope.

I have already decided that I don’t care if I am buried in a cemetery or cremated. Those are just details to me and that will be left up to whoever I leave behind as long as a tree is planted, near where I lay (figuratively, or literally); a big hulking, strong monster of a tree (not a sissy fern or shrub) that can bring me back to the earth and reach up towards the sky. But if I do find my ‘final resting place’ in a cemetery, I hope it is in one similar to the one I visited in Honduras; a cemetery that offers hope and love to the people who I leave behind, helping them rise up instead of bringing them down, honoring my life with celebration not with a dark cloak of mourning and too many tears.
Breath Deep, The World is Beautiful
Delaney C.

31 Octobre de 2010
Salt and Lime; Funerals and Divorce; Living for the weekend

I have never been one of those ‘I live for the weekend’ kind of people. I credit that to the fact that I have always loved what I was doing—whether it be work or school—so the weekend never seemed like that big of a deal to me—more of the same old stuff, mixed up a little bit. Here, in Honduras, I find myself becoming one of those people—waiting for the weekend, ticking down the work days mentally in my head, until Friday afternoon when I feel a sense of relief in that for the next two days I am on my own time—or rather my weekend routine. Why have I become this person seemingly overnight? Is it the warmer temperature…perhaps the Latin vibe?

I think it largely has to do with the fact that I lack direction at work. It’s not that I don’t love what I’m doing, it’s more that I rarely know what I’m doing. I show up because I have to but often occupy my day by looking for things to fill my time with.  Some that I don’t mind doing, like helping out with office stuff, reading documents, doing research for my report, practicing Spanish…and other things that I do just to kill time that make me feel useless like playing minesweeper and Sudoku (both of which I have gotten rather good at). I like the weekends, because I like not feeling the obligation of using up my time in the office. I like being able to walk around town or read a book in the sun. And I love going to Jutiquila on the weekends with the family going on walks with the kids and ‘trying’ to teach them English. I think (fingers crossed) it will get better in December (or once I get back from El Salvador), and I will be able to speak more and be able to talk to Jose Luis about starting to get into the communities to interview people. One of the problems with being the first intern for this NGO is that neither of us wants to speak up too loudly as to what their needs are so we both end up saying nothing. From my position, I’m really flexible either way, I just want to be doing something that won’t be a complete waste of time and that someone will benefit from on some level. Patience Delaney Patience.

The other day my stomach was feeling upset and Silvia told me to have some salt and lime. Interesting. This is the cure-all solution offered by Hondurans (like Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). Take half a lime, squeeze the juice into a shot glass, add a repulsive amount of salt, mix it up, and slam it back and Tada! no more stomach ache, ear infection, broken leg, or lung cancer…well that last one might be pushing it. It was not nearly as bad as I had anticipated (although I wasn’t about to grab a second glass just for the taste). My stomach stopped aching, although it might have been because my body was so confused with what I had done to it that it just gave up. Interesting medicinal practices Honduras has going for them.

If I ever decide to live in this glorious country for an extended period of time I have locked down the two most profitable sectors to invest in…those involving Funerals and/or Divorce.There is at least a funeral a day here (although the city is rather ‘large’), but usually once every day I see a coffin in the back of a pickup truck covered in flowers and people weaving slowly through the streets followed by a mass of people toting umbrellas and children. Sometimes they sing and chant, and sometimes they are silent. I once had a professor tell me that the ‘death industry’ is recession proof—people are always going to be dying. However there does seem to be a funaria on every second street corner so maybe I’m not the first to recognize what a booming business this industry is...at least in Honduras.

Another area sure to leave you living quite comfortably in Honduras is divorce. O infidelity.  I have come to realize that everyone in Honduras has had at least three husbands/wives by the time they reach 35, sometimes starting as early as 16. I would also love to get my hands on someone’s family tree to figure out the tangled web of children, (ex) spouses, who belongs to who, who went where, who’s related and how ect.I left Thursday for the conference in Rio Plantón and everything was fine and dandy, however when I returned Sunday Claudia’s husband had (in the month they have been in Juticalpa) decided that he had found someone else and that he was leaving her…adios, see you later. Horrible. Although she didn’t seem as upset as I would have expected …more like her ego was a little bruised, as if someone picked her last for a team or her best friend blew off plans with her for someone else. I asked about their kids, only to find out they are not his. It was like opening Pandora’s box.

Claudia is 28, has two kids (not sure if they are from the same father) and will be going onto her 4th husband (soon I am sure…she had a date last night). Keyla (21) has two boyfriends at the moment, and one of them is married. And like I mentioned earlier Silvia’s husband left her (and the two kids) for his mistress but not before drinking and gambling away their money and properties. Not shocking enough—all of this is typical Honduran behavior…Mind equals blown.
I felt frustrated because I couldn’t comfort my friend the way I would like to, other than repeating over and over again, ‘todos los hombres es tontos’ which she seems to agree with (for the time being), and then I felt frustrated with normalcy of this situation.

I don’t understand how if all of these children grow up seeing their father(s) leave their mothers, essentially abandoning them time after time how i) the girls don’t grow up to be fiercely strong refusing to tolerate that kind of behavior, as well as refusing to add to the cycle and be the ‘mistress’ and ii) how the boys don’t grow up to be compassionate to their mothers/sisters situation(s) and vow to not cause that kind of hardship on their own families. In fact the opposite seems to be true and it is a social (and expected) norm. Sheesh. I am going to be alone forever.
Con Esperanza y Amor
Delaney C.